No Fixed Plans

We had to meet at 8:30am to head down to the port. We had a 45 minute journey back to the mainland where we then got on a semi private transfer (there was 3 people we didn’t know who were going somewhere else) close to our hostel in Rio. For whatever reason the van itself couldn’t go right up to the door so we all had to walk up a steep hill with our bags to get to the door or the hostel. None of us with heavy backpacks were happy about it. We then learned that the hostel doesn’t have an elevator so we had to walk up 3 more flights of stairs. In this hostel, the girls had rooms of 6 and when we entered the room, we realised that there should’ve been a max of three in the room. The room had no space, housecleaning had decided to only half do our rooms so most of the beds were stripped but none of us had sheets, blankets or towels and we saw what looked like mould on the ceiling. We told reception about the sheets so while they were doing the beds we were sitting on the stairs near our room. This is when we noticed that the vent in the hallway was leaking. Everyone felt gross in the hostel so 12 out of 18 of the group decided to book accommodation elsewhere (most of them were staying extra days so they just extended their booking) with 5 of us only staying because we were checking out pretty early on the departure day. 

After our beds got made, we went down for an orientation walk before most of us ubered to the shopping part of Rio. We all walked around for a while and shopped before heading to a rooftop area for dinner. After dinner 5 of us planned to head to a club for a few drinks before bed but we couldn’t find the club we were looking for (it wasn’t where maps said it was) so we took it as a sign that it was time for bed and went back to the hostel. 

The next morning we had to leave the hostel at about 8:30am to go to this Favela experience. During this experience we learned about different plants the community grows in their garden, met a woman who made jewellery and other things out of donated trash, saw music making equipment and then 3 adults and 2 children started trying to teach us how to do their dances (spoilers, we were all really bad). We finished the experience off with a 15 minute yoga experience before going off to our starting point.  

It was after this that I was supposed to be doing hang gliding (about an hour and a half after this experience ended) but the tour operator had been messaging me asking to reschedule to the next day as the wind was going to be too bad at 2pm so I agreed. Instead I went back with the 8 of us who wasn’t doing the city tour and was planning to go back to the hostel for a bit. 

I went with the girls in my room who were moving to check into their new hotel and then we went out to lunch at a local Asian restaurant. After which we all separated to do our own thing for a bit. Four of us met back up at five as two of us had appointments to get a tattoo. The other girl went first and got a tattoo of two dancing stick people. Right before I went up to get the stencil done, our ceo had come to check on us. After she saw the other girls tattoo and how calm and pain-free I was while being tattooed, we were able to convince her to get a matching tattoo with the other girl. 

While the ceo felt we had lied about how painless it was, in the end she was happy she got it. 

Myself and the ceo had to go back to the hostel and then uber to dinner. We found two others in the hostel who hadn’t left yet who came in the uber with us. We ended up being an hour late however as we had about 4 Ubers cancel on us at the last second. 

We had our farewell dinner with our group and then most of us went out for drinks after. 

Myself and my roommate ended up back at the hotel at 12:30am where we wanted to pack before going to bed. While my roommate decided to actually stick to that plan, I decided to keep getting distracted and even ended up in the other girls room for about 15 minutes talking to two of them in that room about some stuff (and stealing an earring back off one of them). 

My roommate however didn’t mind this cus after I came back I actually decided to focus and finished packing 5 minutes after her. 

We had to get up at 7:30am but we both for some reason woke up at 7. We did the last bits of packing that you can only do in the morning, checked out, then headed to our friend’s hotel to leave our stuff in their room. The initial plan was to quickly do this and then uber to Christ the redeemer however their hotel wasn’t too happy with the idea of two girls not booked at the hotel going up to the rooms so we had to get our friends to come down. After one of the friends talked to reception for about 20 minutes, they finally agreed to allow us to leave our bags in the rooms under the condition that we didn’t actually go up, so one of our friends took our bags up for us. 

In the uber we initially thought that we may be charged again by Christ (we had booked our tickets online for a 9am train) but after getting there and waiting in line for about 40 minutes, they gave us the physical tickets and put us in a new line no problem (even though it was 9:45). We then had to wait for the trains to come which took about 35 minutes. At this point we were both starting to get hungry, which is where we got happy that I had brought a bag of snacks with me (I had a pretty fair idea I’d need them through the day) so we were both able to enjoy a row of rice crackers and a cookie before the train. 

The train ride up there took about 25 minutes. We both took our time heading up the stairs and had taken a free ribbon to tie on the gate near by. 

We then went up to see Christ, took photos (individual and perspective) and took some time to look at the views. 

We stayed until 11am when we then decided we wanted to head down. As we saw how long the line was (and heard our friends say it took them 3 hours to come back), we decided that we didn’t want to wait for the train to come back. Instead, we decided to go for a 30 minute walk down the van path. On this path there is no service and no footpath so we were both just hoping we got to the right place in the end (and almost had a few close calls with vans coming down the path). 

After getting to about the half way mark, we had service again and then both booked Ubers, her to the beach and mine to the start point of hang gliding.

We both got motorbike Ubers as they tended to be cheaper, easier for them to come down to where we were, faster and more fun to ride on. 

I ended up being a bit late to my hang gliding (my tour operator knew as I had messaged him before) but it was no issue. 

We went up to the park where you jump off (we made a pit stop at the guys house first for some unknown reason) and as another guy set up the equipment, the operator put both of our harnesses on and then we practiced running at the same time. 

I ended up being in the air for 7 minutes before landing on the beach. 

I then got to see the footage from the different cameras and decided to buy the footage from the 360° camera. By the time the footage was updated to my phone, it was about 2:45 so I needed to head back to the hotel. When I got there, it was too late to have an actual lunch so I had some more of my snacks before myself and the roommate from before grabbed our bags from our friend’s room and got into our uber to head to the airport. 

We got their around 5:15 and separated to check in, not saying a proper goodbye as we assumed that we’d be able to stay together until our flights, not realising that we’d be in different sections of the airport as my first flight was domestic and hers was international, something we were both upset  about. 

As I was boarding though, I realised that one of the other girls from our tour was on the same flight so we were able to stay together until we actually got on the plane as we were sitting in different sections.