Adventures in Brazil - the travel drama (Part 1)

We went to Brazil to live in the Amazon forest. It took 5 rides, 3 flights and 2 boats to get to our lodge in the middle of the jungle.

We went to Brazil to live in the Amazon forest for a few days and celebrate a wedding in Rio. Of all the places I've been to, this Jungle was definitely the hardest to get to, so I had to write about it. This is Part 1 about traveling to the Amazon from the US. Part 2 is about discovering the law of the jungle in the Amazon forest and Part 3 is about the vibes in different Brazilian cities.
At every turn, this trip highlighted the value of persistence. We started from San Francisco and our Amazon tour guide would meet us in Manaus Brazil.

This is not a National Geography piece, this is an ultra-honest Brazilian adventure series with three parts - the travel drama (part 1), the stubborn amazon jungle (part 2) and Rio de Janeiro's hot vibe (part 3).

But what's an adventure without a comedy of errors? Well folks, let the drama begin.

PART 1 The travel drama

Sunday: The drama begins

On Sunday evening, dad asked if I'd double-checked our hotels,etc. I said "Of-course Dad, I booked everything back in July, we even got fresh hiking clothes and mosquito repellent!"

After the call, I began double checking everything - and realized with some shock that I had misread the visa rules in Brazil. US Green Card holders need a tourist visa for Brazil. It was Nov 12, and our flights took off on in 4 days to make the Amazon tour. Meaning, we would need two tourist visas in 3 days.

If I'm anything - I'm a persistent optimist. This situation on a Sunday night didn't phase me at the beginning. I just started trying to fix it.

No problem, I thought, let me just get an eVisa right now, online.

Oh! Brazil has no eVisa for tourism…

Okay, How hard can it be to get a Tourist visa?

Not hard - pay $80, send your passports and all the travel documents to the Brazilian consulate and fill visa forms online.

How long will that take?

Processing times are 15 days. Well, we have our flight in 4 days, the wedding is in 13 days, the timeline is uh…just a tad bit short of what I need here…

Maybe I can get an emergency visa… Boom! Here is the emergency visa process…

And it couldn't be clearer, the consulate will consider Brazilian citizens having a medical emergency or stolen documents crucial for travel, for Emergency cases. "Lack of planning is not considered an emergency".

Let me check where the consulate is, maybe it is close by!

Ah hah! It is in San Francisco, the consulate is a 7 minute drive from my house in fact! I'll just take it there personally tomorrow. Ah! Nope. The site says tourist visa is only processed by Mail, no in person appointments are accepted at the consulate.

So… now I need to calm down and come up with a plan.

I need to miraculously get my hands on a tourist visa within 3 days. Since it is 3 am there, my Brazilian friends are already asleep. By the time my friends wake up, I need to be prepared. Otherwise this trip goes up in smoke. All that's in my control is to prep everything required in advance.

First, maybe I should tell Richi about this…

I quickly shot my wife a text " I think I fucked up… please call me after dinner love" .

When Richi calls me, I take a deep breath and pick up.

My wife knows every bone in my body, she asks "did something go wrong, are we not going to Brazil? "

I said - "Yes love, we might not be able to go, I am a fool, I didn't know we need visas, I'm working on it now, and we'll go if we get it in time."

Richi handles crises incredibly well… She says "OK, I'll come home from dinner and we'll figure it out." And she means it. She doesn't get mad (or at least she doesn't show it). What a gem of a woman! What did I do to get so lucky?

Then I spend the next few hours painstakingly filling in the visa forms on the government website. I print out all the forms that need physical signatures. I dig up passport photos that I have in my travel case, just for such situations. 

Sidenote: Why do government websites require you to resize every damn photo and document to some silly size like under 300kb to fit it within the upload rules for their website. Data storage doesn't cost much anymore, when will we be able to upload an id photo straight from our phone?

Anyway, I get all these docs resized, uploaded, submitted. Then I create a Drive folder of all the possible docs required with a checklist and have a link ready to share in case someone can help. Then I send my Brazilian friends summary messages about the situation, and ask if they can help.

The next morning, Pedro (the guy getting married) wakes up and reads my messages. I can only imagine his reaction. He's obviously already got a million things on his mind, but like me, he's an optimist, bless his soul, so he starts making some calls. I get a message to call him when I wake up. I haven't been sleeping very well anyway, I'm up before my alarm and see this come in.

The Angel

Pedro says he'll need all my documents and that I send the passports and USPS money orders somewhere, with the fastest shipping and return label possible. He's found someone who can help. This person, who shall remain unnamed, really is a miraculous angel from heaven. I was prepared with all the papers already, I said tell me where to send them, I'm driving to USPS now.

Turns out Fedex overnight is faster than USPS, so I got the money orders from USPS as required, and overnight return shipping labels from both FedEx and USPS. I shipped ALL the documents on Monday at 9:30 am. They reached at 7 am Tuesday, Pedro and I were both tracking it fiercely and sending each other screenshots while the other slept. The angel connection ensured our visas got issued within a few hours personally took it to FedEx to ship it back to me overnight (!)

The Fedex return delivery is guaranteed on Wednesday morning by 8 am, FedEx tried to deliver it to my buiding at 6:49 am, exactly the time that the security took a break, so the delivery failed and Fedex took it back with them. I got an email saying they tried to deliver my package. I check it at 7 am and run out into the street looking for FedEx trucks all around the block. Richi thinks I've gone nuts.

What a morning it was.. Eventually, Fedex tries again at 12:34pm, in the middle of a zoom meeting my phone rings from building security and I run off to collect our passports. What a relief!

We went to the airport on Thursday, expecting to be off to Brazil… but our travel drama continued.

Thursday: We get turned back from the airport.

The Avianca airline website won't let me check in online so we reach the SFO airport early, physically checking in and handing off our bags to the Airlines. A lady in the Avianca uniform comes up with a credit card machine and asks for $2260 dollars.

I smile and ask “for what?”

She shows us a forwarded document screenshot on her phone's WhatsApp app.

I wonder how seriously I should take a WhatsApp forward on her phone? but she was wearing the uniform, and looking serious, so I went and asked another agent who confirmed the request. Obviously I started Googling what this was about. Turns out that from October 23, 2023, people with passports from Africa and India are required to pay a new tariff of $1,130 to transit through the country of El Salvador.

I had bought tickets in July, so I asked the airline what options were available. The gate agent asked us to call the Airline and get a new ticket to Manaus that doesn't stop in San Salvador. 25 mins on the support line with Avianca Airline, then 40 minutes with Priceline leads to no conclusion.

Finally, I offer to pay Avianca the $2,260 tariff to get this trip going. The Gate agent now suggests that I shouldn’t risk it even if I'm willing to pay. She shows me the WhatsApp forward again - it says that transits may be allowed after the Tariff is paid, but San Salvador does not guarantee that passengers will be allowed to board the flights connecting onward. What a joke.

So, I pull out a laptop, find some funky connections flying from San Jose airport at 6 am the next day and land in Manaus, Brazil, many many flights later.

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The flights were a normal part of any travel but the journey to the jungle began at sunrise. At dawn a tour-guide picked us up in his car, then took us on a van, a boat, another van, and another boat to get us there. 

Richi taking on some stairs before the last boat ride into the Amazon forest

The Amazon river itself is full of surprises. We expected the Amazon river to be pristine and clear and beautiful, or maybe rough like a whitewater rafting route. But it was brown in color, massive enough that we couldn't see across the banks, and at one point there were two separate rivers that joined each other, but they didn't mix! The water from each river was a stubbornly different color, and temperature. Even the rivers were trying to survive and keep their identity. It was our first taste of what was to come.

The meeting of the waters: The Amazon river meets the Rio Negro but the waters don’t mix! PC: @prateek jain

We made an Instagram REEL about reaching there - check it out!

We eventually reached a lodge that floats in the middle of the Chuma river in the Amazon… where the dolphins were waiting.

Read about the stubborn Amazon adventure in Part 2, coming soon.