Eliane's clean, pretty apartment in safe, convenient Gavea was an outstanding pleasure to visit. My girlfriend and I did not speak much Portuguese (less than a year of study), but Eliane was extremely helpful. She gave us a wonderful list of buses that we could take to various destinations in the city. She recommended blocos to visit during Carnival. She knew where to find specific food treats that we wanted to try before leaving Brazil.

Some of the best things about staying at Eliane's place:
She offered to let us use her laptop and internet. This was key to doing research on what to do in the city and emailing home.
The apartment is very cute (as it is in her current picture) and felt very safe.
The apartment is about a 5 minute (or $10 Reals, at the time of writing) taxi ride from Leblon. (It was a half-hour, pleasant walk.)
The shower and bathroom was quite nice.
Also, the apartment includes a refrigerator and cable TV.

On the downside, it did get a bit hot in February. There wasn't (as far as we could tell) a way to effectively cool the inner bedroom (with a queen sized bed) without letting in a few mosquitoes from outside. But that really wasn't a big problem. There was a fan in the room, and that kept us cool. The room with a single bed does have an AC unit, but we did not stay in there.

Overall, though, it is a great place to stay and a great base from which to see Rio.

But Eliane was what really made it special. She even made us fresh juice for the mornings and provided us with light breakfast fare and water.

The proof that I really liked Eliane's apartment is:

1. I am writing this long review, which I rarely do.

2. We gave her a $170 Real gift before we left.