Sunday April 20th - Day 4

Day 4 started with a sleep in til 8. Breakfast and out the door for 9:30 on a private tour with Russo - pronounced Yusso.

He lives way up the cliffs in the tenement Flavellas and grew up in Rio.

We hiked up some serious stairs for a long while with legs burning before getting into the sketchiest shuttle van jammed with 18 of us into 14 seats. We climbed the steepest streets for 10-15 minutes chugging along with absolutely no suspension hoping the brakes wouldn’t fail. 

We passed by hundreds of giant overflowing garbage bins and thousands of makeshift electrical wires hanging everywhere.

They only got electricity in the late 80s and running water after that but the higher you went, the less services they had.

We stopped near the top of the mountain and began our trek downhill through thousands of stairs - some not so bad - some you held onto the railings or ropes for dear life. Water dripping from many rooftops made a few places a bit treacherous while Russo, in his broken English, told the tale of a young boy growing up with many siblings with very little food, playing simple games in order to get to adulthood. Large families meant little opportunity for education beyond high school.

He had managed many jobs but now at 52, he has enjoyed a couple years of being a tour guide.

Flavella rent starts at 400 REAL/month ($100 CDN) and gets more expensive as you come down the mountain. He bought a three level brick home many years ago that he pointed out to us, an old brick dwelling jammed into hundreds of others piled on top of one another side to side. Very little privacy. Very communal living. Fascinating.

There are thousands and thousands of these in the mountainsides of Rio.

Imagine all of Brazil.

It’s unfathomable really.

90 minutes of stairs and we arrived back at our hotel and bid farewell to Russo who had several more tours this day - many tourists in for Easter weekend - make hay when the sun shines …

We took our rain soaked bodies back into the hotel - swimsuits and pool for a couple hours before checking out and Ubering to a completely different airport than the one we landed in.

I introduce you to Jonas the Uber Driver. Jonas with a 20 year old tiny Fiat that should not have been on any roads anywhere.

No suspension. No steering. He drove wherever he felt like and the dotted lane lines were dead centre of the car most of the trip as we weaved in and out of traffic like he owned the road. Biggest fear was hitting the guard rail as the car lurched side to side WHENEVER IT WANTED TO! LOL

Krista in the back seat was losing her ever loving mind and I couldn’t stop giggling because it was like riding with my high school buddy Terry Cooper behind the wheel. Hang on tight - we’ll get where we’re going. 

AND THE LOW FUEL INDICATOR WAS ON WHEN HE PICKED US UP.

FOR 45 FREAKING MINUTES at 90-100km/Hr.

It was nothing short of a miracle we arrived with paint still on the vehicle.

Absolutely most insane Uber ride I’ve ever taken.

All for $15. Wow.

Checked our bags at the airport. Headed through security. Krista pulled her IPad out of her bag to go through the scanner and I look for mine. What the?

OH CRAP ITS IN MY CHECKED SUITCASE!!

That’s not making it on the plane.

I just donated my IPad to some dude at the airport.

Well crap.

We get upstairs and hit the lounge for food.

There must be a way to retrieve this thing?

I have skills!

Except -

I have ABSOLUTELY ZERO PORTUGUESE IN MY SKILLSET OUTSIDE OF PLEASE AND THANK YOU!

And this face and bald melon ain’t pretty enough to sweet talk anyone for anything.

I have never travelled anywhere where I felt so much a minority - culturally and linguistically. There are so very few English speaking people amongst the throngs of folks everywhere.

Luckily, I found a few security guards and asked if any of them spoke English.

4 of them all point at one guy. Let’s call him Ricardo. (I never got his name… )

I tell Ricardo my story and make the sign of an L on my forehead and he explains to his 4 buddies what ‘Loser’ means and they all roar hysterically.

He gets on his radio and makes a few calls and says come back in an hour. There’s a tiny chance we can find it.

I come back in an hour. More radio calls.

Not looking good.

Maybe when we are boarding.

Lined up to board.

I give him one last look…

He gives me a thumbs up.  WHAT!?

Down to the basement of the airport we go and there is my suitcase they pulled from several hundred. Open it up. BINGO!!! IPAD!!

Hugs and high fives all around and much laughter at the ‘Loser’ as we scurry back up to the gate and down towards the plane.

Then - nowhere.

We wait for 30 minutes.

No movement.

240 people back up to the lobby.

Lots of announcements - IN PORTUGUESE of course.

I find Ricardo and get an update.

‘Uh - we need to - how do you say - a fixer?’

‘Mechanic?’

‘YES! Mechanic!!! Something is broken.

50/50 chance we fix it.’

Last plane out for the night.

We will miss our connector in São Paulo to get to the rainforest.

Sadly, I have used up my luck on the IPad.

Dang it.

But wait….

Everyone is cheering!! We line up! Plane is fixed.

We get on the plane!

Front row! Leg room galore!! Nice work Krista!

Away we go! One hour to São Paulo! And we land at a completely different airport again - one of five maybe? THERE’S 20 MILLION PEOPLE IN SAO PAULO!! THATS HALF THE POPULATION OF CANADA!!

We sprint hard to the opposite end of the airport and make our connector!

4 hours to Manaus with a 3am arrival - Google that one - not the end of the earth but you can see it from there. Just like when people ask me where I’m from and I say Porcupine Plain, Sask. 

Flight highlights included: Krista having a nice roomy row 2 seat whilst Darren headed for the back, the lightning storm out the window an hour to the left of us lighting up the night sky every 15 seconds, more than one plane zipping past us the opposite direction far too damn close for my liking, and being the very last passenger off the plane for the first time ever as I had to help the senior man paralyzed from the shoulders down on the aisle in my row by deadlifting him out of his seat into a plane wheelchair and again into an airport wheelchair once off the plane. Language has its barriers but on this beautiful Easter Sunday, love does not.  Happiest of Easters to everyone.