About a year ago, I was waiting at the SFO¹ airport for my flight to MAO. To say that I was excited would be the understatement of the year. I was already thinking about the cool things I had planned for the trip. The itinerary was something like this: spend the first two days in the Amazon, meet a friend of mine in São Paulo, watch ARG v SUI there, spend the next 4 days in Rio while also attending FRA v GER at the Maracanã and then head back.

Now if you are going by my previous travel adventure and are thinking “We get it, you will end up being lost in the Amazon for a week where you do Bear Grylls type of a thing and come back alive somehow, right?”, to you I’ll say “How I wish. If only I was that badass.”

Part 0: Arriving in Brazil

I had a layover in MIA. It was around 6 am on a Friday and the gate at which I had my connecting flight had about 20 people. I have never seen fewer people at an airport or a part of one, except at ALB. I managed to find an empty charging place to charge my phone and was wondering what to do until it was time to fly. Then suddenly out of nowhere I noticed some girl playing with a hoola hoop. I waited for a while and then went to her and asked what was her deal. Turns out she was also on the same flight with Rio being her final destination. She said she wanted to perform on the streets of Rio with some of her friends because it was fun. She said she had a law degree and had just spent a year in Yukon just for kicks. I was just responding “Wow” to whatever she was saying.

I had booked the Amazon tour with some agency run by a guy² who had (and still has) pretty good Trip Advisor reviews. They picked me up from the airport and we were on our way to the hotel. We went past the Manaus stadium and soon after I noticed that something was off. Not with the stadium, but on the road. There was a huge SUV speeding on the wrong side of the road. It was coming towards us. It swerved left and right and before it could hit us, it hit a tree on the divider. Probably some drunk and/or texting driver.

View from my hotel room in Manaus

I set my luggage in my room and went out straight away to buy a SIM card. I asked the front desk lady how to go about getting a SIM card. She had no idea what I was talking about. She only spoke Portuguese. So naturally, I asked her in Portuguese. Who am I kidding, I asked her in my version of the sign language. I had memorized some common Portuguese words and I deduced that she advised me to go to a newspaper vendor on the street. I tried my luck at the first one and I couldn’t explain what I wanted to the guy. I had already looked up the plan I wanted to buy and he didn’t know anything about it. I just decided to take random turns on the streets hoping to find a bigger shop. Luckily I found one pretty quickly. I tried to explain to those guys about the plan I wanted to buy. The lady in that shop had Google Translate on her phone. Yay! We spoke and read the translation into and off of it. It was cool. Got the job done. I now had internet on my phone. I graduated to a Super-Tourist from a regular one. :P

It was hot day. This is a true statement every day of the year there. I got back to my hotel room for a shower. I tried to adjust the shower-head and I suddenly felt something. It had been a while since I last felt this. It was the feeling of electrocution. Fortunately, it was not that strong. I had time to pull my hand away. I was in Brazil for a couple of hours and I had already dodged two bullets. Next up: Amazon. Not looking good.

Part 1: The Amazon

We left pretty early in the morning the next day to go to guest house located in the heart of the Amazon. Getting there from Manaus took about an hour and half. We used a combination of land and water transportation. We were put into groups with people who had booked similar tours. We saw the Meeting of Waters and I was able to feel the difference in temperature by dipping my hand in the water. It was incredible.

Meeting of Waters

We then hopped on a van. I got a chance to talk to other people in my group. I quickly became friends with Tori and Dan (from Chicago). We stopped for refreshments and then proceeded to take the boat to the guest house. The feeling of wriggling past trees that are half in water, in a boat is so cool.

Getting to the Guest House

It was lunch time and they had BRA v CHI on. The result was met with a loud cheer although I think Chile should have won that match. Later that evening, we went Piranha fishing. This was the first time I went fishing. I had (and still have) absolutely zero clue about fishing. Our guide and other people in my group helped me. But I didn’t come remotely close to catching a fish. They caught some. I was distracted by the view; well, that’s what I went with anyway.

Sunset while Piranha Fishing

We weren’t ready to call it a day just yet. After dinner, we went out to spot some alligators. Our guide (a local) would stick his hand into the water and pick the alligator up like picking up spare change from the street. It was so cool to see him do it.

Alligator

The next morning the guide took us into the jungle. Now you have to remember that once we got to the guest house the previous day we have only been using boats to go anywhere. We anchor the boats and step in. It had rained heavily last night. Also the jungle was kind of floating on the Amazon river. So the place is always soggy. He identified different trees and showed how one could use different resources available there for survival if one got lost. It was pretty interesting although I was praying that I didn’t have to use this knowledge ever.

We had lunch and it was time to head back. My flight to São Paulo was at 2AM. Tori and Dan were also on the same flight but their final destination was Salvador. We were roaming around and found an ice cream shop. We started playing cards on their outdoor table while enjoying the ice cream. Good times. We had requested our tour guide to drop us off at the airport at about 10PM. Once we got to the airport, we still had to wait for a while before we would be on our way. So we got back to playing cards in the airport. We were pretty serious about it you know, keeping scores and all.

There was some guy next to me on the flight who was snoring very loudly. He was as loud as a tractor going up a steep hill. :(. I couldn’t sleep for the entire duration of the flight. I waited for Tori and Dan ³ at the connecting flights area and we said goodbye to each other.

Part 2: São Paulo

I still hadn’t picked up tickets for the matches because the teams hadn’t been decided yet. I wanted the names of the teams on my ticket. There was a kiosk at GRU where one could collect the tickets. But, it opened at 9AM. So I had to wait for an hour or two. I met a Swiss guy visiting from the UK who had spent a lot of time in Australia. He said he went to an American school. He also spoke 389439723 other languages. In every sentence of English he spoke I could identify at least 6 accents. Fascinating.

I had booked a hotel in São Paulo but the check in time was at 2PM that day. I was nice to the front desk lady and politely requested her to check me in early. I was lucky she was in a good mood and obliged. :). ⁴

I figured I would take a nap since I couldn’t sleep much in the flight. But, my digestive system wasn’t happy with previous night’s dinner (which I had in Manaus) :/. However, I had some medication just for this with me. My dad has a lot of experience in dealing with stomach upsets and such. According to him one must carry atleast three different types of medication for stomach upsets/food poisoning when traveling. I follow this advice to the dot. Always. I then proceeded to take the nap I so badly needed.

I was woken by a text message from Joy. She is my friend who lives in Limeira, São Paulo. Although I have known her since 2010, we hadn’t met yet. How did we become friends, you ask? Well, internet is a beautiful thing, you know. :). She had texted me to say that she had left for Campinas (a city halfway between Limeira and São Paulo) where we had planned to meet.

Getting a ticket to Campinas at the Tietê Bus Terminal was not a hassle at all. All the signs had a picture next to them which explained what the sign meant. So I was able to locate the ticket issuing counters pretty easily. At the counter I just said “Campinas” and handed my credit card to the lady. She must have wondered “Not the loquacious type, are you?” in her mind. Actually, I’m not. Anyway, I got the ticket and she wrote the terminal number I was supposed to wait at on it. Before boarding the bus, I had to get it signed by some official. When asked for ID, I gave him my passport. The guy acted like he had never seen a passport, let alone a foreign one. He was so excited. He tried to communicate with me in some weird sign language. I had no idea what he was talking about. I was just smiling and saying “Yeah” at random pauses in the dialog (if you can call it that).

I was waiting for her at a mall. For the first time in this trip, I saw a face that I had seen (photo counts) before. I was so happy to see her and so was she. I met her parents and her sister too. They are really nice people. Poor Joy had to translate English <-> Portuguese for all of us since she was the only person who could converse in both languages. Fortunately she didn’t mistranslate anything trying to make fun of us. Or did she? :O. I’ll never know. :D. Since I was nursing my stomach, I decided not to eat much and that didn’t make Joy’s mom Claudia happy. She went “… nada, nada, nada …” referring to my reply of “No” to whatever food she offered. I then agreed to drink some bottled fruit juice which Jeniffer (Joy’s little sister) had to finish because I didn’t have more than two sips of it.

We roamed around in the mall until it was dark. We had a good time. However, it was time for me to leave. :(. Joy helped me buy the ticket back to São Paulo and saved me the awkwardness at the counter. Meeting them was one of the highlights of my trip. (I kind of knew it would be going in. :P)

I had a good night’s sleep and was ready to go to my first football soccer match. Fans from Argentina had flooded the metro. There was approximately one Swiss fan per 2000 of their counterparts. They made themselves heard pretty well too. They had this song they liked to sing a lot. They were jumping like crazy in the train on the way to the stadium. I was confused as to where I was. Argentina or Brazil.

The match was a tight affair. But the atmosphere was surreal. I got to see some of big names in football soccer in action. I managed to get some cool pictures too.

Action from Match 55

At the airport I had some time before my flight and they had BEL v USA on. People were supporting for “Estados Unidos” pretty passionately. When USA lost, people dropped their heads and went on to their ways broken-heartedly.

Part 3: Rio de Janeiro

I was really impressed by TAM Airlines. Despite the fact that the flight from São Paulo to Rio was only about an hour long, they served us dinner in economy class. How many airlines can say that? I had kept my AirBnB hostess Fiona updated about my flight so that she could show me the way to her house when I arrive. Vehicles cannot reach her house because it is in a favela. Particularly, this one: Pavão Pavãozinho. I was pretty excited and nervous at the same time after reading all the scary stories about Favelas in the media. To make matters worse, there was a death and some riots there a few weeks before my arrival!

We took a bondinho and got off at the fifth(last) stop. Then we went into narrow allies making a few turns at what seemed like random places. I couldn’t even see the turns until we got very close. It was crazy. I was sure that I would need her to show me the way a few times⁵ before I could reach her house from the street on my own.

Picture of bondinho

The following morning I coordinated with fellow travelers that I had met online on Bigsoccer and we went to visit Christ - The Redeemer. The sky wasn’t the clearest it had ever been and we were not sure if we would be able to see the statue because of the fog. We had a confirmation of the online booking with us and we felt we had done enough to not stand in line. Turns out we needed to exchange the confirmation letter for a ticket after all. So much for planning ahead. sigh. We got on the shuttle and we were on our way.

It was foggy when we got there but not as much as couldn’t see the statue at all. It was ok. But we were fortunate to get a 10 minute period with absolutely no fog. The view is pretty cool and the statue itself feels intimidating when you look at it from up close.

Chirst the Redeemer

There were a lot of people from Bigsoccer in Rio at the time we had decided to meet for drinks later that night. I had nothing else to do so Luca (from Italy) and I decided to go to the beach. He said his job allowed him to work from any place that has an Internet connection. So he said he just goes to a random country whenever he feels like it. He happened to be staying next to me at the time. A kid on the beach invited me to play football soccer with him so I obliged. It was fun trying to head the ball with a huge wave of water approaching you. You head the ball and then suddenly the next thing you know you are rotating in the water :D. You stand up, head the ball, relax yourself in the water and the cycle continues.

It was time for the meetup. Google Maps has up to date info on Rio’s public transport system. This was so helpful. It negated most of the disadvantages of not knowing Portuguese. We discussed about the chances of different teams at the World Cup, how my favorite team Spain did so badly :( and other football soccer stuff. We knew each other by just the handles we had on the forum. It was nice to attach a face to it.

The next morning some of us decided to go hang gliding. I hadn’t done this before and I was excited. Although I was lightly scared I wanted to do it. After a couple of people were done with their turns, the staff said the wind wasn’t favorable. When I saw them run off the roof and jump into the air I felt that it was easy. The instructor told me that I had to keep looking straight ahead and not down so that I don’t get scared. He also told me that I should just keep running even after I run out of roof! The actual gliding lasts about 5-7 minutes and it felt like 30 seconds at most. You feel like you are a bird flying around without a single worry in the world. The view I had was as close as it could get to a bird’s eye view. :)

Hang Gliding

We landed on the beach and I got my photos and video of the glide burned to a CD. I talked to other people who had just landed and everyone was smiling ear-to-ear. We got a ride back to our places. I hadn’t yet picked up the ticket for the match tomorrow. The ticket pick up place was easily accessible by metro. At the place, there were a lot of scalpers looking to buy/sell tickets. I was lucky enough to win the ticket I had applied for so I didn’t have to deal with those guys.

View from the ticket office

Now that the ticket thing was taken care of, I was free to roam around. Pão de Açucar was the next touristy place on my list. There was a huge line to get in to the cable car that took you to the top of the mountain. I didn’t mind it because by the time I would reach the top it would be sunset time and the view would be awesome.

Sure enough, that’s what happened. You can see for yourself.

Photos from Pão de Açucar

I lost myself in this view. I didn’t want to leave the place. I wanted to stay there forever. There is another cable car that you can take to go to another spot which is at a higher level. I decided to go there to savor the night view of the city.

Night View

I could see the Christ statue from here and they had lit it in the colors of the flags of Germany and France. That was the quarterfinal to be played next.

I had helped Mirthala (from San Francisco) secure the tickets to this match in March when the tickets went on sale on a first-come-first-serve basis. No prizes for guessing where we met. Bigsoccer. I was supposed to meet her and her friends after visiting Pão de Açucar. It wasn’t supposed to be difficult since I could just take a cab to where they were having dinner. However, there was not a single cab available. The ones that were passing by didn’t care to stop. There were so many people just stranded there trying to get out of there. We decided to wait for a bus. After waiting for an hour or so, we crammed ourselves into the bus. A few stops later we were close to a metro station and we got off the bus. A. Metro is faster. B. We had traveled 3 miles in 30 minutes. C. Metro is faster. D. Getting stuck in traffic is not fun. E. Metro is faster.

Her friends had deserted her and she and her boyfriend had decided to stay back for me. They had already waited for a couple of hours I think. :/. I felt so bad. I tried to explain myself as much as I could and they were cool. I went to their apartment and we had a chat. We had spent a lot of time getting these tickets and we were talking about the process. We were all happy that we had managed to score the tickets after the ordeal (a topic for another day) we had went through. I left after a while for my AirBnB room and called it a night.

The next morning, I met with Mirthala and her friends again since we had decided to go to the match together. The match was pretty tight, just like the one in São Paulo. I am happy that I got to watch the finalists. Watching the match at the Maracanã was a special feeling too. The stadium is historical. I was in awe. I got to watch Manuel Neuer, one of the world’s best goalkeepers, in action from up close. He made a great save at the death off a Benzema shot that was goal bound. Gripping stuff.

Photos from Match 58

After the match we went to a fan fest that was not near the beach for a change. It said “Alzirão” at the entrance. I don’t know what that means. Brazil was playing Colombia and the home crowd was psyched. I saw more of people’s heads than the match, but that’s not the point at fan fests like these anyway. When Brazil won, I wasn’t able to tell the drops I was feeling on my skin was rain or alcohol. Things started to get out of hand we decided to show ourselves out of there.

Alzirão Fan Fest

I had one day left in Brazil. The way I was feeling was comparable to the sinking feeling that you get on a Sunday night reminding you of the grind that starts on Monday. But I didn’t worry about it then. I went to the FIFA Fan Fest on the Copacabana beach to watch ARG v BEL. You could spot Argentina fans from a mile away because you can’t really miss them singing the song that I talked about earlier.

I thought having dinner at a restaurant in the favela would be a good way to end my trip. Some of Fiona’s friends joined me. We had a hearty dinner while watching NED vs CRC. We talked about how we would be going back to our regular lives. I thanked them for their hospitality and rushed to the airport.

As the flight took off, I reflected on the past 10 days that breezed through so quickly.