Off to Rio for Carnaval!

Thursday, January 31 – Day 43

Off to Rio today! I’m pretty excited about the trip, and am looking forward to having some time to just hang out on the beach. BA was great, and even though I was there for almost a month, it didn’t seem like I really had much time to relax. I put a pretty good effort into the school, which included nightly homework, reading out loud for vocabulary and pronunciation, and watching the local news to develop an ear for the language. Throw in some tango lessons, some tourist stuff, and a few late nights for parties, and the time goes by real fast.

Anyway, trying to be a little pro-active, I e-mail the company that’s supposed to provide my ground transportation to and from GIG, the international airport in Rio. EVERYBODY says that this is a dangerous place, so I wanted to at least make sure that I could make it to my hotel without incident. And of course, I got a response back that said the transportation company had no record of me (even though I gave them an itinerary number and a voucher number that had their name on it). They further said that they even called my hotel, and that they had no record of me either. Great! Imagine flying into New Orleans for Mardi Gras without a place to stay, nobody to pick you up….and you don’t speak any English.

A few e-mails back home to the travel agent, and they say that it’s all cleared up. They confirmed the name of the transportation company, said that someone will be there to greet me outside of customs, and that they’d have a sign with my name on it. Whew!

So after I clear customs in Rio, I walk out of the security area and nobody is there to meet me. Great. I wait for a while, but nobody shows up. So I walk over to the domestic pick-up area, and I see some people from Havas, the company that is supposed to pick me up. They’re there for other customers, but one of the guys is happy to call the office on his cell phone to see what’s up. After a minute on the phone he says that they have no record of me, and there’s nothing more he can do. He says that my best option is to hire a private car (which is what I thought I had done). Further, he says that under no circumstances should I use a public taxi, as they are not safe.

For a private car, you go to a booth and pay a flat fee that is based on your destination. You pay up-front so that the driver never handles the money. I’m going to Zona Sul, which costs R$87.00 one way. On the way, traffic gets backed-up on the highway going through one of the favelas, or slums. Here, it’s kind of like crossing the Mexican border back into the US, where bunches of people are just out in the middle of the street trying to sell all kinds of stuff. One of the most prevalent items for sale are something called “Globos”. I ask the driver what they are, but he couldn’t understand me and I couldn’t understand him. So he rolled down the window and shouted to one of the vendors, gave him some change and bought a bag. He passed it back to me and mimed for me to open the bag.

Imagine a Cheeto, about the size of a small doughnut, but without the florescent orange “cheese” flavoring. They had a slightly salty taste, but other than that, tasted a lot like deep fried air. The small paper bag contains about a dozen Globos, and they come in a “sweet” variety as well.
Conditions are improving!

I still have a few Globos left as we get to the hotel, so I take the bag with me to check in. The young lady at the front desk tells me the she loves these things, and that they are popular beach snacks for kids. She prefers he salty Globos as well. Sure enough, every day at the beach I’d see vendors carrying around blocks of Globos the size of a bale of hay.

Well, the Intercontinental Hotel in Rio is certainly a step up from my apartment in Buenos Aires. I’ve got a nice king-sized bed, an industrial strength air conditioner, and an “all you can eat” breakfast is included. It’s a full-on Western style buffet with made to order omelets, bacon, eggs, pancakes, fruits, breads & pastries, cereals, cheeses, juices, coffee, and more. It’s a very expensive place to stay, especially during Carnaval, but, since this is the first time I’ve been here, its known as a dangerous city, and I am travelling alone, I don’t mind paying up for a little security.

I do mind paying R$19.00 for a 500 cc bottle of water. A phone call to US is R$14.00 per minute when dialed through the hotel, but it’s only US$2.00 from my cell phone, and US$0.04 per minute on my calling card. A bottle of Dom Perignon is R$980.00 (US$575.00). Good thing I bought that US$14.00 bottle of Absolute at the duty free shop in the airport. Ha!

If you click on the pictures, I think they blow up to a full screen. In the first one, if I've picked the right one, you may be able to make out a little white triangle against the mountain. Believe it or not, it's a hang-glider! They jump off the top of the mountian and land on the beach.