Maria was a wonderful host. Very attentive and easy to communicate with. She even arranged for a driver to pick me up from the airport!
Her home clean, well maintained and is located is in a beautiful neighborhood that is vibrant and allows for visitors to experience Brazilian culture in isolation of the influence of tourism.
The apartment is located on a pretty steep incline. This made for absolutely breathtaking views of the beach. However, it was somewhat difficult to negotiate transportation as many taxis were unwilling to drive up the incline. Almost all taxis/Ubers were willing to drop off at the base of the incline. The options from here were to: 1) walk up the incline or 2) get a motorcycle taxi up (very inexpensive). It worked out for us but was a bit inconvenient, especially when planning for late night transportation as we wanted to avoid walking at that hour.