Return home + final observations

Day 19/20 – Thursday, July 9, Friday July 10.   Salvador to home. Our return flights home were mostly on schedule, with a ~2 hour flight from Salvador to Rio, a 10 hour flight from Rio to Houston, and a 4 hour flight from Houston to Portland.  We unfortunately had long lay overs in Rio and Houston, >4 hours each.  While in Houston I started to not feel well, and spent ~ 1 hour of the flight from Houston to Portland in the bathroom of the plane throwing up.  I can't imagine a worse place to be sick.  Not sure if I got some 24 hour flu bug or if it was something I ate, but I had a fever and was sick for ~24 hours.  We got back to Portland at about noon on Friday, and by Saturday morning I was feeling mostly better, but still very tired.  Elizabeth was the only one of us to go through the whole trip with out being sick.  

We had a wonderful time overall in Brazil.  The people were wonderful and we enjoyed our itinerary.  We absolutely need to come back and see more another time (we still have 9 years and 10 months left on our visas), and I would highly recommend Brazil for people who are thinking of traveling there.   Here are a few other observations.

Airport security in Brazil is very lax compared to United States. They x-ray bags and you need to pass through a metal detector, but otherwise don't have a bunch of restrictions. For example, you can bring through whatever liquids you want. In addition to trays for any loose items that you have like cell phones they even have cup holders so your drinks don't spill when you put them on the convener belt for the x-ray machine. On one flight we had just bought milkshakes prior to security and I was hoping they wouldn't spill when the security agent put down a tray with four cup holders for us to out our drinks on to go through the x-ray machine. Also, no need to take out laptop, empty pockets except for metal, no need to take off shoes, etc.   Going through security never took more than 5 minutes at any of the airports.

One other things that was different was checking ID. You needed to show a boarding pass to go through security, but no ID. However, they checked ID as passengers were boarding every flight.  Other than that the Brazilian flights were not much different than US flights, although they do restrict carry-on luggage to 5 kg (about 11 pounds) so people don't carry on much luggage and the overhead compartments are only half full.

We flew 7 domestic flights on GOL airlines and 1 on TAM.  GOL is 2nd largest Brazilian carrier and TAM is number 1.  GOL only provides water for free and if you want any other type of drink you need to pay. TAM has a selection of juice,  soft drinks and  coffee for free similar to US airlines, and also provided a snack bag with cheese, crackers, and a piece of cake on the one short flight we took with them. However, GOL is our favorite airline - they have Daniel! 

We were surprised with the very low percentage of Brazilians that spoke English. Even among airline, hotel, and restaurant workers in tourist areas that typically would encounter foreigners only maybe 10% of workers spoke or understood basic English phrases. However, people were almost universally willing to try and help us.  Sometimes another customer would step in and help translate. At one airport cafe one of the employees disappeared and came back with someone who spoke English. He was not dressed like any of the other workers so I don't think he worked there, but the employee had left and found someone who could help translate. When all else fails, pointing, holding up fingers, smiling, and being patient helps. If you don't get exactly what you wanted normally it was close enough.  In a couple examples we found using Spanish helped as many words are similar to Portuguese, or at least much closer than English. For example, if you want water without carbonation, it is "sem gas" (without gas) in Portuguese, while in Spanish it would be "sin gas".   Of course, saying thank you (obrigado is you are male, obrigada if you are female) a lot never hurts.

When I get more time I will add highlights from everyone in the family., but for now our 2015 adventure is over, and it is back to the real world.  At least we have the next trip to look forward to.