The journey to Rio

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The alarms went off this morning about 6.45am to wake us up in time for our taxi at 7.15am. I slept really well and got a good 8 hours sleep so when the alarm went off and woke me from my deep sleep I wasn't too happy! The plan was to get downstairs for 7am which was when breakfast started which was included with our room. We just about made it after me yet again running round throwing all the random things I'd left out into my hand luggage. Steph's got the whole packing the night before down to a tee where as yet again I still haven't learnt my lesson! We checked out and managed to get a drink with a bit of food before waiting in reception for our taxi driver who incidentally was stood waiting there the whole time!



The journey to the airport was pretty boring, it was still raining from the night before and we got there in no time, grabbed our bags then headed into the terminal to check in. When we got in there it was pretty busy, people and queues everywhere. It didn't seem very well organised. We got our flight hold-all bags out to pack our backpacks into to be checked in and sorted ourselves out. The bags have been pretty good, they fold into themselves and it enables us to stick our backpacks in safely with all the straps securely sorted away so they don't get caught on all machinery behind the scenes at the airport. We queued up to drop our bags off but were then directed to the 'odd sized' luggage area to drop them off there. No idea why as they are no bigger than suitcases. During all this there was a large group of people from a sports team from Australia who turned out to be the Australian women's football team. Turns out there had been a tournament in Lisbon the few days before and we saw members of the Canadian team later on as well. All the teams played the group games and knockout stages only for the final to be cancelled the night before due to the heavy rain! The cup had to be shared between Sweden and The Netherlands!



We got a coffee and went through to wait at the gate ready to board once we'd figured out the right way to go as the layout of the airport doesn't flow and you have to backtrack on yourself. Our flight was due to take off at 10.35am but once we all got on board the captain announced over the intercom that air traffic control was very busy and we were expecting a delay. We eventually took off an hour late after waiting on the plane where it got very cold. Luckily we had a pillow each and a blanket which looks like an oversized yellow duster so I just wrapped myself up and dozed a little until we took off. Our flight isn't full and there are quite a few spare seats so some people have moved around. We did originally have an empty row directly in front of us until some guy moved into it. Much to Steph's annoyance he sat directly in front of her and then reclined his chair all the way back. She was not impressed and spent a good ten mins whinging to me about it!



Just over an hour into our flight they started serving the food, I was starving by this point so was looking forward to see what the options were. Steph's special vegetarian meal came out before mine and looked quite nice although she wasn't impressed with the cold mushrooms and the fruit salad, although I think she's still stroppy from having to sit the entire time with the guy in front practically leaning back into her lap and I don't think my stifled giggles are helping! My food was really nice, chicken and rice with veg with a side salad, sweet corn and ham and a fruit mousse. TAP Portugal have been a good airline and I've been pretty impressed with them overall. Food included on both flights, a checked bag included for free even on the cheapo ticket and apart from the hour delay on the tarmac earlier everything has gone pretty smoothly. Fingers crossed our 'odd sized' bags make it to the other end although it will be one less thing to get robbed in Rio if they don't! Ha



We've been given the usual landing cards to fill out which have also got a leaving card attached as well. It looks like we have to fill in our details for our onward travel after Brazil and they stamp it all at the airport and then give it us back for us to show again when we leave. Knowing me I'll probably lose it! Normally Steph is the one with all the documentation and booking print outs and details to be the responsible one which myself and Kerry have normally loved In the past! However somehow I've ended up with the envelope full of info, itinerary details as well as money etc I'm not too keen on being the one in charge, it's too much pressure!



We're just off the coast of north west Africa as I type this and still have just over 7 hours to go, not sure how the jet lag is going to go but it's only 3 hours time difference behind the UK. Hopefully we won't be too wide awake later after all the cat napping we'll probably do for the rest of the flight. The plan when we land is to find our taxi driver who we've pre booked and go straight to the hotel. He should be waiting with a sign with my name on which sounds very posh. I've always wanted to do that and this will be the first time, God knows what he'll think when we rock up! We've done it this time as its the safest thing to do. We've read up about Rio and received numerous warnings about the do's and don't' so intend to be as careful as we can be. This involves no jewellery, cameras or phones on show, I'm even going to take my Fitbit watch off as it looks a bit like a smart watch so we're taking no chances. There are areas called favelas which surround parts of Rio. It's where the poorest people live in poverty and are dangerous to anyone not local within them. Some of the people who live in the favelas purposefully target tourists in the tourist areas with muggings and recently the military have been called in to try and stabilise the communities in the favelas with a view to try and make the area more safe and secure. However this has led to more violence between the police and military and the favelas. We are planning to take safe taxis everywhere and this is definitely not a location where we will go wandering off to explore and we will be staying either close to or in the hotel at night time. We'll also be carrying the bare essentials we need in terms of money and picking and choosing when we take our cameras out.



Fast forward a few hours and it's now 9pm. We made it to the hotel OK after finding the taxi driver. He was stood waiting with a handmade sign with my name scribbled in biro. It didn't give us much confidence. He didn't speak any English apart from the word sorry which was ok but armed with the info about how dodgy Rio can be, when he gestured to offer to carry one of our bags the poor sod probably wondered what he'd said as we both declined politely trying to say it was fine we didn't need any help. The truth was both of us were struggling a little trying to play it cool that we didn't need help as we didn't totally trust him not to run off with a bag! We followed him outside despite the fact he didn't seem to know where he was going and kept gesturing with his hands in the manner you would do to tell a driver he needed his lights on?! We didn't have a clue what he was trying to say and were giving each other the look of we need to be careful here. We got into the car and put our stuff in the boot. The car wasn't marked as a taxi which didn't help matters either but when we got in, he pulled up his phone which had the details for our hotel on so knew he was legit. He set off from the airport and I could see it was going to take 50mins to get to our hotel from his sat nav, the roads were busy, badly lit and I swear he didn't have his lights on at the beginning. We were going down a very busy five lane road which was similar to a motorway with scooters beeping past between the lanes every few seconds. Emergency vehicles with sirens and lights flashing got stuck in the traffic and no one pulled out of the way to let them past. Then we reach another section of the road where there were people stood in between the lanes looking like they are trying to sell something from bags, God knows what it was but there was probably about 20 people spread out doing it. Imagine the M6 with five lanes at rush hour with people stood between the lanes with cars whizzing past and you get the picture. We were pleased at this point that the car wasn't obvious as a taxi.



For the rest of the 50min journey we went past shops, garages, local bars open with people walking the streets in t shirts and shorts despite it pouring with rain (yes it seems to have followed us!). We also went past painted murals on walls of football players and various other bits of graffiti art. Quite a few of the cars had barely any lights and it was just mayhem in general. We arrived at the hotel about 7.55pm and just as the taxi pulled in front of the hotel, the heavens completely opened. There was a doorman who ran to cover me with an umbrella while poor Steph was getting soaked in her hoodie! He tried to lead me into the hotel while Steph was struggling with the bags and the taxi driver in the boot. It makes a change as it's usually her getting the royal treatment while I'm left to it! We got everything into the hotel and checked in. The hotel gave us a list of tours they run and the guy told us about a few before then crossing out the 'slum\rainforest' tour saying this one is not on, it's too dangerous.... Great! We went up to our room with the doorman\bell boy taking our bags up on a trolley thing. It looked so weird with backpacks hanging from it! We got into the room to find it was a double so he said he'd send a maid up to change it into two single beds.



The maid came up shortly afterwards to change the bedding while I got out of the way trying to sort out the wifi out in the bathroom. Steph then comes in to tell me what the maid has just found while sorting the beds out. I won't go into details but she was horrified, took pictures whilst mumbling to Steph in language she couldn't understand and well now we're thinking it's possible someone didn't make it out the room alive! You'd think it was a rubbish hotel but it's a 3\4 star! Anyway we got changed and ready to go and have a few drinks in the hotel bar, to find that when we went up to the floor with the 'bar' on it, the said bar wasn't there. We went down to the restaurant to try and find the bar and have some drinks to be told they were serving buffet and we could have drinks in our room from the mini bar or a tea or coffee downstairs. So turns out we've managed to book ourselves into a hotel on Copacabana Beach that has no bar so no cocktails for us tonight. Back up to the room we went to raid the mini bar. Steph then ordered herself a grilled cheese sandwich from room service, I joked that I didn't want anything as I'd probably end up with a ham and cheese toastie in a few mins as they couldn't understand Steph very well when she ordered. She said she was really hungry where as I wasn't so fussed. 10 minutes later the door goes and I go to get the room service to find a hamburger, chips and salad on the plate! Steph's really not doing too well with the food situation! I on the other hand had a hamburger while she had the chips and salad. I think I'm just not going to order food at all and just end up with the meat option of whatever they mistakenly bring out for the vegetarian! Suffice to say Steph isn't too impressed with the hotel after being served meat and having no bar! After all that we've decided to call it a night and just get more sleep. Hopefully things will be better tomorrow and hopefully fingers crossed it stops raining, although the forecast is not looking too good.....

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