Bye bye Brazil

Final exploration

We we say goodbye to Brazil and fly out of Rio to Buenos Aires, to connect to our flight back to New Zealand.

We didn’t want to fit too much into the morning and had decided we’d just go to the Metropolitan Cathedral of San Sebastian.  But first up, I went to the gym to find it being used already.  So I did some yoga standing poses until the place cleared out … it wasn’t big or well-equipped enough for two people!

The cathedral didn’t look very nice from the outside.  It looked like a cooling tower of sorts.  But once inside, it was impressive in its own way: eg. the spaciousness, the large panels of stained glass on four sides and the crucifix at the apex.

The internal and external wall had lots of space which I thought would attract nesting birds and pests.  That’s my experience from growing up in the tropics.  We heard some chirping but it didn’t seem to rampant.

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Cashlessness

We had a light breakfast at Tic Tac before returning to ready ourselves and check out at 1200.  With about BRL50 left, we returned to Tic Tac for a light lunch to finish up all our local money.

Brazil is indeed impressive with its cashlessness.  I’ve only had to do one withdrawal (with considerable local fee) during our entire two week stay in Brazil.  One can use a credit card even with a street vendor that doesn’t even have a stall but walking around with a bin of goods!  It is as good as the most developed countries in Europe.  China and New Zealand can be quite cashless but they’re not so good for visitors with their barcode or domestic debit cards respectively.

Leaving Rio

We Uber’ed to the airport around 1300 to arrive about 3h30 before our 1710 Emirates flight to Buenos Aires.  There was a large river near the airport and a favela nearby too.  There was a small odour which I presume came from the river.

Surprisingly check-in was already open with no queue.  The Emirates staff said that the airline opens early because most hotels have a midday checkout and it helps passenger convenience.  That really surprises me as airlines don’t really care about things like that.  In this case, the staff have to be stay until the aircraft returns from Buenos Aires to Rio to continue to Dubai at 0255.  That would be one long shift.

He kindly also accepted Kim’s luggage and offered to interline it all the way to New Zealand. Many airlines won’t even through-check luggage when booked on separate bookings on their own airline!  What an awesome guy he was.

The Plaza Premium lounge at Rio international airport was equipped with Plaza’s standard furniture but the spaciousness and outlook made it one of the most likeable I’ve been in.  The couple of hours there went quickly before we took a long walk to the gate.  It  looks like Rio airport had allocated a lot of real estate for lounges and some of the space hadn’t been taken up yet.

The Boeing 777-200LR was very annoying with its ventilation noise on the ground but once airborne the noise level was quite pleasant.  On the 3h40 flight, a very substantial meal was served but the quality and taste wasn’t what Emirates normally delivers.

Transiting at Buenos Aires

We landed a little early at Ezeiza airport.  Most people had already stood up when an announcement was made for us to be seated so that we could be towed to the gate.  It was 8 degC outside so after over two months of summer, I was grateful that we weren’t at a remote gate.

We followed the signs for Flight Connections.  We had done online check-in for our flight to Auckland but it required boarding passes to be collected at the counter.  We had a barcode that wasn’t quite a boarding pass.  Some of quirks of flying on staff tickets.

Looking at the connection area, the first stop was security.  There was no transit counter beforehand.  We thought that if security let us through, we might not get any assistance if there wasn’t a transit desk, until the gate staff arrive for boarding.

To play it safe, we cleared immigration.  That was quick and so was the Air New Zealand check-in.  Again, we were surprised it was open at 2100 when departure was 0030.  Going through airside again, security was quick but immigration a little less so.  It was interesting to see signs that drinks were permitted to be carried airside with a limit of 5 litres and 70% alcohol.  I’ve never seen any exceptions internationally for LAG restrictions; I wonder how it works for flights from Argentina to the USA where it would surely be a requirement!

I decided to some investigation airside on whether there was a transit desk for Air New Zealand.  Yes, there was.  It was just after the security checkpoint from Arrival to Departure airside.  Good to know for next time.  They open at 2000, which was 4h30 prior to departure.

Airside, we couldn’t use the lounge tonight. It was meant to have been available to us from 2200 but due to customer demand they estimated 2330 which was the boarding time for our flight.

Boarding was a little scary for us.  I overheard some standby staff being offloaded and turned away at the airbridge  We were on a very high category of staff ticket (once a year long service) so we boarded without any issues.  Speaking to the other staff later, they explained that they had ben issued boarding passes but the local manager had been instructed to offload all standby staff pending resolution of weight issues.  Fortunately, they all made it onboard.