Made it to Rio...finally

---

Well Ben, Akshay and I have finally made it to Rio. Making it here was a long winded process involving British Airways´inefficiencies, Pret à Manger and not much sleep.

So,we got to Manchester airport on time. Boarded the plane - also fine. However, BA´s baggage handling computer system was less than fine and resulted in us being on the tarmac for an hour and 30 mins. With British planning crises at their highest we ended up landing in Heathrow 20 minutes after our direct flight to Rio had taken off:

´Good news is, there´s another flight to Rio today. Bad news is, its not for another 7-8 hours. Oh and its also via Sao Paulo so you´re going to have a three hour wait there too´said the rather harassed man at BA´s customer service desk.
´Any chance of an upgrade?´
erm...no´

So with self-esteem sufficiently battered we walked away with compensation in the form of food vouchers, to be spent on pies and pret a manger...thankfully not at the same time.

We finally arrived in Rio at 10.30 am (2.30pm UK time), meaning that BA´s inability to count luggage had cost us 12 hours of waiting. Anyway, my first impressions of Rio are of a city with more character than most. The city´s mountainous setting is stunning, and the neighbourhoods we walked today ranged from those where we were greeted with shouts of ´oi Gringos´, to the business district holding the headquarters of the Petrobas oil company, to the one which our hostel is located. We are connected to the city from our hostel by an old rickety elevated tram system that people hang off the sides on. Whoever said that a lax appraoch to health and safety is dead has obviously never been to Rio.

So, tomorrow the real action starts. Up Sugarloaf mountain and to Copacabana beach...and if Ben doesn´t stop singing the Barry Manilow classic of the same name I think Askhay and I will have his face in the most golden of the world´s sands.

---