Calgary to Chicago to São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil - December 14/15

clear skys, 27 degrees

7500 steps 6000 of which were made in the Sao Paulo airport!!!

March 19, 2020 – that is the date of my last blog entry I wrote – finally forced making it home outracing Covid. That was almost 3 years ago. Today is the first day of biggest vacation Chris and I have been on since Covid forced us home, March 2020.

a couple of champagne cocktails

This travel day was just as arduous! All told it took us about 24 hours to get to Rio! It was taking us 3 flights to get to our final destination of Rio de Janeiro – Calgary to Chicago to São Paulo to Rio. We had business class tickets so we’d be able to lie out for the 10.5 hour flight from Chicago to São Paulo. Fortunately, after a glass of champagne, dinner, another glass of wine and a bit of Tom Cruise I got a fair amount of sleep.

The flight leaving Calgary was 30 min late, but by the time we arrived in Chicago that didn’t matter because ultimately we left 3.5 hours late. This let us hang out (champagne and a shower!) in the United Airlines lounge in Chicago which was very lovely! As far as business lounges goes, this is at least a 9/10! We knew we would miss our connection to Sao

first sighting of the Jesus

Paulo but were assured United Airlines would take care of the rebooking.

Um…yeah, they did I guess, but kinda, sort of not. We learned upon arriving to São Paulo that we were rebooked on a flight 4 hours later. There are over 80 flights each day between São Paulo and Rio, but this was the soonest one with availability.

No problem, they gave us food vouchers and we planned to find a business lounge. HA!! All we did for the 4 hours from the time we arrived in São Paulo to the time we left was walk and line up, try to sort out our flight details, walk and line up some more.

Copacabana sunset and a caipirinha

In the end we ended up sprinting through the airport, Chris trying not to lose his pants. We bolted from security to the gate so fast there was no time for re-belting! WHEW!! We made it but it was tight, or so we thought. The plane didn’t actually take off for another 20 min waiting for more people.

Once in Rio, we checked into the hotel, unpacked, showered, hit the rooftop bar for our first caipirinha and then strolled Copacabana beach for a bit.