Yet another day in the road!

---

Lot of others guests staying here and the pousada looks quite respectable this morning. I was starving, so determined to forget all about 'cockroaches" (?) this morning headed for breakfast. Thus proved more difficult than expected as I was so tired when I arrived last night that forgot to note where my room was in relation to reception. Breakfast was the best yet. As well as scrambled eggs, which were superb, there were lots of other exotic looking cooked things - veg or fruit, not sure which! Had I had more time I woud have asked what they were and even sampled some. In addition to the usual pinkish juice, which I don't have a name for, and papaya, I sampled some scrumptious cake and a small tartlet which a caramel filling.

When I went to pay, the smiling receptionist - a different one, as the other obviously doubles as a night-time security guard - I discoverd that the water was complimentary and that my taxi driver was already waiting for me. In fact he was so early he was sent off for a quick coffee on the house. He was obviously their regular driver and the price was fixed - thank goodness. Still, a £9 taxi fare from a pousada which is supposed to be only 5 kms away from the airport is steep - the distance must be 'as the crow flies'.

At the airport managed to jump the check-in queue as a result of having done this on-line although still had to get my boarding card printed. I suppose GOL is Brazil's equivalent of Ryanair, or possibly Easyjet, since they do actually provide you with a free drink and snack. On the other hand they keep you standing in queues waiting too board for a Ryanair length of time. On the flight I whiled away the time reading an article about travelling on your own - in Portuguese obviously. Can't say I learnt much although there are apparently apps that enable you to meet up with other lone travellers for dinner. However it's nice to know that I am definitely travelling the fashionable way. GOL's in-house magazine also boasts of its impeccable record in handling people's luggage - I hoped that they would keep it up for this flight. They did.

After my experience with the regular taxi the previous night I decided to get a more expensive radio taxi from the airport to the bus station on the grounds that it would probaby work out cheaper. However, was very cross when I got to the bus station to discover that although I had arrived with half an hour to spare I could not get on the 2 pm bus to Parati - it being a Friday afternoon this was full. Might as well have got the bus which would certainly have saved me money. Bought a ticket for the 3.10 which was the next one and went through the gate to sit on the bus platform, as I surmised this would be safer. However within two minutes decided I couldn't stand the heat and went back into the station hall which was air-conditioned although still too hot, much to the ticket inspector's amusement.

The bus left 15 minutes late, for no apparent reason, and after that things went from bad to worse. The whole of this western artery of Rio is in the process of undergoing improvements for the Olympics, I believe, and whereas normally it has three lanes either side, it now has two. Have never seen a continuous stretch of roadworks so long nor so many workmen, most of them apparently just standing around. As a result, it took an hour to get out of Rio - it's a big city - but still. I tried to resign myself to being very late and also wondered whether I should message my Airbnb host, Alfredo, to let him know that I hadn't got on the 2 pm bus as planned. He had very kindly offered to meet me at the bus station - to save hassle with taxi-drivers, as he put up, but asked me to phone when I arrived. I reasoned that I had no idea what time I was likely to arrive and had originally given him an arrival time a half an hour later than the correct one for the 2pm bus so decided not to. Big mistake. In the meantime I read his directions on how to find his house and concluded that it was probably unfindable. Worse, he was the second Airbnb host who had helpfully put instructions for taxi drivers in English - this would be fine if they spoke English but of course they don't.

On arrival at the bus station I managed to send a text to Alfredo and spent the next 20 minutes waiting at the supermarket which he claimed was opposite the bus staion. It wasn't in fact visible form the bus station - I had to ask. I phoned his mobile and got his answering service. At this point I decided he couldn't have got my text so opted to take a taxi. I explained my predicament to a nice, kind taxi driver and asked if he was willing to try to find the house - I must have been in a bit of a panic because I didn't spot the actual address at the end of the directions until later. He said, yes and even asked if I spoke Spanish. If he had asked me that 2 weeks ago I would have leapt at the opportunity but doubted that my Spanish was recoverable at such short notice. As was entirely predictable we got to the general vicinity of the house but couldn't spot it - should add that although I had foud the street name by then there were no street names to be seen. Taxi driver phoned Alfredo, no answer. Taxi driver and I discussed what to do , drove around a bit. I then received a text from Alfredo saying: 'I don't understand your message, where are you?' Taxi driver phoned again and, hallelujah, got a reply at exactly the same moment as he had managed to strike up a conversation with a neighhbour, who informed that Alfredo was at the bus station lookig for me! Strikes me that neighbours are extremely useful in Brazil!

Anyway it all worked out fine, the neighbour told us where to wait and the driver waited with me and Alfredo duly appeared. It turned out that he had sent me a text saying he would meet the 2pm bus which had never arrived. After waiting for a while he went shopping and met up with friends. By the time he came back I had given him up and got the taxi. He was so delightful that I couldn't be cross with him even though he had not responded to my text for 20 minutes. He is Uruguayan, earns a living as a systems analyst working from home and plays the drums semi-professionally, which is really what he would like to do all the time. He speaks good though heavily accented English but was happy to switch to Portuguese or Spanish. For once I was relieved to stay in English. After a beer he took me in his car on a tour of the local restaurants and dropped me off at the one of my choice.

---