Getting ready for Brazilian taxis and Hang-gliding and my hostel in Chile

My last posts have been very text heavy, so I'm trying to add in some pictures and links for this post. Unfortunately adding in pics from the web isn't working with me right now, so you'll just have to see the pics at the links I provide.

After realizing that I only booked my hostel in Rio until the morning of February 17th and that I am leaving for Santiago on the 18th, I was luckily able to go online and just book a room at the same hostel for an additional night.

I then realized that I don't have any arranged transportation from the airport to the hostel. I did some online research about this.

The first site I came to was this one: http://www.rioairporttransfer.com/

It looks like a nice site and great service, but they wanted 94 bucks for a round trip taxi. It seemed a bit expensive, so I dug a bit further and came across this site:

http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/South_America/Brazil/Estado_do_Rio_de_Janeiro/Rio_de_Janeiro-1504237/Transportation-Rio_de_Janeiro-Get_a_Taxi-BR-1.html

This has traveler suggestions and posts about their experiences. From this I was able to figure out that I should pay somewhere between 40 and 80 reales (about 22 and 45 dollars) for a taxi. I also found out that apparently red lights are ignored at night, not only by taxi drivers but also by the police. Sounds like an adventure.

After all that I was able to book a taxi to pick me up from the airport through my hostel. The hostel has a good reputation, and it will cost me 65 reales. This sounds more reasonable, and hopefully I will be able to get the same rate on my taxi ride back to the aiport.

After reading about it in my travel guide, I looked up a website about hang gliding in Rio.

So this will be me in a few weeks: www.justfly.com/br

I am a true adventure seeker, and this will be an awesome experience.

Last but not least, I found out where I will be spending my first month in Santiago! I will be staying at the Hostal Providencia. The accomodations seem very nice for a hostel, and their website is very impressive:

http://www.hostalprovidencia.com/

The last details of my trip include adding my brother to my bank account, getting Brazilan reales and Chilean pesos, cancelling my car insurance and cell phone, and oh yeah, packing.

Countdown to departure: 15 days