Cococabana beach

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After breakfast we wait in reception for our re-arranged island tour. After 30 minutes I call the tour organiser who says he will investigate and get back to me. It turns out that there is no island tour scheduled for today, there has been a missunderstanding. He appologises and we reschedul for the following Monday leaving us a free day. We use the time to buy bus tickets for Iguazu falls (a 22 hour journey - wow Brazil is big), we organise storage of our bags in Rio whilst we are at Iguazu and I call British Airways to try and re-arrange some flights between New Orleans and New York as we have now gone off the idea of being hemmed in to Times Square unable to reach our hotel with all our baggage and no access to toilets or a bar on new years eve. After twenty two minutes on the phone to BA at over a pound a minute we are informed that changing the flights would incure a one hundred and sixty dollar admin fee per ticket and that we bought tickets that were S class and now only M class were available which would mean a significant rise in the cost of the tickets. BA could not tell me how much more the tickets would cost as this could only be dealt with by their sales department who would get back to us in the next couple of days. At the time of writing this it is now nine days later and I have heard nothing. The BA representative that I am talking to informs me that BA are unable to deal with customers via email as their customer service agents have no access to external email. All in all I have found BA customer service very poor and expensive. I go to Cococabana beach for a swim to cool off.

Luxury hotels look down onto golden white sands. Sugar Loaf mountain can be seen to the left and there are clear blue skies above. A few open air beach huts sell beer and food at the edge of the sand. There are volley ball courts and beach soccer areas followed by deckchairs and parrosoles all hunch together in groupes. The sun is scorching. I was expecting to find the ´beautiful´people here all tanned, thong wearing, pert, honned bodies basking in the sun and there are a few but there are also sights that make me want to put my eyes out. I keep my breakfast down and find a bit of space to lay my towl down before heading to the water for a swim.

The water is beautifully cool. Icy cold waves crash relentlessly into my body, the water dragging me out in it´s cold clutches then smashing me back towards the shore. The big waves come in ..well waves funnily enough. I am in water up to my chest and they tower six feet or more above my head. Walls of power bearing down. A choice has to be made depending on the state of the wave: float over it if it is not breaking, dive under if it is about ot break, catch it and body surf or time it wrong and get pulverised, turned, flipped and thrown like a ragg doll in a throthy, white, bubbeling, ragging, white blindness. Kick and pull for the surface and emerge spluttering knee deep, knees grazed to be hit again by the next one. Then swim out again and wait for the next wave. It´s very exhilerating and all thoughts of BA and their crappy customer service are gone. I dry off in the sun, re-apply suntan lotion (factor fifteen) and go back in again for more.

In the evening we eat creps filled with cheese, tomatoes and olives then go to a juice bar for Acai berry drinks. They taste great you can feel the fruity goodness rushing through your body with every sip.

The following day we get up late and a driver takes us to the bus depot. He drives like he is playing Grand tourismo whist jabbering into a mobile phone, he spits out of the window and beeps aggresivly at anyone who gets in his way. We arrive in the bus depot which is ´Downtown´. The downtown area is much poorer than Cococabana. People wash in the river and sift through rubbish. It´s much dirtier and down beat. We get some overpirced food and drink that is bought from a secured kiosk where you are given a ticket that you then pass to someone else who gives you the food. We get on the bus and start the 22 hour journey to Iguazu falls.

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