My relationship with airports and other life hacks (Part one)

The alarm goes off and my friend, Nswana and I reluctantly peel ourselves out of bed. We’re in a hotel in Copacabana on our last day of what has been a pretty awesome trip in Brazil. The time is 4:30am and we have a 06h50 flight to São Paulo from Rio. The hotel is about 30 minutes from the airport and being the punctual people we are, we’ve planned everything down to the last second:

• Pack everything the night before
• Settle our bill
• Need to be out of the hotel by 05h15
• Arrive at the airport at 05h45 latest
• Check-in
• Take off at 06h50
• Arrive in São Paulo Paulo at 08h10
• Kill time for a couple of hours in the city
• Be back at the airport two hours ahead of 18h30 flight back to South Africa

By 05h05 we’re done and we head down to the hotel lobby where Phumla (who was part of our travel group of 10 and was staying not too far from us - equally punctual) is already waiting for us. By 05h15 the three of us are in an Uber on our way to the airport. We get to Galeao A.C Jobim International and try check our bags in. The lady at the counter does not know English. Nada. She gets one of her colleagues to assist us. He explains that it’s way too early to check-in our luggage. We have plans to explore the city of São Paulo and pulling these big bags around is just not going to cut it. We walk around the airport trying to find a place where we can leave our bags. We see signs that lead to the info desk, follow them and we find it, by a huge Father Christmas with a sleigh, Christmas display. We approach the ladies and in our best Portuguese (by this time I’m convinced I’m fluent in Portuguese – Nswana keeps hating and tells me to quit lying to myself) we ask “Você fala Inglês (Do you speak English)?” This has been our litmus test throughout the trip. A negative response means the conversation is over. Nothing to see here. Move right along.

Anyway, luck is on our side and one of the ladies understands English. Between her broken English and our broken Portuguese, she manages to get someone to take us to the designated baggage storage place. We get there, put our bags in the lockers, and get our keys and pay. And we’re off! Three responsible, punctual African girls set to take on São Paulo in under 4 hours. I mean, what could go wrong?

There aren’t any Ubers at the airport so we catch a cab. Our cab driver is the friendliest middle-aged lady and she’s just going on in Portuguese telling us about São Paulo. Phumla and Nswana are talking back in rudimentary English and me, in what I have convinced myself, is decent Portuguese (ignoring Nswan’a eye roll and silent plea for me to “stop that”).

Ok. I’m going to have to hit the fast forward button real quick here!

The time is now around 2pm and we decide we’re actually good, let’s head back to the airport. I pull up the itinerary on my phone to double check the name of the airport and I punch it in on my Uber app: Guarulhos International. Our Uber arrives and we hop in. We arrive at the airport way ahead of schedule. So much time on our hands – look at us! Now to find the baggage storage place.  So we start searching…and searching…and searching. The airport is HUGE and NOTHING looks familiar! Nobody speaks English. Time is running out, we’re going in circles and anxiety is at an all-time high! After running around for what feels like an hour, we see a sign written “Airport Services”. We head to the little office there and find a lady sitting behind a computer and guess what, she speaks ZERO English. We’re trying to explain our situation to her using Phumla’s Google Translate. We’re running out of time so we’re talking in brief phrases with the most important one being; “Baggage storage by a big Christmas display”. She gets someone on the phone and Nswana speaks to her. The person on the other end of the phone speaks perfect English, small win – big thumbs up. Nswana hangs up, sighs, looks at us and says, “Guys, we’re at the wrong airport”. We were at Guarulhos International, the airport we would be departing to SA from, however, earlier that morning, we had landed at  Galeao A.C Jobim International - clearly not the same airport. Our eyes pop out the way a cartoon character’s would if we were in an animated movie. The lady behind the computer explains to us (read as: types on her Google Translate) that we can catch a bus to the other airport. It should take us 20 minutes there and 20 minutes back – problem is, it is now peak hour traffic. We look at each other and run out of that office. We get to the bus stop and then realize it only leaves on the hour. Time is not a luxury so we decide to take a taxi which is ridiculously expensive but it’s either we pay that or miss our flight back home. So we pay.

We get to the other airport and find the baggage storage place in less than 2 minutes! It was that easy to find! We grab our bags and rush out to get a cab back to the other airport which we would be departing from. Nobody is talking in the car, we’re sweating bullets and dying from anxiety as we keep checking the time and the meter reader because funds are low. Important to mention is that we don’t have wifi nor data so this whole time so we aren’t able to communicate with the rest of our travel group, who had taken different flights to São Paulo to us. Traffic is pretty hectic because: Murphy’s Law. 

We finally get to the airport but cutting it super fine so we run to the boarding gates, determined not to miss our flight back to SA. Nswana’s phone beeps as it miraculously connects to the Starbucks wifi. It’s a message from one of the girls in our broader travel group. She (Nswana) reads it, looks at us and says; “Guys, our flight has been delayed by four hours!”