Final country Brazil…..
After well over 30 flights and nearly 5 months of travelling, you’d think it would be easy to get to Brazil from Equador……wrong!!!!!
Our flight from Quito was due to fly to Panama where we would disembark and reboard to Brasilia and stay in the capital for a couple of days. Trying to board was difficult enough with a slight mix up with the booking but after persuading him there were not two Patricia’s with 64kg luggage we were able to board separately each with our own bags.
The fun started when just before Panama we were rerouted due to bad weather conditions and forced to land in Columbia. I have nothing against ending up in a different country to where I was supposed to be going, but I do not enjoy sitting in a plane on an airport runway waiting and waiting and waiting to see whether we stay in Columbia or fly further.
Later, in fact much later the weather changed and we took off again for Panama where it became obvious that we’d missed a connection to Brasilia. No one could’ve foreseen the absolute chaos in Panama airport. People shouting and screaming at officials, officials shouting and screaming at people. No announcements (not that I would’ve understood them anyway) computer system failure, the airport had been in lockdown.
As we stood in one of 3 long queues at our flight desk, we learnt that we were going nowhere that night and had to rebook for the next day. All of a sudden we were ushered through immigration with no luggage – just a bus ticket and a hotel voucher. If this sounds exciting, it actually wasn’t. We were in one of many buses transporting stranded passengers to various hotels.
After checking in it was already 9pm and no shops open for essentials. We did find a Hard Rock Panama hotel and duly bought a clean tshirt for the next day.
Unfortunately booking.com then cancelled our hotel in Brasilia as a no-show (even though we’d emailed them) and the next day as we boarded a plane at 4pm – it became clear that when we landed at 1am the day after, we had nowhere to go – no bus ticket, no hotel voucher, no reservation.
Luckily for us after a heated conversation with the hotel in Brasilia whilst using the hotel office phone in Panama, they had emailed us that they had found us a room in their partner hotel.
It was all highly complex and we only spent 1 day in Brasila. An unusual city inaugurated as Brazil’s capital in 1960. It is laid out in the shape of an airplane and is a masterpiece of modernist architecture. The city has separated zones for specific functions such as housing, commerce, hospitals and banking.
Brasilia is still developing a culture of its own. Although the city is complete – in a way its still developing.
The following day we flew to Rio, where we were looking forward to sea and sunshine…….wrong again!!!!! Sea yes, sunshine no!!!!
Frio in Rio we managed one week of our intended two, but gave up after Christ the redeemer was shrouded in clouds and the sugar loaf mountain was reluctant to give us a panoramic view…
(the clearest view of Christ the Redeemer were these painted walls at the bottom of the cable car…)
…..and the nice hotel we’d booked for our last week had a rooftop pool the size of a slightly larger than a normal bathtub.
We did however get to see quite a lot of football. However when England play I cringe and cannot look…..
and my beer consumption increases rapidly…….
And so it came to pass (not without a certain amount of persuasion for the hotel to cancel our booking free of charge) and yet again another humongous mix up in the flight booking at rio airport that we came to be lying on a beach in Fortaleza. Thank goodness for Google and weather apps that you can follow the sun. It has been winter in South America and we longed for a few rays of sunshine before our return to Europe, to a generally rainy climate and the ensuing chaos from Brexit.
I feel I’ve earnt my sunrays and shall linger in them until Friday. On Friday we shall fly to Salvador, where we spend the last few days of our incredibly long (in kilometers) journey before we fly back to Frankfurt.
There will be a completion blog as it would be unjust to finish off so abruptly.
One thing I didn’t mention was that today incredibly enough I was stopped by the Brasilian police on the beach. At first I thought I may be getting arrested for looking like a white whale, however they told me it was too dangerous to continue walking on the lonely stretch of beach. I disagreed as walking white whales (especially the older models) are generally considered quite safe. However I’ve avoided prison so far and smiled politely and walked the other way.