Please, its not like you need to walk through Ipanema with the fear of God at your side. Just pay attention. Look, the thieves do not look like the tourists or the other locals. Yes this is sad to say from a human prospective, but they are very poorly dressed, dirty, and have horrific hygiene. Compared to everyone else around you they stand out like a sore thumb. While an earlier post here was on the cruel side it was realistic that tourist, particularly American tourists, do dumb things to call undue attention to themselves as clueless tourists.

As an uptight Manhattan dweller I always feel relaxed and just as safe in Ipanema as I do at home. There are parts of Rio I that I would never walk around in, there are parts of New York that I would never walk around in. Normally traveling to most parts of the world require some risk.