"Now kids, did I ever tell you about the night I got arrested in Brazil?"

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As I woke up on the morning of the 21st March, I had no idea I wasn´t going to bed again for another 40 hours as I have my most interesting night in Brazil yet. I had a lot of fun, and yet not so much fun, a completly random night which ends in myself and 3 other Australians being forced to leave Brazil within 3 days. So sit tight and read on as I tell you about the night I got arrested in Brazil.

I had spent most of the day hanging out at an airconditioned shopping centre, got a "pay by the kilo" lunch and the got worst haircut of my life. We also met this awsome Brazilian guy Luiz, who had travlled to Australia, spoke really good english, worked at the tourist information desk and helped us find things. Craig had to get a police report from the tourist police as his card was swiped,copied and money taken out, so Luiz showed us where to go. He asked us to meet him later that night for a few drinks at a Salsa Bar and we thought that was a great idea, he was so nice and very helpfull.
We (Pato, Craig, Lisa and I) went out to dinner and stopped at this bar that had R$3 Caiprioksa´s (vodka, ice and lime juice), sunk 7 of them each, and we were pretty tipsy after that, however the funniest thing was the poorly translated dvd that the bar was playing. It was of a band playing at Recife Carnaval, they were jumping up and down on a float and their lyrics were translated along the lines of "What about, is it good? Slap pussy". The main female vocalist was sticking her bum out, so we think they ment to write "slap ass" or "slap bum" but still, it was hilarious. We stumbled to the salsa bar to meet up with Luiz, we had a dance (well, only Lisa and I), drank some more, but we were unable to find Luiz, but the boys started talking to this group of Pom´s. They were Air Hostesses for this charter flight company that did package holidays, they were staying in Brazil for a week and were put up in a very nice 5 star hotel. After leaving the salsa bar and downing shots at another club, the Pom´s invited us back totheir hotel room, so we accepted and managed to drag a spanish guy along as well, I dont now how we ended up with him, but none the less, it was a case of "the more the merrier".
So we grabbed some cabs and headed to this hotel. Upon entering the girls room we were offered more drinks, the iPod went on the party continued, everyone was having a good time, there was dancing and handstands, the sun was starting to come up and I got some great pics. The lady in the room below came out onto her balcony and yelled at us for being loud and she must have called the management, because Pato picked up a rining phone in the bathroom while he was pissing, “Hello?” “Hello, yes, can you please keep it down, there have been some complaints?” “ Ah, sure.Bye”. Pato walks out to one of the Pommie girls, “umm you just got a call” “who was it?” “Management, they said we have to be quiter”. We may have turned down the music a little bit, but the antics did not stop there. The boys decided to go outside climb down the lower balconies to the ground floor (we were on the 3rd). From there they ran down to the beach for a skinny dip.

The Pommy girls followed suit, but they went down the stairs. Lisa and I stayed and got some footage of the naked bums disappearing in the surf, and listened to the laughter. We looked at each other and decided to head down as well, I thought “why not?” no one knows me here, and we still wore our underwear so it wasnt a proper skinny dip anyway. Lisa hurt her knee on the way in, and Craig got caught in a rip, it was rather amusing at the time, but after a while I was over the sea water pouring out of my nose and headed back to the beach. By this time all the Pommie´s had headed back up to the room to get their bathers and Lisa, Pato and I arrived just as they were leaving their room. Lisa plonked herself on the bed with sand all over her feet, and I took the opportunity to raid the Mini Bar snacks and put some of them in my bag. I must admit I felt a little bit guilty, but if you are silly enough to invite 4 pissed Aussies back to your 5 star hotel room, you have to expect these things. We headed down to the pools to find the others they were in the kiddy pool drinking more beer. As Lisa had hurt her knee and I was tired we decided to call it a night (at 6am) and we (Lisa, Pato and I) walked up the entrance of the Hotel and waited on the road leaving Craig behind.
This is where the day turned shit. We waited and waited and waited for a cab or taxi to go past, the sun was in full heat and I felt like if we didn't get out, I would get burnt. So I ran across to the booth where the security guards kept post for the the hotel and asked them to call a taxi for us. We waited some more, and in my bored drunken state I dared Pato to flash his bum to the next truck that went past. In his drunken state he accepted the dare, and it was complete within 10 seconds. We had a giggle and about 5 mins later a police car pulls up. Lisa and I were amused by the situation, but Pato was the only one who initially took it seriously, when he was told to put his hands on the bonnet of the car and got pat down I knew we were in serious trouble. We were asked for our passports and we didn't have them on us, as its not safe to carry them with you on a night out in Brazil.We were told to get in the back of the Police car, and they took off to the nearest Tourist Police office (which happened to be where Craig go his report from). No one was there, it was pitch black, all the lights were out, we woke the lady that slept there and she said that no one would be there for hours. The Police officers asked again for our passports, and we tried to get them to take us to our hostel so we could show them, but they wouldn't have a bar of it. I realise now that it would have been a good time to bribe them, and I wish I did, we weren't there for very long and they said they were taking us to the Policia Federal. Back in the car with the siren occasionally blaring, we came up with a plan to save ourselves. We weren't sure weather they were just driving us around, making us sweat a bit untill the banks opened so they would take all our money, or if they were actually taking us to the Policia Federal.

Turns out the Policeman were actully taking us to the Policia Federal, which was both a relief and a concern for concern for us. We walked in and were told tos it in front of the main entry desk. We had to wait for the Lieutenant to arrive so that they could decide whether Pato would be charged with indecent exposure (they take this very seriously in Brazil), but we also had to wait for the immigration services to open so they could charge us for not having out passports on us. I tried to be polite with the officers that picked us up, they had just been on night duty and were as tired as we were, they were offering us water and coffee, and were actually being nice to us after calling us f$&%heads in the police car. The Immigration office opened first and we were taken there to begin our charging process.

One of the men that worked their handed us pieces of paper where we wrote down all our details, he dissapeared for about half an hour or more looking at his computer and probably checking us out. Meanwhile the policeman who picked us up go out and come back with their Seargent, they look at us, have a discussion amongst themselves and decide not to charge Pato with indecent exposure as they im sure they thought we were in enough trouble as it was. The immigration guy comes out again to confirm details goes back to his desk and about an hour later come out with three bits of paper, it looked like a contract of some sort, an official piece of paper completely written in Portuguese. We were told to sign the papers to which we refused as we didn't understand what it said, they lady behind the desk (im going to call her Dragon Lady) said she only spoke a little bit of english and gave us a piss poor translation of the document. Meanwhile there is an old Portuguese guy (im going to call him Senor Porto) next to us saying he can translate it for us, to which the Immigration people refused as he wasn´t an employee of the office. We asked for a written english copy of the document or a translator, to which they refused also saying that it wasn´t possible, no one spoke english in office. Pato starts talking to Senor Porto asking him to translate in an effort to understand what was going on, meanwhile dragon lady is pushing me to sign this piece of paper and loosing her cool over it. Senor Porto says he speaks ok english and will do his best to translate it for us, he then says that it reads our names, the charge and number, the fine (BRS$165), and that we have to come back and show our passports within 3 day or face deportation. "Thats what I can get from it more or less" Senor Porto says, still not happy with the paperwork not being in English we said we wanted to sign but we wanted it in English. Dragon Lady goes off her nut, saying we were stupid and made gestures banging her hand on her head "You undersand, you understand Portuguese you stupid", she snatches up the papers and walks back into the office, saying "Too late, too late".

Next thing, Dragon Lady brings out the big boss. Big Boss (In a cheap suit) walks out to the desk, takes an assessment of the situation and starts talking to us in a stern, slow voice displaying his frustration, still he talks in portuguese. The fact that we look at him with bewildered faces saying we dont understand him pisses him off the the max, he yells as Pato and Lisa to sit (I was already sitting) an storms to his office. Next thing is he comes back with a MP5 Machine Gun, fully loaded with spare magazines strapped to the side. He also had a pair of handcuffs and was waving them in our faces yelling in portuguese, he was so angry I wouldn't be surprised if he was spitting with every word. Senor Porto tries to translate over the yelling, we kind of already guessed what he was saying, basically if we don't sign and bring our passports, police officers with machine guns and handcuffs will arrest us and we will be deported. The aim was to use scare tacticts to imtimidate us, as far as we were concerned it was unecessary, we posed no threat, and were really pissed off that it had come to this when it could have been much easier. I would never have expected, in an immigration office situated in a fairly new and flash building, that there would be a need to keep a machine gun in an office just in case some foreigners dont understand a statement. Then again it's Brazil!
We said we would sign the statement in portuguese, admitting defeat that we were not going to get it in english. After all, would you sign something written in another language in an obviously corrupt country with a dodgy translation?
After Big Boss finshed his speel, he stormed off with his gun , and said something to Dragon Lady. The forms were taken back again and two men were writing something on the papers on the bottom. Senor Porto said that the immigration officer said we now have 3 days to bring our passports in and to leave the country, no negotiations. We all looked at each other in disbelief as something, that was the point we realised we were done for. The Policeman that had picked us up orginally were still with us and looked as us as if to say “Jesus guys, you should have signed them” , I wondered if they felt a little bit sorry for us, or whether they just wanted to go home, like us. As we sat waiting some more, Senor Porto was signing some stuff, we assumed papers of his own, as he was in a similar situation, he had overstayed his visa and had to leave Brazil. Our papers were handed back to us with a hand written statement down the bottom, and two signatures. We were told to leave, to pay the fine and to return with our passports, plus we still had to leave the country in 36 hours.
The policeman took the 3 of us back to the car, and we sat in the back thinking “what the hell are we going to do now”. One of the police officers seemed to think if we paid our fine and retured back to the Policia Federal with our passports on the same day, they may allow us to stay in the country. The car was so hot, it was about midday when they returned us to our hostel, no sleep, nothing to eat. The lady of the house “Mama San” (the boys nickname for her) came out, said she was worried, asked where we were, I just showed her and her daughter the piece of paper Immigration had given us. Craig had not been back to the hostel yet, and Mama San´s daughter called her friend (Paul) who spoke fluent english. I explained the situation on the phone and he said he would meet us in an hour and come back with us to the Policia Federal to sort everything out. I left a note for Craig, who was still MIA, we assumed he was still with the Air Hostesses.
After paying our fine (we had to go to 2 banks as the first one didn´t accept payments) we went back to the Policia Federal, where all the officers smiled with recognition as we walked in. We waited for 3 hours, the office was full, people were pushing in before us and we were trying our hardest to not fall asleep. When it was finally our turn it was Dragon Lady that served us, and she wouldn’t budge one bit. Paul spoke on our behalf, saying that we were happy to sign the papers but we wanted them in english, she then said that we understood perfectly, Senor Porto signed on our behalf as a witness saying that we understood and that we refused to sign the papers. First of all, Senor Porto´s english was ok, not perfect and there was still information on the papers that was not explained to us. Dragon Lady argued that Senor Porto’s english was very good and we still refused to sign given the document was translated to us. Our argument was, how would she know how good his english was in the first place? So, Senor Porto had just stabbed us in the back, and the damage was done. The only good news we got was that we could go back into Brazil as long as our visa's were still valid.
We left the office with 3 big naughty stamps in our passports and 2 days to leave (our first one was nearly over). We arrived back at the hostel, Craig was at the front to greet us, we explained, ate and tried to find some flights out of Brazil. Craig told us about his adventures that night, while we were being arrested, he was drinking Moet in the pool with 3 English Air Hostesses kicking back and having a great time. We went to bed that night exhausted at 9pm. The next day we tried to actually book some flights (we had arranged to meet the travel agent at noon) but his car broke down and he couldnt meet us untill later that night. I ran into one of the police officers that arrested us on the street, he asked what happened and I told him in my broken Portuguese that we had to leave by the next day. The funniest thing was that just a few hours earlier we were joking about running into the same cops again, and I did. Eventully we booked our flights and paid for them after many ATM troubles, we were stressed to the max, and more than ready to leave Brazil. Our flights were from Natal to Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo to Foz du Iguazu and left at 3.30am the next morning, so we decided to pull and all nighter.

Our Flight was delayed for 1 hour, then when we eventually borded, we sat on the tarmac for another hour and a half. It was the most uncomfotable flight I have ever been on, I hardy got any sleep, and I was already sleep deprived from our night with the police. Our arrival in to Sao Paulo was at 9.30am due to delays, the flight to Foz du Iguazu was at 10am. We Missed it. We later discovered at the bookings desk that the flight we missed was the only one to Foz du Iguazu that day. Our plans changed as we had to be out of Brazil ASAP, we forked out another $268 BRS to fly to Buenos Aires, we did not, and will not get a refund on the flight from Sao Paulo for Foz du Iguazu. More wasted money. We hung out in Mc Donalds for a few hours as our flight wasn't untill 5pm, still sleepless, it was the worst I had felt for a long time. Eventually we made it out of Brazil.

Im writing this Blog in Buenos Aires,as I started it in Natal I haven't changed the location. All the pictures in this blog was taken on the night/morning we got arrested.

There are many lessons I have learnt from this experience, one of them being that things happen for a reason. Maybe this was another sign (the first being hurting my leg) that im not ment to be in Brazil.
I can laugh at the situation now, despite the seriousness at the time.

This is definately one for the Grandkids!

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Photos

Am I in Heaven?
Pacific Ocean

Finally it shows up...
Sunrise over the Pacific Ocean

Sunrise Antics
Craig sees how long he can stand on his head for.

The Family
Me, Craig, Lisa and Pato

Pato and I
During one of the seven Caiprioska´s

Begining of a crap day!
The first bit of sunlight showed beautiful colours.

Lost in translation!
This DVD had us in stitches, the sub-title guy needs to be sacked. Then again we were in Brazil, so it could have been the correct translation.

Comments

[amber]

I know it's not funny... but it so is!!!
Loz, I was horrified reading your arresting tale of brazil (get it, hehehe) I felt so sorry for you and I would have done the exact same thing as you, in fact I think all english speaking travellers would! but once you get to the end of the tale and know that you are alright, you can't help but giggle. You know me, I am all for the travel stories and I think you have just taken the cake!!! All hail Queen Travel Story!, you are right though, I don't think Brazil is your country. I am looking forward to the next installment and we miss you. Keep enjoying every crazy minute! Love you.....Amber xxx