This is an account of a series of minor and major mishaps that have resulted in my spending a total of 36 hours at two airports in four days. I am sure it is a rather dull read and there's just one photo, but this story of loss, desperation, sleep deprivation, redemption and karaoke needed to be told.
The GRU Sao Paulo airport
It was bound to happen at some point.
Around noon on December 10th, I left the hostel in Olinda for the Recife airport, to catch my flight to Iguazu Falls at 2:30pm. When I got there and tried to check in at an electronic kiosk, my confirmation number was not recognized, and I couldn't find my flight on the Departures board. Huh. Odd, but but not panicking yet.
I pulled up my electronic flight confirmation on my computer and realized I got the time mixed up -- my flight left at 2:30am that day, not 2:30pm. Crumbs. (I find that using British slang words in lieu of cursing helps to calm me down). I'd already purchased my flight from Iguazu back to Rio with a booking company (Kiwi.com) with a non-refundable policy. So at this point, I had two choices:
1. Try to get to Iguazu by booking another ticket (could be expensive, and I would not have as much time there as originally planned)
2. Cut my losses and just get back to Rio and rest there for a couple days until it was time to catch my flights to Bangkok on December 14
I decided to push forward and try to make Iguazu happen. The best deal meant getting two fights: one from Recife to Sao Paulo, and then one from Sao Paulo to Foz do Iguasu. I made the bookings around 4:00pm, but six hours later, Kiwi still hadn't confirmed the bookings with the airlines. I didn't want to leave the airport until I knew when I was going to fly out of there, so I put off making a hotel reservation. Around 11pm, my flight from Recife to Sao Paulo was confirmed, but the second flight (Sao Paulo to Iguazu) was not. By then, I had found an alternate flight that was $100 cheaper, so I chatted with a Kiwi rep to see if I could get the Sao Paulo-to-Iguazu flight cancelled and refunded (which they did, because if the flight hasn't been confirmed yet, it's eligible for cancellation and refund, thank goodness). However, when I tried booking the cheaper one to replace it immediately afterward, the flight was full, and all other flights to Iguazu were either too expensive ($300+) or wouldn't leave soon enough to give me more than 24 hours at the falls. Damn it all to hell.
So at this point it was time to cut my Iguazu Falls losses and move on. I'll just have to make sure I see them when I go to Argentina someday (I hear the Argentina side is better anyhow). In any case, I had a flight from Recife to Sao Paulo (CGH airport) confirmed for the next morning (December 11), so I just stayed the night at the Recife airport. There is a "hotel" at the Recife airport where you can rent tiny rooms with beds and alarm clocks by the hour, called the Siesta Box -- amazing -- but they were all taken the night I stayed there. So I just stayed awake all night watching House on Netflix and chatting with people back home. Since I still needed to get to Rio by December 14th, I booked a flight from Sao Paulo to Rio for 6:45pm on December 12.
The next morning, I made my flight to Sao Paulo, because I am a capable adult who will not miss any more flights! (Eh, maybe one more, just to really drive the lesson home.)
I stayed the night of December 11th in a wonderful hotel in Sao Paulo for only $41. Hotels -- sweet, sweet hotels with their fresh-smelling queen size beds, fast wifi, hot showers, tiny shampoo and conditioner, real towels, privacy, televisions, breakfast buffets, wake up call service, and snack bars -- feel so incredibly luxurious now. I was so tired when I finally got there, I didn't have energy to go out and find a proper meal, so I ate the snack bar: Pringles, cookies, two bags of cashews, two cereal bars, a can of Skol (the Brazilian PBR) and three mini bars of fine chocolate. The only edible items left were a KitKat bar and two packets of Trident. It probably cost me $50 but I have no regrets.
Since I'd decided to just go back to Rio, I booked an AirBNB for 12/12 to 12/14 that I thought was close to the GIG Rio airport, but then I had to cancel it, because the place turned out to be quite far from the airport (I misread the map), and I would have ended up spending more money on taxis than I'd lose from the cancellation. Then I booked another AirBNB place, closer to the Rio airport.
That night at the hotel, I also realized that my flight from Sao Paulo to Rio would be out of a different Sao Paulo airport (GRU) than the one I'd arrived at (CGH), so I'd have to figure out how to get to the other airport all the way across town -- a "town" that is the 3rd largest in the world, right behind Tokyo and New York (based on population, not land area, but still) without spending a fortune on a taxi.
The morning of December 12, I left the beautiful hotel, and walked in the rain to the Metro station. On the way, I slipped on the wet sidewalk and fell on my knee, which tore my leggings and scratched up my leg. No biggie -- this is why I have a first aid kit. Got some antibiotic cream and a bandaid on that sucker and went on my way. The metro was super easy to use, and I got to the CGH airport station just fine. From there, I booked a shuttle to get me from the CGH airport to the other Sao Paulo airport, GRU, and arrived there around 3:00pm. My flight wasn't until 6:45 so I had plenty of time. The airline I needed to check-in with was called OceanAir, but I couldn't find their desks ANYWHERE. After roaming up and down Terminal 2 (where signs insisted OceanAir was supposed to be located), a helpful person at the information desk informed me that OceanAir was an Avianca-owned airline, so I needed to check in with Avianca.
OH, OKAY -- GOOD TO KNOW. Maybe mention that somewhere in the confirmation email next time, OceanAir...
So I got my boarding pass and made my way to the gate an hour before boarding. Then the flight was delayed for an hour, and they changed the gate from 215 to 217. Around 7:00pm, our new boarding time, a line started to form at Gate 217 but the readerboard said "Fortaleza." Odd. I hadn't heard any more announcements about the Rio flight moving to another gate, but then again, it's hard to catch announcements in a language you don't speak. I probably should have been more diligent about taking responsibility to compensate for that disadvantage. By the time I found an Avianca airlines worker to ask what gate the flight had been changed to, I was told that it had already left. Bollocks.
I was instructed to go back to the Avianca check-in desk to get another ticket to Rio issued at no additional cost. When I got there, however, the line was completely backed up; as far as I could see, there was NO ONE at the desk to help everyone waiting in line, so it wasn't moving at all. Finally, one person showed up, but by then I was already figuring out alternate options, like maybe catching an overnight bus to Rio. Then, I realized that my Rio-to-BAngkok flight itinerary begins with a flight to Sao Paulo... to the same airport I was currently standing in. I really didn't need to go to Rio at all, it turned out. Better to just stay in Sao Paulo for a few days, and come back for my connecting flight to Ethiopia at 2:00am on Thursday morning. So I cancelled my Rio AirBNB (and got no refund, because of the host's strict cancellation policy). Trying to plan ahead can be a very expensive ordeal.
Since it was already about 10:00pm by the time I figured all this out, I decided to just stay the night at the airport to save some money; this time I did actually sleep a bit, from 3-6:00am in a leather armchair at a Starbucks. I booked a hotel near the GRU airport for Tuesday night, though, so as to maintain sanity. Fortunately, this hotel was able to check me in super early on Tuesday morning, around 9am, so there was still time to catch their breakfast buffet and get plenty of naps in a real bed. Things were shaping up.
Now that I had about a day and a half in Sao Paulo, I contacted my friend Tom, who lives there with his wife, Erika (who is Brazilian by citizenship, Japanese by heritage). He said they had plans that night to go to a karaoke bar as part of a going away party for some friends moving to Israel, and invited me to join them.
To get to the karaoke place, I had to take a taxi to the nearest metro station, and since the hotel is near the airport and far from everything else, the taxi was $20 – ouch. But the metro was easy to use, and it dropped me off about a block away from the karaoke bar, called Siga la Vaca (“Follow the Cow,” in Spanish). Tom introduced me to his wife, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and other friends, including the couple who was moving to Israel, and then we caught up on life for an hour. We haven’t seen each other since the Chez Gaudy days back in 2007-2008, so I’m not sure it’s fair to say we “caught up” with all that’s happened in that time, but it was wonderful to touch base even briefly. Tom is the same kind, thoughtful person I remembered. Always nice when you run into people from your past and you still have a personal connection with them.
At midnight, we went upstairs to our karaoke room, and I signed up to sing Chicago’s “You’re the Inspiration.” About 20 seconds into my song, two guys from our group put their chairs in front of the stage, facing away from me. People started laughing and someone started filming them with their camera. At the key change, they both slapped their knees and spun their chairs around, and everyone erupted with laughter and cheering.
Afterward, when I asked Tom what that was all about, he asked if I’d ever seen The Voice. OOOHHH – OF COURSE! That also explained why, once I finished the song, one of the guys said, “I hope you pick me!” (I had laughed at the time, but I was very confused.) Too funny. I am actually really impressed by how supportive and creative that was! People are awesome.
I am so looking forward to seeing my mom and Therese in Thailand in two days, and not just because they will come bearing gifts like new underwear, a second bra, new leggings to replace the ones now torn in the knee, a Go Girl, peanut butter, a notebook, and most importantly, a shiny new iPhone7 :)
Goodbye for now, Western Hemisphere!