Time to go home

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We awoke early today so that we could go feed the marmosets on the trail at the Sugarloaf base, and then go down to Praia Vermelha to swim. It gets hot early down in Rio and the cool water felt great! We stayed down there until about 10am and then went to the flat to pack and get ready. I had packed the night before, so I went to get lunch at Bob's Burgers, while the girls packed. At about 3pm, we left the flat and got a taxi to SDU airport. The traffic was light and it took about 15 minutes, at a cost of 18 Reais. Our flight to Sao Paulo was at just before 5pm. We boarded the GOL 737-800 of flight 1711 and were soon off to Sao Paulo. The flight should have been just under an hour, however, there were storms at the airport and we had to circle for 15 minutes or so.

When we finally landed at GRU airport, the storms were really bad and you could not see much. The rain was coming down hard.

We went to check in for our Delta flight to Detroit, which was departing at 9:25pm. It was just after 6 now, so we had 3 hours. We went to our gate to wait for seats. There were 24 business class seats open and we were the top 3 on the stand by list, so there was no concern. About 30 minutes before departure, they cleared us for business class row 6. I was in seat 6D. This was Delta flight 48 and a 767-300 aircraft. I enjoyed the beef medallion meal, along with a few gin and tonics. After the dinner, I watched the film "Parkland", which was about the JFK assassination. I eventually put the seat down flat and went to sleep for 5 hours.

There was a large thunder and lightning storm over the Amazon and it was a little bumpy as we went through it. An hour before arriving in Detroit, I had a cereal breakfast and coffee. We arrived on time and cleared customs and immigration within minutes because we were the only international flight on the ground at the time. We went upstairs and caught our connection to Indianapolis, which was Delta 1209. It was an MD-88 aircraft, with about 100 open seats, so it was wide open for stand by travel. We sat in row 10 for the 40 minute flight and were back at IND airport at 9:30am. It was good to be back in the cooler, less humid weather. We were glad that it was not too cold though!

We absolutely loved Rio! We want to go back and visit more of Brazil, especially since the flight to Iguacu Falls did not work out for us. Considering our visas are good for 10 years, I am certain that we will go back several times!

Obrigado pela leitura! (Thanks for reading!)

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