Up at 1.00am to be ready for Geoff who was collecting us at 2am and taking us to the airport (LHR terminal 5) for our 6.15 flight to Madrid where we were connecting with our flight to Rio de Janeiro. We made good time to Heathrow arriving around 3.30 and along with a growing handful of travellers we sat and watched the airport wake up and ready itself for day one of the Olympics. None of the check in counters opened until 5 am - a lesson for the future - so 2 hours before is unnecessary for the first flight! Luckily I found a Costa Coffee in arrivals - doing a good trade from both travellers and workers alike needing a coffee fix.
At 5am we checked in we made our way to the departure gate - before we got on the rail link we watched the passengers from Hong Kong, who were on first flight to land get off and make their way to immigration.
Everything from there on in went like clockwork and we arrived in Rio 10 minutes before schedule; whizzed through immigration and collected our bags - one of the first off yippee. The airport looked very tired and will need a revamp if it is to be as welcoming in 2016 as the London we just left was to arriving athletes and spectators. On emerging into the arrivals hall a scour of the names indicated that our driver hadn't arrived - while I rummaged in my bag for the details John went for another look and returned with a beaming Brazilian - trousers tucked into his socks which -we noticed, over our stay, to be his standard dress - as it was how he always looked and we did not become aware of any great infestation of insects at the airport or on the reserve where we stayed! We followed him to the mini bus and got in for the two hour trip to REGUA - Reserva Ecologica de Guapi Assu approximately 60 miles north of Rio. This included tackling the Friday night Rio traffic which was just like a Friday night anywhere! We arrived quite tired to be greeted by Camellia, a much travelled Bulgarian, fluent in Chinese and English and volunteering there for 3 months while her Dutch boyfriend was researching a guide book on dragonflies- she was a great asset to the Lodge particularly as they had guests from Taiwan and the UK for the next 4 days!
We were offered a plate of lovely fresh sandwiches - excellent - having consumed some of them(too many to manage all) we made our way to bed as breakfast was 6am the next day!