Sunday, February 7, 2010

Welcome to Ribeirao Preto!

After about 14 hours of traveling, I've made it to Ribeirao Preto, located about 3 hours from Sao Paulo and about a 40 minute flight.

I'm grateful that I had a 3.5 hour layover in Sao Paulo because clearing immigration, customs, walking to the terminal next door, and after 2 check-in desks said I couldn't check in with them, I had about 1 hour left to kill and it was lunchtime.

I got into eating Acai bowls in Hawaii and found a fast food burger place that sold them! Acai are Brazilian berries so I had to try a bowl where they originated (although a burger and fries sounded awfully good!). The Acai bowl wasn't icy as they make them in Honolulu, but still sweet and refreshing with banana slices (no granola). I ordered a fruit cup, which made it a little more exciting than Acai and bananas. It was quite filling and I hope to find more opportunities to eat them since no one in Houston seems to sell them.

I was warned that the flight to Ribeirao Preto was on a small commuter jet and the RAO airport was tiny. I didn't expect that they would bus us from the jet to the terminal when it would've been faster to walk. Instead, the bus made a big circle around the planes and deposited us on the far end of the building. I had to take a picture to show just how close the plane and terminal were. The bus had to return to pick up remaining passengers.

The power appeared to have been out at the airport. The lights inside were off yet they were still letting the planes depart. There're improving the terminal so baggage claim didn't require any electricity - guy in tractor delivers the bags and deposits them one-by-one on a platform. Wouldn't you know it, my bag was one of the last to be delivered.

The hotel van was waiting for me. The guy doesn't speak any English, but listens to pop music in English. The hotel is about a 10 minute drive, shorter if we weren't behind a horse-drawn cart hauling a mattress.

The hotel is a resort with 3 swimming pools (first one is outside of my room, the second one is heated and a fat guy is hiding in the water under the swim-up bar, didn't get to the third one yet). Unfortunately, it's a little rainy today and I doubt we'll be finished with work early enough to enjoy the surroundings. But everything is very green and the soil is red. It's really quite lovely here and I hope to add more photos to the blog later in the week.

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