Overview.
For our main 2015 vacation we decided to go
Brazil. People asked, “Why Brazil?”. There were a few reasons. Karen had a friend from Brazil that had been an exchange student at her high school who she wanted to reconnect with, and we had not previously been to Brazil and and it is a large diverse country
with many exciting things to see and do. So, the question should be, "Why not go to Brazil?"!!! We had considered going to Brazil in 2014, but given high prices and
crowding due to Brazil hosting the World Cup we settled on Greece and Turkey
for 2014, and pushed Brazil out to 2015.
We would have liked to have had more time for this trip, but we were constrained my nephew
Jamie getting married on June 20, and by Karen and Elizabeth needing to be back
for Girl Scout camp on July 11. So, we finalized
on an itinerary leaving Portland on June 21, and returning on July 10. A total of 17 nights in Brazil, plus 2 nights
en route in a United Airlines 777-200, not great accommodations when you are
flying in economy! In Brazil we would
make a large clockwise loop, with the following destinations:
Rio de Janeiro – 4
nights. One of the great cities in the
world, Rio was capital of Brazil for almost 200 years, and celebrated its 450th
anniversary earlier this year. Rio will play
host to the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Porto Alegre – 3
nights. Karen's Brazilian friend who
was an exchange student at her high school who lives in Porto Alegre, near the
southernmost point in Brazil. We planned
to have 2 full days there to visit Yasso, her family, and to see the sights.
Iguazu
– 2 nights. No trip to Brazil would be
complete without a visit to the magnificent Iguazu falls, which are almost 2
miles long and formed where the Iguazu River tumbles over the edge of the
Paraná Plateau. The majority of the
falls lie in Argentina, and for our visit we would spend about half a day on
the Brazilian side, and a day and a half (and both nights) on the Argentine
side of the falls.
Manaus
– 4 nights. Located in the middle of the
Amazon rainforest, Manaus is also the most populous city in the Amazon. We planned a single night in the city of
Manaus due to a late arriving flight, and then 3 nights at a remote jungle
lodge ~3 hours from Manaus by boat.
Salvador
– 4 nights. Located about midpoint on
the Brazilian coast, Salvador was the first colonial capital of Brazil, and
remained the capital for over 200 years (1549-1763). The
city is famous for its Portuguese colonial architecture and its location on All
Saints Bay, the largest bay in Brazil.
We normally
do self-guided vacations, but primarily due to time constraints to research and
plan this trip we went through a travel agency, Eureka Travel, for most of the
arrangements on our trip. Eureka is a US based company that specializes in travel to South America. Eureka travel
used Blumar in Brazil for local transportation and the primary local guides. I have included contact information below for both companies, and where I have the information I will include contact information for hotels we stayed at and other local tour companies so if someone wants to replicate any portion of our trip they have contact information.
One word of warning for US citizens traveling to Brazil. The process and time required for US citizens to get a visa is complicated and takes a lot of time, much more so than any other place I have traveled to. Eureka Travel did not provide any guidance on getting visas, and in fact didn't even tell us we needed to get a visa. We had looked online and knew we needed a visa, but assumed one could be easily gotten. When we asked Eureka Travel they just told us "we don't know" and didn't even refer us to anyone who could help. So, by the time we got around to applying for the visa we found that going through a visa processing agency would have taken way to long and we would have lost the money we had spent on the trip. Karen ended up flying to the Brazilian consulate in San Francisco to get our visas. Even doing that it took 2 months to get a visa. Apparently the US makes it difficult for Brazilians to get a visa to come to the US, and Brazil believes in reciprocity, so they treat US citizens the same way as the US treats their citizens. Don't let this process and inability of both governments to streamline the process stop you from going to Brazil, just be aware that it could take months to get a visa and you will need to navigate through confusing and conflicting requirements. Also, US citizens are required to go through their "local" Brazilian consulate, and they all make up their own requirements, so someone in New York needs to submit different documents and wait times will be different than someone from Oregon, and if you live in Florida there is a third set of requirements. As I am writing this section of the blog 5 days into our trip everything on our trip has been wonderful so far. So, I would give Eureka Travel an "A" for the itinerary and guides so far. However, since we almost didn't get to go on the trip because they didn't provide any guidance or warning about visas even when we asked I am hesitant to recommend someone using Eureka Travel. If you do, just make sure you do your own research, don't trust that they will tell you everything you need to know.
UPDATE:: Eureka booked our flights internal to Brazil and the way they did it almost caused us to not be able to make our connections from Porto Alegre to Iganzu Falls. We contacted them to get them to fix the rest of our flights and after initially telling us they would they told us they could not and blamed the airline policy. When we were finally able to get someone at the airline who spoke English they were happy to fix the issue and told us Eureka had booked our flights wrong and that they could have fixed them. Based on numerous issues with Eureka I DO NOT recommend anyone using them Eureka, and if you do, make sure you check anbd double check everything they do since they made lots of mistakes with our travel. For more detail see section 3 of the blog.
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