Our First Day in Brazil

We stepped off the plane at 8:05 Salvador time, 4:05 am Tulsa time.  Gareth was a real trooper about it.  He made the best of sleeping on the plane, and now he was helping us get through the process.

When I picked up John at the airport in December, he mentioned he had a little trouble when he left Brazil. He just said the immigration person had filled in a date wrong on his paper work, and he would have to pay some money to enter back into country.  No big deal.  Well the 3 of us get the up to the big big immigarion desk and hand over our passports.  She scans mine and Gareth's and stamps it.  She scans John's,  Gets a weird look on her face.  Scans it again.  Makes a sounds.  Scans in again.  Then calls over and official member of the Federale Policia.  They speak very quickly.  Then he scans John's passport twice.  He looks at John and says,"You no enter Brazil."  I thougt well crap, now what.  G and I are already OK to go.  A driver was waiting for us.  An apartment was ready for us.  Do we go into Brazil and go back to the US with John.  I was trying to decide which would be easier.  John asked for someone who spoke English.  He explained the problem and that he was told he neededto pay some Reals for a fine.  No big deal.  They agreed and said he had to pay it a the Banco de Brazil and get a receipt to enter the country.  The bank is located on the other side of immigration.  How could he pay it if they would not let him in the the country?  And it had to be paid in Reals not dollars as he was told when he left.  So we saw one of American Airlines employees and begged him to go change money in the airport to Reals then pay the fine.  He did all of this.  After sitting in a row of metal chiars outside immigrations for over an hour they let us in.

On to the apartment.  We made it just fine since the driver knew where to go.  Andrea the owner met us.  He is a very nice German man who has been here 9 years.  We were all very hot in our US clothes of jeans and long sleeves.  The apartment is very nice, but only air condition in the bedrroms.  After hauling all 6 70 poun d suitcase up the stairs to our apartment, John looked like he had stepped in a shower in clothes.  I started unzipping bags and searching for cooler clothes as quickly as possible.  The whole time as sweat was dripping in my eyes I kept listening to the waves roll on the beach, and I knew all would be OK.