‘Do you like bitches?’ asks Carlos, at the office of his company, Cama e Café, as he quizzes me in detail on my preferences so he can find a matching host for a weekend stay in Santa Teresa, Rio. A conspiratorial discussion about the beauty of the local women is a conversational staple between men in Brazil who are meeting for the first time, yet how strange, I think, that Carlos, a man in his thirties who shows no outward signs of a predilection for 50 Cent, should suddenly break into rapper lingo like this. ‘Bitches?’ I repeat, surprised.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Do you like to go to the bitch?’ Though I do like the beach, I tell Carlos it is not a priority, which is just as well because the best beaches the city has to offer – Copacabana, Ipanema, Leblon and Barra – are a bit of a trek away from Santa Teresa, the bohemian neighbourhood in which all Cama e Café’s accommodation is located. My aim is not to tan, but to discover what goes on under the surface in Rio’s most intriguing community, and hopefully make some Brazilian friends.

Cama e Café translates as ‘Bed and Breakfast’, and it is the only B&B network in Brazil. It may share a name with the British institution, but a stay is totally different. At British B&Bs, hospitality amounts to teabags, instant coffee, UHT milk and an electric kettle awaiting you in your room – along with a couple of biscuits to munch as you dry your cagoule in front of the radiator. In contrast, Cama e Café’s hosts are likely to invite you to do whatever they are doing – such as go to a party, or join them for a barbeque, or head down the hill to Lapa, Rio’s hip club and live music quarter, for a night of samba and caipirinhas.

Guests live in the homes of their hosts, and a stay arranged through Cama e Café is a great way to befriend interesting Cariocas. Santa Teresa is a hive of artists, sculptors, photographers, actors and writers – a fact reflected in the profiles of those offering accommodation. Carlos makes a lot of effort to ensure that hosts and guests are well-matched and likely to hit it off. He has been so successful that an Italian visitor went on to marry his Brazilian landlady. ‘A year after they met I was invited to their wedding,’ he says. ‘They are still together and living here in Santa Teresa.’

I am matched with Amala, a journalist and yoga teacher, and her three housemates. Their home is situated in a road above Largo Dos Guimaraes, Santa Teresa’s centre of gravity, where schoolkids are sitting on the kerb and leaning against railings as they wait for a bus or tram. I head up a steep cobbled street and pass parched tamarind trees – it hasn’t rained for three weeks. Many of the homes in the area are beautiful – wrought iron fences, shuttered windows, balustrades, tranquil gardens. Amala’s house is on the left. It backs onto jungle and overlooks the city.

In the evening I sit in the kitchen, and talk to Clau, a slight and kinetic Paulista who works in software, as he washes and stalks strawberries in the sink. He offers me coffee, and corn and coconut cake freshly baked by the maid. We go and stand outside and take in the panoramic view – a view striated by electricity and phone cables that pass on the other side of the road. Clau chops the air with his arm, spins and points to orient me as to where we are in relation to various Rio landmarks and neighbourhoods.

Santa Teresa is situated at the eastern end a blocade of squat mountains that divides the North Zone from the South Zone. In front of us is the suburban sprawl of the North Zone. Clau points out the curve of the Sambodrome arch, which is faintly lit by yellow streetlights. Centro, the business centre, lies to our right. ‘Rich people came to Santa Teresa to escape the city down there,’ says Clau. ‘This was in the 1870s, the 1880s – around then. In the city there was bad sanitation and disease, such as yellow fever, and people thought that it was caused by the air. So they came to live here, up the mountain, because the air is better. They built the houses, mansions and palatial homes you see today.’

I suggest we go for a beer. ‘Great idea,’ says Clau.

He drives us the short distance to Largo Das Neves.

‘This is where Cariocas come, not tourists.’ We sit in the square on plastic stools in front of Clau’s favourite pizza vendor, and pull up another stool to use as a table. We take cans of beer from a coolbox, and order mini pizzas, which the vendor cooks in a single oven in front of him. He is actually an engineer who likes to come here and sell pizza in the evening, explains Clau. Teenagers sit and chat on a bench. A couple embrace next to the caipirinha stall.

Our pizzas arrive – cheese, jellied pineapple and chili topping for me, while Clau has gone for basil, cheese and olives.

Someone pulls up in their car and uses the stereo to boom out Brazilian funk, a monotonous form of rap that’s popular in the favelas but despised almost everywhere else. ‘The worst music in the world,’ says Clau. The music changes. ‘Pagode – even worse than funk.’ When we get up to leave and pay, the pizza engineer apologises for the noise. We head over to Bar Do Mineiro, where a spontaneous percussion session has broken out on the pavement outside. The musicians rattle out a rhythm with drums, a pandeiro, a triangle. A man with dreadlocks toys with a taxi driver by dancing in front of his car as he tries to pass the crowd spilling into the narrow road.

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