We’re here…
Squeezing every minute of free wifi out of Roma airport, we download some last minute apps, post statuses and thank people for their good luck wishes on Facebook. We feel very loved by it all and try to thank as many people as possible for their generosity. Pre-flight boarding, we walk circles round the airport to limit the potential of a deep vein trombone-sis attack whilst over the skies of Dakar. Lucy’s Alitalia pop appropriation of Americano still rings around my head. “Al-Al-Alitalia”…
We board the plane from Rome after a two hour connection wait, hoping for good seats, new films to watch and free booze to down. We receive most of these things but realise what we thought was a fairly casual seven hour flight was actually a more serious twelve.
After what seems like an eternity, Lucy’s hunger wobble gets fixed (in a way that most airplane food is) by some nourishing but strange beef (could have been horse) meal. I liked it.
Flicking through the in flight entertainment (I really wish they would ditch the touchscreens on the back of people’s seats) I watched the big lebowski for perhaps the 10th time. I also watched “Gambit”. I was impressed when in the titles I saw talent such as the coen brothers, Alan Rickman, Peter o toole and Colin firth. The rest of the film however didn’t live up to the promise of those opening titles. Falling inbetween funny and insulting to American and English stereotypes, the film traded mostly on the performances of Rickman and Firth dominating Cameron in the process (not like that… Tchoh!).
Intermittent sleep happens and slashes the hours we endure. Our seats are the center coupling of a block of four making the beer drinking a mistake. I wake up in a panic desperately needing the toilet, and with a mouth drier than a sand dune. The Chinese lady to the left of me is asleep. Lucy to the right of me is asleep. The lady to the right of Lucy is asleep. I endure the wait until Chinese lady magnificently gets up and has a little walk. (How far can you go on a plane?)
Liquids out. Liquids in. Relief and sleep.
The Alitalia pilot scores an amazing landing and gets a round of applause from the predominantly Italian crowd. Bravo indeed. Passengers motion the holy “spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch” in what I assumed for many italians was a regular crossing between the holy cities of Rome and Rio.
We are relieved to see our backpacks revolve on the carousel and begin the wait for our transfer to our hotel. The sun is newly born and we find ourselves a quiet place in the airport to reflect, turn on phones, attempt to find wifi and work out prices for snacks we buy.
Our shuttle man eventually arrives and I try to communicate using pigeon Spanish (El paroja?). We sort of get by and after picking up three other tourists, we are on our way.
The drive is hectic as we plough through Rio’s rush hour. The driver is adept at weaving and at this point I am glad we sat towards the back of the minibus. Most sections of the journey consist of three to six lane roads intensifying the density of cars, trucks and motorbikes who are all beeping their horns for attention. Our driver laughs loudly to the Portuguese radio show whilst the couple in front also chuckle away.
Our journey takes us on a route which has been divided by a large modern steel/perspex wall which looks fairly new. At points through the journey the Perspex section has been damaged and smashed and it becomes apparent we are driving past the favela slums of rio. Occasionally the elavation of the road lifts us above the wall and the full extent of the scale can be seen. And it is massive. Colourful decrepit and scary. Cattle animals graze in rubbish tips. Horses walk freely around the edges of construction sites. I presume the sites are happening to cover up the site of the favelas to the incoming tourism for the Olympics and World Cup in the next couple of years. They are going to need a much bigger carpet to sweep that under.
We arrive safely at the Windsor excelsior on Copacabana beach. We wait for our room to be prepared and head straight up to the rooftop pool. The view is spectacular.