Feb. 4 Home

It was wonderful to have another morning with nothing scheduled until 4 pm when we head to the airport. We had a leisurely breakfast and then went out for a walk. On our way out of the hotel we met another guest who had just had her phone stolen out of her hand as she was standing on a corner checking the GPS to figure out which way to turn. Someone came along on a bike and grabbed it. She hurried back to the hotel and was able to track its location using the Find My on her iPad. It was only a kilometre away, but likely never to be seen again. 
I had been warned the day before by a local lady when I stopped to take a picture. She said, as best as I could understand her Portuguese, that they snatch phones out of tourists hands frequently. Having first hand knowledge of this petty theft made me feel uncomfortable. 
We went for a short walk, keeping our phones out of sight, walking hand in hand with my cross body purse between us. We needed to go to a currency exchange to get more Brazilian Reals to pay for our ride to the airport. 
We returned to the hotel in time to watch our son Jeff be voted in as a Township Councillor to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Mayor Jim Aitcheson. We are very proud of him!
There was time for a nap and a shower before the trip to the airport. It was much speedier than our ride into the city yesterday. 
In hindsight, we would have been better to spend more time in Rio. When we booked our flights, the thought was we have to go through Sao Paulo on our way from Rio, so rather than sit for a few hours in the airport waiting for the connecting flight, let’s go a day early and see something of the city. It is not a touristy city and it is so big and takes so long to get from one interesting area to another. 
This will be my last blog about our trip. It has exceeded our expectations by a huge margin. We were staggered by the beauty of Antarctica and enjoyed all the ports of call we made. Iguazu Falls was more breathtaking than we imagined. Rio was a hit, São Paulo a miss but such a small part of our trip that we weren’t bothered by that. We have now visited 6 continents and Oceania is on the list for sometime in the future. But this summer, we head for camera safaris in Kenya and Tanzania. Stay tuned!

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