Arriving in Brazil

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We arrived into Sao Paulo at about 7:30am and cleared customs and immigration in about 30 minutes. Our connection to Rio's Santos Dumont airport was at 10:30am. We were flying GOL airlines on a 737-800 and were in row 19. GOL airlines is one of our partners at Delta, and they give us a great discounted rate. It was a fast 45 minutes to Rio and we admired the views of one of the most scenic airport approaches in the world. We caught a taxi to our apartment in the Urca/ Botafogo area, which was only 20 minutes away. We rented a room from somebody on Airbnb. It was a lovely flat and the woman was so nice! We settled in, freshened up, and walked to the mall for lunch.

We decided on a little place called Koni, where we had some beef yakisoba. After lunch, we went out to get the cable car to the top of Sugarloaf. The cable car station was a 10 minute walk from our flat. There was no line at all, so we were on and going up in no time at all.

We stayed at the first station for about an hour, checking out all the views. We then rode the second cable car to the top of Sugarloaf and stayed up there for another hour. Just before dark, we went back down and went to get some dinner. We chose a place in the mall that was near us, called Fiammetta, which had some great pizza! We went and had some ice cream in the same mall at Sorvete Brasil. We went outside to find that it was raining. This would be the only rain we would have for the whole trip, thankfully. It was a short walk to our flat though, so we did not get too wet. It was easy to get a good nights sleep since we were so tired. It was very hot and humid though, so no blankets were needed, lol!

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