Day 19 -Our FINAL bus to our FINAL destination, RIO DE JANERIO!!
 
The next day it was our FINAL long distance bus and boy was I relieved!! By now Ads had had enough of them too, soon we will count how many / how many hours and I expect in the year we have done hundreds in number and god knows how many hours ................ must be in he thousands at least!! Our final bus was cool though, semi cama, free newspaper, drink and snacks but then it was the second most expensive of our entire trip! This bus was only 6 hours though and the other slightly more expensive one was 15 hours, its not cheap in Brazil! The journey along the coast wasn't as pretty as the one to Sao Paulo, it was flatter, less remote as we passed more towns and small cities, poorer areas were evident in places and from a distance Brazilian houses in some regions seemed to be on top of each other and very cramped.
 
6 hours later it was over and we had hit Rio! The last stretch of the journey was windy through the mountains, then we came upon the city and it was pouring it down!! Most people said that Rio was wicked compared to Sao Paulo but on first glimpses, the favelas, poverty, families and children sleeping under the freeways, dirt and graffiti was very much like Sao Paulo and I could see that Adam was already wondering why we had chosen to spend our last 9 days here, was it a mistake? The rain, misery and grey sky didn't help though, was somebody trying to get us used to what was to come when we got home?!!
 
As we got deeper and deeper into the traffic jams we came closer to the coast and travelled over many bridges. Water always makes a place look better in my eyes but the old boots, trolleys etc.. in the river reminded us of the Thames!!!! The outlook at the mo wasn't the best but then people had said 3 days here is enough but we had chosen 9!! Relieved to get off the bus, I sadly had my picture taken with the yellow banana wagon, then we spent another hour attempting to get a taxi. Due to the rain there weren't any and as our bus was 2 hours late we were now very late for getting our keys, that's if the apartment did actually exist, as when you have to wire money to some random landlord you do think the worst and at 9 at night we didn't want to be stuck in this place in the rain!! But all would be fine...........