Well, it's not an international trip without at least one panic moment. Dr. Byrd awoke Thursday morning to find an automated message from American Airlines indicating that our flight back to the US had been cancelled. No explanation....no indication of how we would be re-booked....no help whatsoever. After about four hours of great anxiety, we found that we had been re-booked to Miami through Sao Paulo, with a domestic flight from Rio to Sao Paulo. (American Airlines...thanks for almost ruining our last day).
Thursday was our last day in Rio. Our flight back to the US was at 8 pm, and we were scheduled to take a bus to the airport at 4 pm. The problem is that our hotel checkout time was noon. After a lot of begging and cajoling, we managed to get them to let us check out of two rooms at 2 pm.
Ipanema beach is probably one of the most celebrated beaches in the world. So we wanted some time on it! And oh, what a day it was. Sunny, mild, absolutely no humidity, clear as a bell. The beach was modestly populated, mainly by lots of people wearing as little as possible. Thongs, bikinis, and speedos were in abundance. We were constantly beseeched by vendors hawking everything from cheese grilled on the spot to colorful scarves to trinkets of all kinds.
Looking out across the water, to the small islands in the distance, with the sun so soft and bright...many of us were thinking, "man I could get use to this!"
What a nice, low-key way to end the trip!
At the last minute, we had a bit more anxiety. Doug Kaminskas had been booked on a different trip code originally, because the travel agent had misspelled his name and we had to re-book his tickets. Somehow, American had him re-scheduled to leave Rio the next day, instead of traveling with the group out of Sao Paulo. After some animated discussions with the American counter at the Rio airport, we managed to get him on a flight on US Air from Rio to Charlotte.
Time to go home.
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