The Road To Rio

Day 215

From our country retreat it was just 100 km to the colonial seaside town of Paraty: a nice easy ride we thought. We started off in sunshine but could see grey clouds in the distance. When it's really hot it's easy to think that the rain is your friend and there's always an initial moment of glee when the temperature drops ten degrees. However, we're back in the tropics now and the rain on this day was good old, sopping wet, thunder and lightening, can't see a thing, tropical rain. We rode through the rain pretty quickly but were soaking wet by the time we reached the end of the tarmac. The 10km of dirt road that led us through a national park from there was in fact marked as such on our map, but we hadn't looked closely enough to notice until we were half way through it. At that point there weren't any more cars trying to navigate the ruts, boulders and steep inclines that were getting worse by the kilometre, leaving us more or less alone to (very slowly) admire the dramatic jungley hills.

Paraty was definitely worth the effort, though, and a lovely place to spend the night: a beautifully preserved town where the relaxed old colonial centre next to the sea is all pedestrianised, making it perfect for strolls and photographs.

Days 216-218

On the morning of day 216 we woke with one goal: get to Rio! After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing to the internet cafe to get in contact with the agency with which we'd booked our flat for carnival, we set off for what should be our last official riding day of the trip. We had stopped mid-way at a petrol station for a drink and a rest when a Brazilian approached us and offered us directions for how to get to our destination in Ipanema in Rio because it was a bit tricky. We had quite a good map of the centre but more info is always better than less when going into a big city so we gladly accepted. As it turned out we would have been lost without them, or at least we wouldn't have managed to find the main highway into town – we were about 20 minutes late as it was but we reckoned we would have been hours late otherwise!

Unfortunately once in Rio we had a frustrating first couple of days trying to sort out the flat we'd booked – because the owner was still living in it! And so we had to spend a couple of nights in a hotel while he moved out. We are now fully installed though, and waiting for our friends who are coming from England to join us. Rio is already growing on us and Ipanema is a fantastic district within it, right next to the beach and near to a lake with stunning scenery and lots of yummy caipirinhas on offer.

The last couple of days of riding hit Ric particularly hard. In what Emily can only assume was a stalling tactic but Ric blames on his still-raw eye following the wasp sting, he dropped his bike three times in the last two days of the trip: once just before leaving the campsite in the country while getting the bike off the centre stand, once whilst telling Emily how bad the next bit off off-road track was in the National Park (by way of demonstration?) and, finally, at the petrol station on the way to Rio while reversing into a parking space. Or maybe it was just a last minute bid to win the “most number of drops” category of the trip which after those three Ric is now leading 8-6!

“Is this the end then?”, “Can we stop checking this blog?”, we hear you cry. Well, not exactly. Despite having started shipping enquiries while in BA we still haven't managed to sort anything out and we're running out of time. We can't book our flights home until we know what day the bikes leave so we're in a bit of a limbo at the moment wondering ourselves when our adventure will really end. One thing's for sure, though, we're going to enjoy a week or more of Rio and her carnival in the meantime...