Arrived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil!

After a 10 hour flight from Toronto to Sao Paulo, a 3 hour stop-over, and then a 1 hour flight from Sao Paulo to Rio, I am finally at my hotel in Rio de Janeiro!

The journey was smooth, and pretty uneventful. My flight left Toronto on May 1st at 11:45pm, and luckily I was sufficiently tired and ready for sleep by the time I got onboard.

I slept for most of the flight (luckily no one was seated next to me, so I was able to use both seats and lie across them). I woke up to a pretty awesome view of the countryside of Brazil:

I also had a nice view of the city as we were landing in Sao Paulo:

Arriving in Sao Paulo kind of reminded me of arriving in Mexico, the decor of the airport, the chairs and even the smell reminded me of the decor and atmosphere of Mexican airports (specifically the Mexico City airport). The main difference was that everyone was speaking Portuguese!

My flight from Sao Paulo to Rio was also smooth, but when I arrived in Rio I almost got ripped off getting a taxi to my hotel. I had heard it is best to go to a special taxi stand inside the airport instead of going outside and hailing a taxi. The first taxi stand I went to wanted to charge me $60 CAN for a taxi to my hotel! I told them that was ridiculous and walked away. It turns out I was right about it being way too expensive because a taxi stand about 20 metres away only charged me $25 CAN for my taxi. I am now in my hotel room (with free internet!) and I’m resting and getting ready to go explore the city!