A 3.30am alarm, a 4am pick up and we're in transit to catch a flight to Cartagena. Travel days are stressful enough and this early morning start gave us both foggy brains, but we were prepared as best we could, even with 4.5 hours sleep. It was all going so smoothly as we get to the Avianca counter. The agent asks for proof of our yellow fever vaccine. Whew! We had a last minute visit to the immunisation office in Ipanema before travelling to Ilha Grande - we are prepared. We pull out our blue immunisation record and he looks at us as if we don't know what he's talking about. In broken Spanish/Portuguese we explain that this was given as proof, but he keeps asking for our "papel amarelo" the yellow paper. Columbia requires an international certification of yellow fever vaccine when arriving from Brasil he tells us, and ours is a domestic certificate. Who knew? A closed office, a missed flight and a day of trying to re-schedule and it was going to cost us 3 times as much for flight changes. We crunched the numbers, found a last minute deal and ended up in the "new" section of Rio at a large commercial hotel across from the beach. Barra de Tijuca (or just Barra) is a sprawling suburb of condos and shopping centres lined by the beautiful beach. Even with rain storms, we were able to experience a more family-friendly Carnaval giving us a better understanding of Rio, and Carnaval in general. Our hotel was a non-stop scene of International and Brasilian tourists identified by matching shirts here to party and ultimately watch the main event in the Sambodromo. At the same time, the beachside restaurants were a communal feast with old friends and families greeting each other as they watched the kids shuffle by. We watched too. First from the hotel rooftop and then amongst it all . . . an unexpected spectacle out of our yellow fever delay.
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