More adventure than I bargained for...

Come Monday morning, I had my alarm on at 7am. I wondered downstairs to get breakfast and check-out, and lo and behold: the weather was PERFECT. I'm talking about the Rio de Janeiro you see in postcards - clear blue sky, bright sun. I contemplated the 22-hour bus ride ahead of me for maybe 5 seconds, and fired up my laptop to look for alternatives. It turned out that TAM had sold out all their reasonably priced flights, but Varig's low cost airline arm, Gol Aerolinhas, had a late evening flight via Curitiba available for around $250. Compared with the $90 bus ride, the 4 hour flight seemed a much more attractive option, and would let me enjoy a really great last day in Rio, to make up for all the rain and the hang-glider incident disappointment.

After getting the flight, I set out to do a couple of things I'd wanted to do the whole time, but couldn't due to the weather. I booked a guided rock climb up Sugarloaf for the afternoon, then headed to Corcovado to see the famous Christo Redeentor (Christ the Redeemer) statue. The train to the statue would have required a 45min wait, and I was a little short on time, so took a guided tour in a minibus instead. We got some amazing views over Rio, and got up close and personal with the statue. Part of the "New seven wonders of the world", the statue was impressive but most of its appeal derives from its location. The view over Rio is just breathtaking, and conversely the statue is visible from most of the city (when it's not obscured by clouds, grr!) and is one of its most famous landmarks.

After visiting o Redeentor, I chilled (questionable choice of words, given the +28C temperature) on Ipanema beach for about an hour with the folks from the hostel. Jill (a girl working at the hostel) said this was the best day she had seen in Rio during her 5 weeks here - once again making me glad I decided to stay an extra day. After an hour it was time to head back to the hostel for my climbing trip pickup. I was whisked away in an old-school Land Rover, quickly checked out my rental gear, and dropped off at Sugarloaf. I had asked to do the most famous climb on it, called Italianos, a multi-pitch 5.9. The guide asked briefly about my experience with granite, face climbs and tougher grades, and I managed to convince him I roughly knew what I was doing.

We got a relatively late start for the climb at 4pm, following an arduous approach through the jungle carrying all our ropes and gear. A couple of climbers were already at the spot, and we had a fun chat about transporting "climbing gear for the head" (the kind that helps you climb higher at the tents after a day on the rocks) across national borders... The guide was pretty open in other ways, too - about 20 minutes into meeting him he divulged pretty personal details about how he landed his Argentinian girlfriend.

The climb itself was great. We had amazing views over Rio, the Lagoon, and Corcovado with Christo Redeentor on top. The sun was shining, the rock was nice and warm without being scorching. By the time I topped Italianos, we had an awesome sunset to admire. The only problem was, my borrowed shoes started seriously hurting pretty early in the climb, and I knew there were still several pitches to go. Add to this the fact I hadn't been climbing in a while and had no protective callouses in my hands, and the granite was tearing my fingers to pieces. The going got pretty painful, and pretty slow, from early on. Given we had also started late, the sunset caught us a bit unprepared.

We had to use the last remaining light to quickly rappel down, and by the time we cleared the 4 pitches to the ground, it was almost completely dark. Neither one of us had a flashlight, but we still had to somehow find our way back to the parking lot. Now, my nightvision is pretty poor due to Lasik, and consequently there are few things I hate more than scrambling through uneven terrain in the dark. This time, though, we had a couple of bonus factors to make it even better: instead of hiking boots, we were both wearing flip-flops. It was wet, muddy, and SLIPPERY. There were big rocks and roots to kick and/or trip over. And, as I realized as soon as we got back on the ground and I put my watch back on again, we were under tremendous time pressure. I had thought I should leave the hostel around 8pm to make my flight, but it was already 7:50pm when we finished rappeling. So we had to move fast.

After half an hour of scrambling, cursing, falling and getting lost in the woods, we finally made it to the parking lot. By now it was 8:30pm, and I had 1.5 hours left before my flight. The guide explained this to a taxi driver, who indeed put Jari Gronholm (a Finnish rally driver) to shame in getting me back to the hostel. Luckily I had all my stuff packed already, but my hopes of a warm shower were certainly dashed. Covered in sweat, sunblock, bruises, mud, and chalk, I rushed back to the cab and held on to a glimmer of hope I'd make the flight. On the way to the airport, the cab driver shamed Kimi Raikkonen himself, and got me there by 9:15pm, 45 minutes before take-off.

To my surprise, the Gol Aerolineas staff didn't seem even slightly concerned, or indeed, even bother to fast-track me. They took my baggage about 40min before departure, and I wasn't even the last passenger - the big guys could learn something from these small, efficient budget airlines. I changed into a slightly less sweaty T-shirt in the men's room, washed off most of the mud, and realized I hadn't eaten anything since noon. So, my last meal in Rio became a couple of so-so meat empanadas wolfed down at the airport, but I've never felt this good about making a flight.