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Published: January 23rd 2009
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Another 20 hour bus journey (and the best sleep I've had this year...but that's not saying much) takes us back to Rio. We have 4 days before our flight to New York and having had our fill of nightlife, we want to see what daytime Rio has to offer. I'm thinking of Copacabana and Ipanema, Sugarloaf and Christ and those famous views. But the drizzle that started as we left the Bahia has become heavy rain, and as we drive into the city it is shrouded in thick low cloud. Again. We wonder if it ever stopped raining since we left over a month ago. It makes it even worse when we're told that the weather was great until yesterday and that the forecast looks bad for the rest of the week. We try to keep our spirits up but are both gutted at the prospect of having been to Rio twice and never actually "seeing" it.
Hotels here are expensive so we're doomed to dorm living for the next 3 nights. But the place we stay on the first night is awful...they cram 12 of us into a room and what with the snorers and sleeptalkers, sleep eludes me
once again. We decide that we may well go mad if we're deprived of sleep for another night and with New York and Japan just around the corner, getting some rest is essential. So we check out and head out in search of the cheapest double money can buy!
Things go from bad to worse when my debit card gets rejected at the bank. When I eventually get through to the right department I'm told that the Barclays fraud team have frozen it as a grand has been withdrawn over the past 48hrs. Now I know I've blown the budget over Christmas but nothing like that! I tell them it definitely wasn't me, and so begins the long painful process of trying to recover my money. I take up residence in the local internet cafe where I spend hours on Skype to various departments, and swap faxes with the fraud team. It's going to take about 2 weeks to find out if I get my money back. Oh, and to make it even more fun, they have to cancel my card. As I won't be at my secure address for another 8 months we decide the best place to
send it will be the British Embassy in Hanoi. I'm keeping my fingers are crossed on that one.
I do feel like I've been robbed and the extra stress of dealing with it from overseas (the Barclays team frustratingly seem to have never dealt with this before?!) leaves me tired and tearful. Two days of rain and all this drama leaves me shattered and I can't remember the last time I slept through the night. We've booked into a new hostel...we couldn't find a double for tonight but they have one for us for tomorrow and their dorms are spacious and clean with only another 4 people in there. I collapse into my bunk wanting today to be over...I'm beginning to wonder if Rio hates me! I wish the sun would come out.
I don't hold out much hope when I wake early on our penultimate day in Rio. The hostel bar was noisy until really late last night and I'm feeling irritable until I open the curtains and see blue sky! We're up and out in record time...straight on a bus to Corvacado, the mountain where Christ hangs out. The queues are long but the wait is
worth it. Finally we get to see that famous view and instantly understand what all the fuss is about. Rio is stunningly beautiful. The clouds are still gathering round the peaks, but that just makes it more atmosheric and dramatic, and with that view before us all the stress of yesterday melts away...I once again feel uplifted and really lucky. We pose for photos with JC, resisting the urge to join him in "doing the aeroplane". It's crowded up there but it doesn't take away from the experience...it's still iconic and spectacular.
With a renewed spring in our steps we head down to the Copa', Copacabana...away from the hills it's hot and sunny and the city has come to life. It's the kind of day that makes you fall in love with a place and we feel the pang that this will be a short romance. But we spend the best date ever with beautiful Rio, rounded off with a cable car ride up Sugarloaf Mountain in time for sunset, and that night we finally get a private room 😊 A fabulous day in the Cidade Maravelosa is made all the sweeter by having been made to wait. It
can't even be ruined by me joining Ritch in the 'let's see how many pairs of sunglasses can be lost in one year' game. My lovely prescription shades are lost...good thing I got that back up pair in Buenos Aires...these ones don't help me see good, but they sure look good 😉
Our final day in Rio is another unforecasted scorcher, so we join the beautiful people on Ipanema for a spot of sun worship. The water is incredibly clear with fantastic waves to mess about in. It's a stunning sunkissed farewell from Brazil.
After a last couple of happy hour capirinhas, we take a taxi to the airport watching the sunset over this fantastic city, sharing our iPod headphones and a warm happy feeling that only comes from cachaca. I mean, that only comes from having shared the most incredible 4 months together in 4 amazing countries, and knowing how much more there still is to come.
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Nick
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This vicarious blog travelling has its advantages
Man I fell apart when I had my card stopped in Canada, and I had a backup and I was with friends... Wicked you got the sun and a double when it really was needed. xxx