Getting To Brazil

LA to Atlanta, Atlanta to Manaus, and finally Manaus to Belem...

Wow....what a journey to arrive!

Checked in to Delta online before Stacy and Cam drove me to LAX airport. Met up with Marisol to check luggage and we went straight through security with the exception of both of our laptops being inspected for....being laptops.

From their we got our dollars exchanged for Brazilian reais.

1 Brazil real = 0.538213 U.S. dollars

I was very pleased to see my favorite animal, the CHEETAH/jaguar/puma/leopard on the back of a 50

Marisol and I both exchanged $100 and received 150 Reais back (later to learn that if we exchanged in the Manaus, Brazil airport we would have gotten 178 Reais)

Waiting to board at LAX Marisol and I "brushed up" on our Portuguese. Actually, I purchased an amazing $9 English>Brazilian Portuguese book at Barnes and Noble with Seven sections of extremely organized and helpful tips for newbies like ME!

muito educacional!

Arriving in Atlanta, Georgia we rushed to find our next gate to, which was a few escalators and trams away. There was no chance to order some fried chicken or even look around the gift shops. Helene (another classmate) called us and warned that they were boarding early and were asking for people to volunteer themselves off of the flight (due to overweight cargo). We sprinted, got momentarily lost and turned around to find Helen towards the end of the line waiting to board with us. We made it to the back of the plane and ready for the next take-off!



The individual seat monitors on the airplane had Satellite TV, on demand, music, and GAMES! For the trivia game you were able to compete with any/all the passengers on the plane for the highest score. I was under no competition for a while.... until Marisol joined me in the affair and increased the amount of players to a versus. But by the end of the rounds I was the Champion! And then we moved on to the almost mindless, but also mind-sucking Bejeweled.


When the three of us landed abroad in Manaus, we made it through customs and got our VISA's stamped for the first time!
The overwhelming heat and humidity immediately hit us in addition to the culture difference experienced when we entered the common area of the airport, empty at 5:50 am and having only ONE fast food station/restaurant in the entire grounds: "Bob's Burgers" But, hey who doesn't want a burger at 6 in the morning? Fortunately I was more tired than hungry and rested my head on the Bob's tables while Helene and Marisol relayed to me that the burgers tasted like "sausage patties and mayo"...yum!


We had a 10 hour lay over in Manaus until our final flight to Belem, Brazil and were not able to check in to receive our boarding passes or check our luggage for eight more hours!

With only one place to access food and no one who speaks English, we unintentionally isolated ourselves for a while to kind of establish our bearings and get to know each other better. Card games, music, Helene bought WiFi/ Vex internet access>facebook, attempting Portuguese, and eventually to a daring journey to see what was outside of the airport...which was essentially nothing within eyesight, not to mention the most intense heatwave I have experienced and a couple hours later pouring rain and thunder!


The time went by so slowly, the three of us napped for a while, but it was only 9am and our flight was 3pm.

Eventually, somehow, we managed not to bore ourselves to death and made it to the TAM check-in line, which actually ended up not being the TAM check-in line... It didn't make sense, but we relocated to another line, which two airport employees referred us to go to. This check-in line moved about a foot every twenty-five minutes... Where as the line on the other end of the room moved five times as fast. We approached an employee about the matter and the response was that it was because there is only one person in charge of the line we were in. (But there were at least eight more employees behind the counter checking people in)


Despite the employees response, she did seem to take what we pointed out into consideration when she walkie-talkied something in and our line finally started to receive attention!

I do not recommend stopping in Manaus airport. And if you do, wear HIGH HEELS, because apparently almost every woman does!

In our lengthy time in line we managed to meet other travelers on their way to Belem, Chris from Miami seemed to be the popular guy at the airport, he is from Miami, Florida. The last time he was in Brazil, he was 2? Now a 24-28 yr old and befriending and charming every traveler in the airport. He was flying to Belem to see his mother and all of his family, who will learn he doesn't speak a word of Portuguese!
When our flight landed in Belem you could hear at least fifteen people saying "Bye Chris", "Tchau, Chris" Everyone was sad to see him go, but I think the three of us were just glad to be in Belem and see our teacher Raul outside the airport doors waiting for us! We grabbed our baggage and ran to Raul's open arms like he was our dad.

WE MADE IT TO BRAZIL!