On Tuesday, March 18, Bob Marley, his guitarist Junior Marvin, Jacob Miller from the "Inner Circle" band, Chris Blackwell (the boss of Island Records) and his girlfriend Nathalie (Delon) boarded a private jet, ready for a long flight heading towards Brazil. Their destination: Rio de Janeiro. They were going there on purpose to promote the lauch of Ariola (a German record label that owned Island Records at that time) in Brazil. Bob Marley was in the process of recording his latest and last "Uprising" album when he was asked to go and help promote Ariola in Brazil, so the recording sessions were interrupted during at least 3 days.

During a 2 hours break in Manaus (a large town lost in the middle of the Amazon forest) to refuel the plane with gas, the local authorities of the military government withdrew their work visas, but they were finally allowed to leave after negotiations. Their plane stopped a second time in Brasilia, but finally took off again to land in Rio De Janeiro. Upon their arrival at the Santos Dumont Airport at 6.30 pm, the group was immediately surrounded by journalists. The very first thing Bob declared to the TV reporters covering the event in the airport was: "We are very close. Reggae and Samba come from Africa, have the same roots!". To Paulo César's surprise(for those who do not know him, he is a famous football player), who was watching him on TV, Bob also declared that "he was fan of brazilian football and fan of myself (Paulo César) too". After this long and exhausting travel, the group directly went to the Copacabana Palace Hotel to have some rest. Bob didn't go out on that day.