Copacabana is a huge beach and very sandy. It was a far walk in gorgeous sand from the road to the shoreline. We walked along the edge of the ocean and had people selling drinks and snacks ask us if we wanted to buy any. There were also people asking us if we wanted to rent beach chairs and umbrellas. We declined and continued walking.
We headed back to the beach and along the way walked past one of the restaurants that was on my list of places to eat. We checked it out but it didn't seem very interesting, so we continued making our way to the beach. We walked along the sidewalk this time, passing by some cool sand sculptures. I snuck a picture in because if you took a picture they were asking for donations. There were some really amazing sandcastles as well as sculptures, one had a sign explaining they used "sugar gel" to hold it together which must be an interesting process. The translation on the sign was rough but I am curious to learn what they did, as some of the sculptures had evidently been around for quite a while as evidenced by their celebration of events that occurred weeks earlier.
We eventually made it back to our hotel and decided for lunch to eat at a nearby restaurant called Moutard & Mel. It was a buffet restaurant where you paid by the weight of the food. Hunter and I's meal came to just over $13 US together and I was full after. It was nice to try just a little bit of a bunch of local foods. We had really good fish, some cheese balls, and various local salads. Although we weren't quite sure what all we were eating it was an excellent and very reasonable lunch.
We went back to the hotel, finished gathering our things, and headed to the airport. We had to ask the front desk if we didn't make our planned flight if we could come back because our hotel room was booked till tomorrow, but we were trying to leave tonight hopefully. They were quite understanding thankfully and said if we needed to come back and they'd give us our keys again. We were both worried this might not work out but the front desk manager, said "There is no problem the room is yours" which was really sweet. Out the door, it was time for our final Brazilian Uber, if you ever come to Brazil we highly recommend downloading and using Uber as much as possible. Despite one weird experience we had a great time overall and were able to cram in a ton of activities at diverse points where transit wasn't an option. It was also nice to have a more secure form of transportation as transit in Brazil is known for crime. Cost-wise it was often even cheaper than transit and some of our rides were literally $2! When we got to the airport, we had to find the Azul check-in and while looking at the departures board, we saw that Avianca had canceled many of its flights. This makes sense as they are currently going bankrupt. In fact, we later learned that that day, a lot of their infrastructure was being auctioned off in Sao Paulo, including gate space in Santos Dumont Airport where we were standing. We became worried that we would not be making our flight if passengers were being re-accommodated, but the check-in agent didn't say anything, so off we went through security. Security was quick and easy, and they even let Hunter through with a full-sized water bottle leftover from our hotel. Once we were through, we headed to the small lounge we had access to with our priority passes because we had two hours till departure. The lounge was simple but nice and gave us a wifi connection so that Hunter could plan our next moves in Sao Paulo.
Driving to the airport
Azul check-in
The little airport lounge had little Diet Cokes
Sorry for the cloudy pics!
Before we knew it we were in Sao Paulo, where the real non-revving challenge was to begin. Virtually every flight to the US was full, and getting on let alone getting business looked somewhat dicey. We retraced our steps from the domestic commuter terminal over to the main international terminal. There were a couple of options to get back to the states but annoyingly all of them left at almost the exact same time meaning we had to pick at most 2 to try. We decided that an American flight to JFK and a United flight to Dulles looked the most promising and checked in for United to get boarding passes and head to security. Once again security was quite simple as was emigration. With the exit stamp, I finally now have two passport pages full! Hunter's passport meanwhile is getting almost scarily full, and might need more pages before it is up for renewal in a few years.
In order to maximize our chances, I tried to talk to the United gate agents while Hunter went down and checked with the American agents. United seemed very full but Hunter knew a secret that made the numbers look far worse than they were. Upon arriving down at the American gate Hunter also discovered he had gotten SSSS, a special level of extra screening on his American ticket. He went through the interview and screening process required for this while I watched the United flights move around as people scrambled to get home. While the American flight to JFK looked decent for us Hunter was very wary as dozens of people were going to miss the earlier American flights to MIA and DFW. Logically, he assumed they would be using JFK as a fallback when they missed their first choices. Hunter asked the American agent about this and she even said she had no clue what was going on with the dozens of people trying to non rev on the oversold Miami flight.
Taking the bus to the other terminal - I was getting tired
Feeling disheartened about our prospects with American, Hunter headed back to the United gate and before long we heard our names called. We were cleared! in Polaris Business even, although the seats weren't together they were near each other and we were very happy to be getting home. We gladly accepted the seats and boarded quickly. While we were looking at the menus on United trying to decide what to eat (more on that later) we noticed that the plane seemed weirdly empty for a flight we barely made. About half of Polaris was unoccupied. Eventually, a few more seats filled up but it was still nowhere near full. Adrian, our flight attendant, was really funny and personable and took our orders. I decided on the beef, while Hunter picked a Shrimp Alfredo. Eventually, the crew realized that a lot of people were missing and the gate agents confirmed this, even telling Hunter he could move back next to me! This was really nice as it allowed a revenue passenger to sit with her elderly mother in law as well. The seats on the 767 we were flying are in an odd 2-1-2 layout with the middle seat bordering both aisles. This is really nice for couples like us as we get to be closet together on the window but is awkward when you are seated next to someone you don't know and aren't comfortable climbing over in the night. As we waited for departure curiosity got the best of Hunter and he checked the American loads one last time before canceling our listing on the slightly later JFK flight. Frustratingly, he found that not only had no one moved over from the DFW and MIA flights but that 6 people checked in above us had no-showed and we had actually been cleared into the same wonderful Flagship Business we had flown down to Sao Paulo on with American. Sadly there was no switching at this point, but the seats on American weren't together so we didn't mind being on United and getting to be right next to each other. We eventually pushed out of GRU with a still somewhat empty cabin although at the last minute someone managed to snag an empty business seat. Hunter was pretty sure he was just an economy passenger who managed to take advantage of the chaos that seems to be inherent to boarding flights in Brazil. As we pushed back we could finally breathe and relax. Funnily prior to takeoff, we didn't even have plans for our flights beyond Washington DC, but we were happy to be on our way back to the states together. After takeoff, dinner was served. Both our entrees were delicious and we thoroughly enjoyed them as we weren't as stuffed as we were on the way down. While in this case American might have had a slightly nicer plane, United almost always has better food in Business class. For dessert we both got sundaes since we were sitting in the back the flight attendant didn't have to save any ingredients when he was making ours and as a joke he gave Hunter what was literally probably a half cup of nuts as toppings. He went to take it back, but Hunter decided it looked good and to keep it. The nutty sundae was delicious! We watched "Isn't it Romantic", which was ok but not as funny as we hoped.
The starter
Hunter's dinner
Stormy's Dinner
The lounge entrance
The view from the lounge
I was glad he was on a nice flight and waited for my flight to Ottawa which left as expected a few hours late. I was already through customs and in the car with my parents before Hunter reached California, despite the delay. During his short layover in LAX he stopped by PF Chang's one of the restaurants we have access to for a quick lunch. He easily made the flight to LAS and was on his way driving home
Despite our reservations, particularly when it came to safety, Brazil was amazing and we found the people very friendly. In addition, it was very reasonably priced and we had a ton of fun visiting. Our lovely flights home were the perfect end to another great adventure! However, we already find ourselves asking where to next?
Date: July 15-16, 2019
