It had been five years since my last (and only) international trip, and we both had been itching to go to Amazon for years. Finally we put in vacation dates in advance and made sure we had no excuse not to go to Brazil this year.
Visa process was straight-forward and took us no time to get two new shiny visas stamped on our passports. It's not expensive either (I think we paid 40 dollars or something), but if you are a US citizen, they charge you 135$ or something, in response to US charging as high fees for the visa to Brazilians (talk about tit-for-tat!).
Now Brazil is a big, big country (more than 2.5 times the size of India) and offers a lot of possibilities for traveling. It was a difficult job to plan how best to spend the 10 days we had. After exchanging very large number of emails with our travel agent and long hours on net searching and researching (during which I bailed out leaving Sheetal to deal with the whole thing), we managed to include Rio, Iguassu (or Iguazu or Iguaçu) Falls, Pantanal and Amazon Basin. This meant we wouldn't be going to Lençóis Maranhenses or Jijoca de Jericoacoara in the north east, or the northern and more popular area of Amazon rain forest around touristy Manaus, and it was OK (no, not really).
View Brazil 2010 in a larger map
So on to the first destination - the great city of Rio.
The part I hate the most during such trips is the first long flight to your entry point. I hate traveling by air, especially in the paranoid country like the US. Whole circus of security checks (the day is not too far when we all will have to go completely naked through the security checkpoints), waits, delays, and total incompetency of airlines to boot - all together makes a very nasty experience. Especially when you are flying American Airlines. I don't remember flying AA without problems, ever.
After getting dropped at the Newark airport from our ever helpful friends Yaz and Anbreen, we had two hours to kill. Just before leaving, in a moment of craziness, I had thrown in 1248 page long and 2 kg heavy "The Gonzo Papers Anthology" by Hunter Thompson (a bible of Gonzo journalism), and was already thanking my wise self for the foresight - the flight was already delayed by 45 minutes.
There is something about waiting at the gate for delayed flights. Being inside the airport already makes people behave like crazies. And when the flights are late and the wait is long, you can sense the crazies are slowly turning into zombies. And those little kids who looked cute just five minutes ago turn into nasty little zombies.
Anyway, so, they finally announced the flight. Instantly, 300 people formed 30 very orderly queues. We joined the slowest one (isn't that always the case?) stumbled along and found the seats. I don't know about you, but for me, by the time I reach my seat, I feel as if I have just completed a triathlon and have come in last, two hours later than everybody else! No matter how early I board the flight, everybody else magically appears sitting after stashing their 500 various pieces of baggage in every available overhead space, looking at you all smug and satisfied. Those early-a$$holes!
Anyway, we inserted ourselves into the seats.
And waited.. for 30 more minutes, and then one hour more after a gazillion announcements that they found a mechanical problems and were fixing it. Really? Out of all 200000 flights scheduled in that hour, only ours had to have a problem? When we had just 3 hours to make our connection in Miami and were already delayed? We were still giving benefit of the doubt to AA, just hoping they did not cancel the flight. They didn't and we took off, already two hours late. Finally. YAY! We should be able to make the connection now, we had almost an hour to do that!
No. What is AA if not a bunch of a$$holes? THEY COULD NOT FIND A GATE at Miami!!!?? We further waited for 20-30 more minutes before finally emerging out of that morgue. Next step? To run and catch the flight - if they had not already closed the gate.
Now, Miami is a huge airport and about 1200 different terminals over 5000 miles of distance. Naturally, we were at one end the airport and had to go to the one exactly opposite of it to catch the flight.
There is something about people coming out of a delayed flight when they have to make an urgent connection. They are at their most vulnerable self and would start running in the direction they see many others running. Like Douglas Adams said, if you are lost out on the road, just follow anybody who you think knows where he is going. This strategy works fine, but only until you see some other people running in exactly opposite direction. And while all this chaos was going on, I am sure AA people were laughing their ass off, or even betting which ones were going to miss their flights. Bastards.
Anyway. So, we ran all 5000 miles in like 10 minutes - following various arrows pointing in opposite directions, in and out of the terminals, zigging and zagging, just like rabbits being chased by mad hounds. Breathless, we finally made our connection, after another security circus - just in time - because the TAM flight to Rio was late too. Phew!!
Eight hours to go, packed like sardines in that little box 40000 ft above in the air, breathing the recycled air, being fed some foul food. Finally we landed in Rio, with paining neck and muscles, constipated and sleepless. But we had made it! We were in Rio! Just get the luggage, find the guy waiting for you and start your great vacation, right? WRONG!!! AA was not done fucking around with us. No way. They managed to keep our luggage in Miami. Yes. We were in Rio sans our luggage and clothes and all that.
"I hate AA" is a gross understatement. I don't hate them - I abhor them, I loathe them. If the company goes down tomorrow, I would be first cheering up and down like a little girl in a pink frock screaming like crazy on top of my lung.
After waiting for half an hour for our luggage, realization happened upon us that we were fucked. We eventually managed to find somebody who did not speak a word of English, convey our problems with a lot of dramatic gestures and logged our lost baggage complaint - all thanks to a fellow Brazilian passenger who too was done over by AA and translated for us. (Muaaaaaaahhh!)
One to two hour late, but finally we managed to walk out of the door. A tall Carioca with a "Joshi/Pandit" placard was waiting for us.
And he said "Welcome to Rio!!"
Visa process was straight-forward and took us no time to get two new shiny visas stamped on our passports. It's not expensive either (I think we paid 40 dollars or something), but if you are a US citizen, they charge you 135$ or something, in response to US charging as high fees for the visa to Brazilians (talk about tit-for-tat!).
Now Brazil is a big, big country (more than 2.5 times the size of India) and offers a lot of possibilities for traveling. It was a difficult job to plan how best to spend the 10 days we had. After exchanging very large number of emails with our travel agent and long hours on net searching and researching (during which I bailed out leaving Sheetal to deal with the whole thing), we managed to include Rio, Iguassu (or Iguazu or Iguaçu) Falls, Pantanal and Amazon Basin. This meant we wouldn't be going to Lençóis Maranhenses or Jijoca de Jericoacoara in the north east, or the northern and more popular area of Amazon rain forest around touristy Manaus, and it was OK (no, not really).
View Brazil 2010 in a larger map
So on to the first destination - the great city of Rio.
The part I hate the most during such trips is the first long flight to your entry point. I hate traveling by air, especially in the paranoid country like the US. Whole circus of security checks (the day is not too far when we all will have to go completely naked through the security checkpoints), waits, delays, and total incompetency of airlines to boot - all together makes a very nasty experience. Especially when you are flying American Airlines. I don't remember flying AA without problems, ever.
After getting dropped at the Newark airport from our ever helpful friends Yaz and Anbreen, we had two hours to kill. Just before leaving, in a moment of craziness, I had thrown in 1248 page long and 2 kg heavy "The Gonzo Papers Anthology" by Hunter Thompson (a bible of Gonzo journalism), and was already thanking my wise self for the foresight - the flight was already delayed by 45 minutes.
There is something about waiting at the gate for delayed flights. Being inside the airport already makes people behave like crazies. And when the flights are late and the wait is long, you can sense the crazies are slowly turning into zombies. And those little kids who looked cute just five minutes ago turn into nasty little zombies.
Anyway, so, they finally announced the flight. Instantly, 300 people formed 30 very orderly queues. We joined the slowest one (isn't that always the case?) stumbled along and found the seats. I don't know about you, but for me, by the time I reach my seat, I feel as if I have just completed a triathlon and have come in last, two hours later than everybody else! No matter how early I board the flight, everybody else magically appears sitting after stashing their 500 various pieces of baggage in every available overhead space, looking at you all smug and satisfied. Those early-a$$holes!
Anyway, we inserted ourselves into the seats.
And waited.. for 30 more minutes, and then one hour more after a gazillion announcements that they found a mechanical problems and were fixing it. Really? Out of all 200000 flights scheduled in that hour, only ours had to have a problem? When we had just 3 hours to make our connection in Miami and were already delayed? We were still giving benefit of the doubt to AA, just hoping they did not cancel the flight. They didn't and we took off, already two hours late. Finally. YAY! We should be able to make the connection now, we had almost an hour to do that!
No. What is AA if not a bunch of a$$holes? THEY COULD NOT FIND A GATE at Miami!!!?? We further waited for 20-30 more minutes before finally emerging out of that morgue. Next step? To run and catch the flight - if they had not already closed the gate.
Now, Miami is a huge airport and about 1200 different terminals over 5000 miles of distance. Naturally, we were at one end the airport and had to go to the one exactly opposite of it to catch the flight.
There is something about people coming out of a delayed flight when they have to make an urgent connection. They are at their most vulnerable self and would start running in the direction they see many others running. Like Douglas Adams said, if you are lost out on the road, just follow anybody who you think knows where he is going. This strategy works fine, but only until you see some other people running in exactly opposite direction. And while all this chaos was going on, I am sure AA people were laughing their ass off, or even betting which ones were going to miss their flights. Bastards.
Anyway. So, we ran all 5000 miles in like 10 minutes - following various arrows pointing in opposite directions, in and out of the terminals, zigging and zagging, just like rabbits being chased by mad hounds. Breathless, we finally made our connection, after another security circus - just in time - because the TAM flight to Rio was late too. Phew!!
Eight hours to go, packed like sardines in that little box 40000 ft above in the air, breathing the recycled air, being fed some foul food. Finally we landed in Rio, with paining neck and muscles, constipated and sleepless. But we had made it! We were in Rio! Just get the luggage, find the guy waiting for you and start your great vacation, right? WRONG!!! AA was not done fucking around with us. No way. They managed to keep our luggage in Miami. Yes. We were in Rio sans our luggage and clothes and all that.
"I hate AA" is a gross understatement. I don't hate them - I abhor them, I loathe them. If the company goes down tomorrow, I would be first cheering up and down like a little girl in a pink frock screaming like crazy on top of my lung.
After waiting for half an hour for our luggage, realization happened upon us that we were fucked. We eventually managed to find somebody who did not speak a word of English, convey our problems with a lot of dramatic gestures and logged our lost baggage complaint - all thanks to a fellow Brazilian passenger who too was done over by AA and translated for us. (Muaaaaaaahhh!)
One to two hour late, but finally we managed to walk out of the door. A tall Carioca with a "Joshi/Pandit" placard was waiting for us.
And he said "Welcome to Rio!!"
2 comments:
No pictures?
Hi, btw after ages!
And btw 2 - I HATE AA too - they sent my luggage to Miami instead of Frankfurt!
Hey TT - yep, after ages! Your blog is not updated for long either. What's cooking?
Pictures are coming - as part of next post, if I get around to write them :(
And yep, AA loves Miami it seems!
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