Rain, rain and more rain!!

Wow, yesterday was a drizzly day but today, the monsoons hit. It gave us all quite an adventure and apparently really sent the traffic in Rio into a spin. First of all, there was a mudslide in one of the main tunnels in the city and our guide was about 45 minutes later arriving here. But we all innocently piled into the bus for our trip to Petropolis. 3 hours later, we had not gotten out of Rio yet!!! We watched as the cars were up to their bumpers in water and as traffic slowed to a crawl. We listened to the guide tell us about Petropolis for the first hour and then as things got progressively worse, we told jokes and talked and entertained ourselves with Noah jokes and such. After much discussion with the tour company that was operating this optional, they cancelled the trip and our bus maneuvered over to the left hand lane and jumped the curb, crossed the median and turned around and headed back to the hotel-first taking a much needed bano stop at a filling station just down the road!! Going back to the hotel was not nearly so crowded and the waters had receeded a good bit so we made it in only about 45 minutes, I think. They dropped us all off at the big mall which is one block from our hotel. We all enjoyed a good lunch of pizza there and did some shopping and then sloshed our way back to the hotel to dry out. It surely was not much of a photo op, but we did actually have a good time and there was not much else we could do today given the weather! Some went to the museums but so much of the beauty of Rio is outside. The waves are pounding and the rain has slowed to a hefty mist. Out farewell dinner tonight is here in the hotel so we are all snug and dry and having a restful afternoon. Most of us fly home on the direct flight to Atlanta on Delta tomorrow so we are not scheduled to leave for the airport til about 6 tomorrow night. This may change if the roads stay bad. We all agreed we would rather wait at the airport if there is any question. It has been fun but we are ready to head home!! I am just glad that Atlanta is our final flight destination and not the west coast like most of our friends!