Mercedes was an excellent host. She was extremely responsive leading up to our visit and during. The apartment itself is simple, but in Rio, you don't spend much time at home! The building is beautiful and we loved going upstairs to eat breakfast in the morning with the amazing views. We also felt extremely safe and the staff in the building is very friendly and helpful. The location is awesome as well. You are so close to Ipanema beach, which has warm water and a lovely view of the Twin Brothers mountains. Mercedes went above and beyond when I asked her how we could print tickets for one of our tours that we booked last minute. She offered to print them for us and then she even called the tour company on her own initiative to make sure that we had the day and pickup location correct. I really appreciated that. She also wrote us a list of suggestions for Rio and told us where we could find live music. We couldn't have asked for a better host for our first visit to Rio De Janeiro!