Latin American Adventures with Scarlet: Rio de Janeiro! Saturday, 3 January 2015

Long day yesterday flying from LA to Dallas, then Dallas to Rio. Three hours from LA, 1 celsius in Dallas and the threat of snow, freezing conditions. Flights before ours were cancelled or delayed, we were lucky that ours wasn't. Then delayed leaving Dallas (but that was ok) ... David and I managed to get upgraded seating to exit row so we had more leg room! Yay! 767-300 - old bird, no entertainment, just the old tv on the bulk head at the front! Great food and good service from the crew!

Arrived into a very HOT Rio, 32 celsius and limited a/c in the arrivals terminal. I felt immediately dizzy headed (more so than normal!) as we passed through immigration. Our hotel transfer was waiting for us, a nice man who spoke english. I asked if he spoke spanish, fortunately he spoke a little so we managed. He drove us to the Ibis Copacabana in about 35 minutes, past the favelas. Nice hotel - with great a/c! Staff multi-lingual which helped.

Showered and took off exploring. Managed to find a cambio to exchange $US for Brazillian Real - did a little at the airport but need more to pay for the tour this morning. He spoke no english but a little spanish. Thank goodness for my spanish lessons!!!

Walked Copacabana beach! Beautiful! Had a nice meal at a local restaurant and tasted the cerveja (beer) - 'Antactica' - bloody cold straight from the freezer! 12 Real (about $US6) for a 'tallie'.

Tired in the afternoon - managed to book a half day city tour this morning. David and I took a taxi to the local BIG shopping mall, Kerren and David did a walk on the beach. We ended up walking back to our hotel at 8pm - so much easier in the relative coolness of the evening - heaps of people about, policia everywhere. We walked through the tunnel to get back to our hotel - some question about its safety but at 8pm & people everywhere, we quite enjoyed it.

We welcomed sleep at 9pm - but both woke at 3am! Thank you jet lag!
Just had a great brekky and readying ourselves for a 9am pick up for the tour to Christ the Redeemer!