The last morning in João Pessoa and I discovered that the orange yoghurt I’ve had a few times also has carrot (cenoura) in it. What on earth?

Off to the airport with the assistance of a great Uber driver who managed to pack all of our suitcases into his car. A little easier than when we arrived here and I thought the back window of the car was going to be blown out.

As a final goodbye I spotted this chap enjoying a sunny morning ride. These VW Robusts are cool little utes, and there are heaps of them around. Wish we had them instead of the big nonsense that’s so popular these days. Regardless, if this car crashes this guy is going to get a great view as he flies through whatever they crash into.

The airport was great, really quick check-in, and we tried our luck with priority again. This time the only hold up was some jackass who had a long conversation with the agent, then when and got his wife and luggage and checked in. I desperately wanted to shout “hey bro, back of the line” but it would have been lost on him.

Security was fast, they didn’t want anything taken out of the bags, and didn’t care about more than 100ml of anything. Even the waiting area was great, in between the seats were pedestals with power sockets and USB ports so you didn’t have to sit around on the floor hogging the cleaners’ vacuum plug.

The only negative was this nonsense. What sort of psychopath creates a cup with a handle that doesn’t have a hole in it? That’s like putting a hot coffee into a glass. Where the hell are you supposed to hold it?

The tray mat had a word find in Portuguese which I thought would be an extra challenge but in the end it was more fun finding English words like cuppa, nifty, mile, bog and peni… oh, no “n”, damn.

As we were taxiing out, I was not heartened to see the control tower. I know this area is a little more rural that Rio, but still. Turns out this is the fire tower, the real control tower was on the other side.

The day was sunny almost the entire way, and there was such an amazing range of landscapes to see. Huge sand dunes, farmland stretching far past the horizon, river mouths, towns cut in half by a runway and a river with sandy beaches along it were just a small sample. My neck was sore afterwards because I pretty much spent the entire 3ish hours looking out the window. I refuse to grow up in some ways, any my love of seeing the land from the air is one of those ways. And taking 700 photos of it. And then insisting people look at them in an online blog.

There wasn’t anything too horrific during our flights passenger-wise. There does seem to be some habit of rushing up the aisle as soon as the seatbelt light is off after landing. I was never at the aisle to stick a helpful foot out, but I was glad to see that pretty much every person who did this ended up in exactly the same line as everyone else to pick up their luggage. Morons.

The guy in front of me did quite a few hand stretches at the end of the flight, sticking them towards my face and wrapping them around his headrest. Louie wouldn’t let me surprise him with something cold and moist on his fingers, spoilsport.

It was strange to be back in Rio, where our adventure started, and to be able to recognise a bit of the layout and landmarks. The weather didn’t seem to have changed much either, although we have had our fair share of sun this past week. Rio isn’t just a large city, it’s a densely packed city as well. There are apartment buildings crammed together, houses with small concreted yards and the favelas with their boxy houses stacked on top of each other. The funny thing is that the more expensive houses seem to be down towards the lower areas, and the favelas are built up hillsides meaning they have the best views.

After landing in the space of an hour we had to get off the plane, get our luggage, meet up with Louie’s sister and say goodbye to Luzimar, buy bus tickets and find where in the Rio airport the pick-up area was. The bus ticket guy gave us directions kind of, but Brazil is absolutely terrible at any sort of signs or directions. We ended up in the right place, but we didn’t know that since there wasn’t a bus, or a sign saying the bus pickup was there. We asked a guy who was controlling the pedestrian crossing who didn’t know where the pickup was, and thought it might be on another level up. We hauled ass up there with our luggage and found someone to ask. They didn’t really know, but pointed us inside. There we found someone who confidentially said it was downstairs (where we came from) and to the left. With four minutes before the bus was due to leave we got downstairs and there, to the right was the bus. The original crossing guy helpfully pointed out the bus to us. Apparently having been posted there all (and probably every) day, and this particular bus line picking up passengers near the crossing every two hours didn’t register with him. Let’s hope he doesn’t get reassigned to the information desk.

There were a few options we were looking at, including hiring a driver or driving ourselves but as it turned out, taking the bus was great. Comfy seats, a great view and very cheap plus we got to see so much more of the countryside than we would have otherwise. There were some areas that were completely foreign to me, especially leaving Rio with mile after mile of low income semi-favela houses. Out in the countryside it was very green and some parts reminded me of New Zealand. Then all of a sudden there would be a reminder we are in a very different country, like little towns built right up against the road all made of brick and parts of the roadside covered in rubbish and tyres with some guy in the middle sitting next to a small fire. For the most part it wasn’t all like this, but when you saw it, it stuck out.

Once we arrived in Búzios it was on to another Uber to get to the hotel which turns out is in a new area built for the haves. The places fronts onto a marina area, with plenty of development going on and a few pretty snazzy looking boats tied up.

There is a restaurant here so while the mosquitos dined on us, we dined on different types of steak. I tried the local beer, which was a definite step up from the usual Heineken and Amstel they offer here. Even though the waiter brought me an IPA (nasty bitter pretentious crap) instead of the lager I asked for it was quite good. Still no greens on offer, but the ice cream was great.

It’s been a busy day, loads of travelling and sitting so a good sleep and tomorrow is our first day in our last leg.