I would stay at the Orla Hotel in between the Ipanema and Copabana beaches. Check out their website. Remember no flashy jewellery and expensive watches in Rio. Nice city really hot people. I will be doing that rout myself in October. Flying from YYZ and into GRU and then onto GIG and EZE and back to GRU. All ticketed separately, that is, the GRU-GIG-EZE-GRU will be a separate tkt. Good luck and no you do not need to know Portuguese, simple words like Obrigado(thank you), etc will be nice. Have fun. ^