Following the third polite advisory, I figured there had to be a fair degree of substance to the warning. “If this is your first visit to Rio de Janeiro, please be careful,” came the personal hushed dialogue from the pleasant hostesses on a far from crowded Varig flight from Los Angeles to the famous Brazilian seaside city.
The previous evening I had flown into LA from Auckland en route to the 1985 international launch of the Fiat Uno Turbo. I was prepared for another long haul of just under 12 hours across Mexico, central America, Colombia, and central Brazil to that nation’s third largest city. Surprisingly the 10,500km run from Los Angeles to Rio is actually longer than the 8800km LA-London air route.
With the journey including a brief stopover in Honolulu I expected to travel just under 44,000km for the return journey to sample what was to be a low-volume version of a popular Italian car that would sell in even lower numbers in New Zealand. I like to think this shows nothing more than my deep commitment to my craft. In fact, even though I became lost on the homeward journey my total air miles would be little different.
