Welcome to Brazil

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Welcome to Brazil

I flew out of New York last night at 7:40pm, it was a long flight to Brazil. I flew with TAM Brazil airline. The airline was pretty good, I´m not sure whether it was a budget airline or not. The seat was quite big and the recliner chair went back so far that my head was on my neighbors’ lap. The food was good and the alcohol was rolling in non-stop, I started to like Brazil already :-)

The flight landed at 6:15am at Guarulhos International airport Sao Paulo, my connected flight to Brasilia was at 10:40am. What would I do for four and a half hour spare? Sao Paulo airport was crazy, busy and didn´t have a lot of signage for directions for first traveler like myself. Generally, when I get to any airport the tourist queue was massive and the country citizens just walk through. Well, in Sao Paulo things work a bit differently. There were hundreds of people in Brazilian queue and five in visitor line hooooooooooooooray. I went through first custom pretty quick, then proceed to baggage carousal to collect my bags. To my horror, there were hundreds of people EVERYWHERE, there was no queue, no line and no order whatsoever. It was like Saigon busy roundabouts, except you would substitute the bicycles with airport trolleys full of luggages. These Brazilians are vicious, I survived Saigon streets and Amsterdam roads and I got ran over by trolleys in Sao Paulo. Welcome to Brazil :-)

After some difficulties finding my bag carousal, I collected my bags to go through another custom check. There were ´Goods to Declare´ queue and ´Nothing to Declare´ queue. I was in the ´Nothing to Declare´ queue but the line was so long and I was so tired to line up. I searched my bags high and low for my trusted bag of dried apricot I bought in Scotland. I found the bag with 3 dried apricot in it, I had to do the right thing so I went to ´Goods to Declare´ line. I went through the custom in approximately 3 minutes, it was a big achievement :-)

I quickly went to the check-in area to check my bags through so I could move around more easily. The check-in girl spoke half Portuguese and half English told me I had to go to ANOTHER airport aka Congonhas airport to check-in WTF. Did I mention that the whole airport is badly signed. This lady kept pointed outside and said ´wait... red bus...TAM´, so I went outside and saw another long queue. When will this long queue ends? I went around asking if there was anyone who could speak English. I´ve found two old ladies, one of them speaks 10% of English (better than nothing) but we managed to have conversation. The conversation involved a lot of body languages, I would pointed at my watch, flap my wings and circles around and the old lady would draw some magical numbers in the air that would translated as ´What time is your flight?´, ´11am´ was the answer and we both laughed. We waited for about an hour and there was still no bus. I started to get panic, I didn´t want to miss my flight to Brasilia. I went around asking again to double check if I was in the correct line for TAM bus, I have been told that I was at the right place. At this point I was considered walking to this ´other´ airport. Half an hour later the red bus arrived, I was so happy, fists were in the air and I jumped up and down like a crazy tourist. The queue started to move, when I reached the front of the line the porter signaled me to stop. He started to close the luggage doors, I frantically grab his shirt and tried to explain to him that I only have two bags (the other 3 bags on my trolley belonged to the old lady that I was kindly help pushing them around). He looked at my bags, said some Portuguese and let me on board. I kissed my new friends goodbye.

The bus was really comfortable, and people were quickly fall asleep, I thought to myself ´Why are these people get so comfortable and fast asleep, surely the other airport aren´t that far away!´. Half an hour later the bus was approaching the city center, there were high buildings everywhere. I started to get panic again, I thought I was on the wrong bus. I asked the guy sat next to me if we were on the right bus and he said ´Yes, sometimes 1 hour, sometimes 2 hours to go airport. It´s traffic´. Oh my, it was 9:40am my connected flight was at 10:40am. We arrived at Congonhas Airport at 10:05am. The airport signage and check-in process was frustrated and hideous, I almost miss my flight to Brasilia. If anyone going to have a connected flight at Sao Paulo, makes sure you have at least 5 hours to kill or you better speak Portugese.

I got on the Brasilia flight and my seat was at row 3, if I sat any closer to the front I would be in the cockpit. Next stop Brasilia, I will see Flavia in approximately 1 hour :-)

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Photos

My new friend´s luggages
Brazilian like their baggages, these bags belong to two old ladies traveling within Brazil. There were three more bags on my trolley.

TAM Bus
The fist-pump-moment has FINALLY arrived.