Looks like I might be back on for Brazil.

The January 7th trip did not have single availability, but the January 21st trip did. So, I asked my travel agent to have Alexander + Roberts take that.

We should get a confirmation in a day or two, then book flights. At a quick glance, getting to Manaus is kind of a hassle--seems like all flights arrive very late night or early AM. Seems like DEN -> MIA -> MAO on the way down, GIG (Rio) -> IAH (Houston) -> DEN on the way back.

The tour is something like 4 days on a boat puttering around the Amazon, two days around Iguazu Falls, then two days in Rio. Internal air, transfers, and hotel included ofc. So something like Jan 21st -> 30th.

I feel I must preface this by saying I've always been pretty organized, and don't understand when others aren't. When I was working, I'd always set an expectation, and if something came up, would be in communication instead of going dark.

I'm getting better at understanding, but still get frustrated.

On the 5th, Gina forwarded me an email from Alexander+Roberts showing the price for the trip broken down by each piece. She mentioned that if they can't confirm any hotel, they'll be in touch with alternatives, and that they would be closed for Columbus Day (the following Monday).

As a layman, I'm thinking: ok, Tuesday call Brazil, make hotel reservations, probably hear from them Tuesday or Wednesday.

By Thursday night, still hadn't heard. Called them up to see if I they could at least set my expectation. Nope.

Gina assures me she's worked with them for 25 years, and they're a well-run organization. Not impressed so far.

I imagine it will be fine, but not seeing why it takes > 1 week to finalize a trip. Sigh.

Got confirmation last night. Going to see travel agent today to book flights.

Not sure why it took 13 days to finalize once availability was verified, but there we are.

Last we talked, it sounded like DEN->MIA->Manaus over a long day. Might to Miami a little early to allow for weather, and just spend a day or two down there.

Return is something like Rio->Houston->Denver. Will probably straight through that one. Been to Houston, didn't like.

Things starting to come together. Made an appointment with a travel-immunization company in downtown Denver for mid-December to get my recommended Yellow Fever shot and malaria pills.

Now, I think everything that needs to be scheduled, is. Messed up a little bit with the overnight in Miami.

I'll get there ~ 8PM on the 19th, leaving for Manaus 5PM on the 20th. Booked a rental car with Hertz, and took the pre-pay, lower-cost but no refund option.

A few days after that, talked with some friends who'd just been to the Caribbean, and overnighted in Miami both ways. They stayed in a Hilton right by the airport and said it was nice. A bit upscale for my usual style, but that's ok once in a while.

Anyway, turns out the Hilton has a shuttle to/from the airport. Plus, they charge for parking.

Figure I'll still want a car for the several hours between waking and flying out to get out a little. Tried Hertz' 800 number, intending to ask whether it would be ok to leave the reservation as is, but I'll just happen to pick it up the next morning.

Not only is there no option to get to a CSR, pressing zero to do so (like a normal system) results in an "invalid option. Goodbye." message and a hang-up. Terrible, terrible, customer service.

Found a form online where I could send a message off. They said they'd answer in 3-5 business days. That was Monday, so we'll see. Worst case, I guess I stop by their desk upon arrival the night of the 19th and ask if I can just delay pick-up for ~10 hours. If they say no, I eat the parking fee. Not the end of the world.

Got a note from my travel agent today that the tour company needed to change the hotel I'm booked into in Manaus, ,because the original is having some "special event." This after they took 13 days to confirm all the bookings.

Sigh.

The new place looks quite nice, gets good reviews, and is only a couple blocks from the original. So, it should be a similar experience. Gina assures me I'm booked in, they are aware I'm arriving very late on the night before the official tour, and will be at the airport and have a late-night check-in ready. I'm sure it will be fine.

What's an adventure trip without some uncertainty and anxiety?

You're right. Travel is about having experiences and gathering stories.

Sometimes, those stories are things like "...and then the lion walked down the road, not 6 feet from the truck...", and sometimes they're "...well, ****, Lufthansa went on strike the day I was due to return..."

great point
if you want a cruise, book one
but tom runs around $100M per these days

Realized I hadn't checked out the other hotels, in Iguazu Falls and Rio.

Wow. Both much fancier than something I would've picked.

At Iguazu is the only hotel inside the national park, Hotel das Cataratas.

In Rio, it's the Copacabana Palace. Right across the street from the beach, will have to wander over when we're off the organized part of the tour.

Both Belmond hotels with near-5-star google reviews. I have to say, it's a bit overwhelming for somebody that usually uses the Days Inn or Super 8.

Surprised you aren't packing a tent and spending a few nights on the beach.

If I wasn't on an organized tour, there's a decent chance I'd try something like that out.

Brazil's re-commencing visa requirements for citizens of USA#n (and some others) as of January 10. I arrive on the 20th. I haven't been able to find anything on how to acquire a visa.

I did, however, find the website for the consulate in Houston (which services CO). This had an email link, so I wrote to them asking if they could point me in the right direction to get the process started.

They wrote a quite detailed reply. Cliffs are that they're in the processing of finding a third-party provider for an eVisa and integrating that into their site. They mentioned that it's possible that the "no visa" period will get extended, and gave me a link to watch for updates.

Third-party software integrating with a bureaucracy's website, what could go wrong?

I fully expect this to come operational the night I'm overnight in Miami, so I'll be on my own to figure it out. With the added pressure of the flight leaving in X hours. Sigh.

my hunch is it's all going to work out goldy

Yep, I think so. I tend to be overly concerned.

I think it's a defense mechanism--if I prepare for the worst, any other outcome is nice.

prepare and obsess are two different things

LOL, fair!

Brazil's eVisa program is up and running. For a bureaucratic website with potential language barriers, it's pretty well designed. At least, it didn't take too long to get to the end.

One step, they asked for quite a bit of optional documentation, like a recent bank statement. Others I can't remember, but don't recall having been asked to provide them on my other adventures.

The application confirmation set an expectation of a few days to hear. Plenty of time yet if I need to provide anything else for them.

Assuming this process completes successfully, next step is avoiding a blizzard on January 19. I figure worst case, I change MIA departure up a day or two, or go somewhere else, then Miami.

Turns out they asked for a bank statement to show I have at least $2k USD, and airline tickets.

Of course I don't have paper airline tickets to scan in, so took a screen shot of my itinerary showing me arriving to MAO and leaving GIG for IAH at the end. Hopefully that's good enough for them. Resubmitted, we'll see.

In other news, got yellow fever and HepA vaccinations today, along with pills for typhoid. The medical travel specialists also sent a prescription to my local grocery's pharmacy for some malaria medication, and to have them give me a tetanus shot.

The specialist is in downtown Denver, to which I don't get much any more. Even though it's a crappy, cold, bleak day here, it was nice to get down there, walk around a bit, and see all the new building.

Was going to meet my neighbor for lunch while downtown, but he had an unexpected family matter to tend to.

Starting to get frustrated with the bureaucracy.

Got an email this PM from the visa people, asking me to re-upload the round-trip flight info. Asked me to highlight the incoming and departing flights. I guess they don't know that MAO is Manaus' airport code, and GIG is Rio's. Grrr.

Now, there might be some language barrier; I understand that. They mentioned tickets, which I (of course) don't have. I did find a place to print the itinerary, complete with dates, flight numbers, etc.

As I don't have pdf-editing software, I couldn't highlight those specific flights electronically. So, I printed them out, ran my highlighter over the physical copies, and scanned that back in. Sigh. Hope that's good enough.

Went and had something to eat, and see another email from them. Of course, being efficient and providing both requests at once is silly.

This time, they were asking me to re-upload a bank statement proving I had at least $2K USD. No indication why the first one wasn't good enough, let's try again. Maybe it's because the statement in question didn't cover exactly November 1 to November 30? Yes, bureaucrats, I realize you have chimpanzee-like levels of attention to detail, but not every account statement starts on the first and ends on the end of the month. How about accepting the one which closed on 11/23?

Anyway, I found an account whose term was exactly 11/1 -> 11/30 and uploaded that. Hopefully, they'll quit whining and approve the visa shortly.

In other news, I found a place on their website which had 'contact us' information. In that space was a link to start a phone call (some little app, I assume a VOIP sorta thing).

Anyway, fired that up, thinking I could get exactly what's wrong with my uploads. Hit the option to speak with someone, and got a message that said they can't take my call, their hours of operation are from 9AM to 5PM on non-public holidays.

Of course, they didn't bother to provide the information of what time zone they were in. Seems to me like 2PM MST on a Wednesday should fit in there really well, for most of the western hemisphere.

Let's hope this time for sure!

No, I'm not very good at "playing the game". Feel better now that I've vented though.

They way visas work (at least in Brazil) are you apply through a third-party website. They gather necessary documentation, do an initial approval, and pass it on to the country's government for official approval. The third-party website is surprisingly good--my experience is that such things are difficult to use, so kudos to them.

I've been monitoring my application's status and saw this morning it switched to Approved!

Unclear if there is some physical document (or electronic which I need to print and bring) still to be provided, but I'm going to have a copy of this status page just in case.

Have several things to accomplish, but none major and I have almost three weeks to do them. Looking good!

According to the third-party website, there's supposed to be a pdf generated and sent to me. I need to bring a hard copy of that with me.

Haven't received the pdf. Not in a super time crunch (still two weeks from tomorrow). At the same time, don't want to wait til the last minute. So, figured I could start asking around.

Found an email address at the Brazilian consulate, and another on the third-party website. Sent off emails asking each if they could provide the pdf, or put me in touch with someone who can.

The email to the third party site got bounced because their mailbox was full. Grrr.

On the other hand, found the little VOIP phone app mentioned earlier, and it worked today. Well, at least they didn't hang up on me. Been on hold for about 20 minutes so far.

Of course, with zero indication of and expected wait time, or place in line, or anything. They do have some strange, but not unpleasant, hold music. An organ, a trumpet, a shaker, maybe wood blocks being struck for rhythm. Kind of a soft jazz maybe?

From the IVR voice, I'm guessing I'm calling India, which is a first for me.

As mentioned, I'd asked the Brazilian consulate if they could help at all. Got a response from them yesterday evening that they'd have to confirm, but had heard that the visa requirement would be pushed back from January 10. Also got an email from my travel agent saying she'd heard that from a cruise line with whom she does business.

Still, they have two weeks to push through the pdf, so it's still likely that I'll be able to go the normal route, but hopefully I have an out now.

Is frustrating that their system doesn't automatically generate this pdf. It's not trivial, but it's not much beyond trivial, that when someone hits 'approve', a process is started to run a report to generate the pdf, attach it to the application, and send a copy to the email address in the application.

It's not rocket surgery. Literally should be seconds, not days, to generate and distribute this document. Grrr.

Anyway, I'm going to blame any troubles on the tour company not standing by their advertised over-holidays tour dates, which would've kept me out of the visa requirement period.

Things moving along. Travel agent called the other day, she had some papers for me. Tour company sent her a printed itinerary and some other info instead of just emailing it. Sigh.

Picked up some Brazilian Reals while up there. Only majorish thing left is to get my malaria pills and tetanus shot, going tomorrow to the local Kroger pharmacy to order them up.

Then some minor packing and ready to go one week from Friday. It's getting close.

Happened to look at United's app to get flight info. Noticed that, at this point, I'm scheduled to be on a 737 max 8 on the last leg back, from Houston to Denver. (Other aircraft for the flights I booked---don't have info for the inter-tour flights).

Hmmm...that sounds familiar. Oh yeah, that's the aircraft that had the door plug blow out recently.

There's always a bright side, though. Since it's on the flight from IAH -> DEN, there's a pretty good chance it will go over Dallas. I know a guy in Fort Worth, I'll aim for his place after getting sucked out of the fuselage.

It'll be kinda like when the air accident happened in Breaking Bad. Hope he has the pool filled.

I’ll catch ya!

Isn’t the max 8 the one that kept nose diving a few years back? The door one is a max 9?