Around The World In 80 Waves

I have been looking forward to seeing Brazil for many years and finally I am here.

If you exclude Alaska the country is bigger than mainland USA and I am only here for a few days (thanks to the useless customs people in Panama) so will only really be scratching the surface while I am here.

Brazil and the rest of South America are dominated by the Amazon, which is the lungs of the planet. It is vast and to give you an idea of the scale my flight over the Amazon from Panama City took over six hours, which is equivalent to flying from London to the Middle East.

Sadly my flight was overnight so I couldn’t even see it on the way to Rio de Janeiro. However I will get another chance when I fly across to the Pacific later on my trip.

No trip to Brazil can happen without football at least getting a mention, and if all the British football fans looked like this I would probably be more interested in watching the game.

Sadly I am not going to get to see a match here either because the season has just finished. (Again thank you very much Panamanian Customs!)

I have already seen the Maracana stadium here in the city though, which has recently been upgraded and I believe it will be opened officially with a match versus England in a few weeks time. My itinerary won’t allow me to stick around for that either though. Never mind! 

The world cup arrives here next summer and the whole country is gearing up for that. Indeed the redevelopment of the massive Maracana stadium is partly in preparation for that.

I hope however that they sort out the airport before next year of they will have a PR disaster on their hands.

I was kept waiting in line at the airport for nearly two hours just to have my passport looked at and get my tourist visa. That I had barely slept on the overnight flight and was feeling as close as I ever have to being a zombie did little to improve my mood at this point, but I bit my tongue and got through in the end. 

As a result of the World Cup, but also because Rio is also gearing up to host the next Olympics in 2016 I think Brazil is the place to be for the next decade.

I am interested to see how preparations are coming along here due to my own involvement in the ceremonies for the last games back in London. Whilst here I might try to get my name in the mix for the games in Rio because being part of the cast in 2012 was so much fun and I met so many great people.