Rio hotel booked, general wafflings

I did a bit of web searching and have booked a hotel in Rio, so that's Brazil largely sorted out now. I'm staying in the Flamengo area, which I gather is reasonably safe. The hotel also apparently has free wi-fi, which is nice. I could have got something cheaper but the one I've booked at sort of felt right and had some half-decent reviews, so I just went with it. I could have got it for £10/night less than I'm paying by booking with expedia.co.uk, but they said their price might not include all taxes and hotel service charges, so I decided I'd go with someone who could be up-front about the cost instead. Shame, Expedia are normally pretty good.

With luck I will be able to start firming up my plans for Chile tomorrow but I guess we'll have to see. I'm in Skegness right now having just come back this afternoon with a last case of stuff to store here. I was half planning to get a lift with my Dad to Peterborough on Sunday morning and get a train to arrive at my flat about 11am/midday - the cleaner is coming at 10am to do the final clean, but I guess I don't need to be there all the time he's in. However, if the weather continues like this I probably can't risk it and will have to go back to London on Saturday afternoon. That means I either have to spend the night in my flat without any furniture, or pay for an extra night in a hotel. (Once the cleaner has been in I will have to go to a hotel, as I don't want to risk dirtying the place.) If I don't want to be checking into the hotel at 11pm then that also means I may have to go back earlier than I otherwise would. Decisions decisions...

Better late than never

I just got an e-mail (in good English, except for the fact that they addressed me as "Mr Steve" :-) ) from the hotel in Sao Paulo saying they have a room and apologising for the delay in getting back to me. I'm going to take it, the delay is a bit crap but no big deal since I haven't booked anything else. I've e-mailed back to ask how I can make any necessary payment as a deposit.

Maybe this is a good omen. It's one less thing to worry about anyway. :-)

Sao Paulo and Rio

I decided I'd give the hotel in Rio that replied badly to my e-mail a chance; they were much cheaper than lots of other places and they are listed in one of my guide books, which has to be some basic kind of recommendation. I electronically translated a simple booking request into Portuguese and sent it off; there's been no reply yet, but I guess it was New Year's Eve and then New Year's Day. I hope they get back to me soon though.

Still no response from the hotel I e-mailed in Sao Paulo (I keep wanting to spell that with 'o' instead of 'u'...) a few days ago; I might e-mail them again (this time in Portuguese) tomorrow, and/or I might start looking around for alternative hotels in both cities.

I've booked the internal flights from Sao Paulo to Rio and back again. The first flight I managed to get the airports I wanted - I fly from Congonhas to Santos Dumont, both of which are more central than the main airports. (It's a bit like flying from London City instead of Heathrow or Gatwick, I guess.) That's on Wednesday 20th January. I fly back on Tuesday 26th January out of Galeao international, which is not so great but, desperately looking for the silver lining, at least I'll see all four of the main airports in these two cities! I had to fly from there as I want to fly into Guarulhos, the main Sao Paulo airport. That's where I'm flying out of the next day to Santiago and where I've already booked myself in at the airport Marriott for that one night.

I should be making some sort of checklist. But for the record, if I haven't got confused, I now need to:
- get hotels booked in Sao Paulo and Rio
- book myself a hotel for a couple of nights in Santiago
- book myself a flight down from Santiago to Punta Arenas
- get a hotel booked in Punta Arenas for a few nights

That should complete the bookings I want/need to make before I leave the UK.