Brazillian Intrasigence

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Brazil

There are no photos with this blog for reasons that will become obvious.

Our tour group arrived in Santiago late on 25-08-2008 and departed for Brazil on a flight that left at about 7 am. After going through all the international departure checks Beth and I got to the departure gate and the LAN airline lady decided that our visas had expired and we were not permitted to fly. But our luggage did!. To Rio.

Tuesday continuing. Our visas were dated 27-05-08 and had to be used within 90 days. They had arrived at our house in Australia on the Friday before our departure early on the following Tuesday 17th of June. This date was Tuesday 26-08-08. My spreadsheet thinks that this is 91 days. Our guide and a senior LAN man expected us to get a visa extension and our flight was rescheduled to the next day.

At 9am we went to the Brazilian Embassy (that opened we found at 10.30) and explained our predicament to the embassy woman who understood English. As our visa had expired we had to apply for a new visa and that would take 6 working days. At that stage Beth broke down and the woman reduced the time to Friday. Our group was leaving Brazil on Friday! Nothing would change her mind. Another embassy man seemed, from his body language and the number of fingers he was extending, to be pleading for lenience and to extend the visa. No. She would not.

Then the fun started. Our luggage was going to Rio and we were stuck in Santiago.

Tuesday afternoon after the embassy disaster we went to the central LAN office and after language problems they found a woman who spoke English. She said that direction must come from Rio and our luggage would come freight from Rio. We emailed this to our guide.

Wednesday. Our guide responded that, no, the direction must come from the Santiago end. Back to the Santiago LAN office. No, they cannot give the direction. We must go to the Santiago airport.

At the Santiago airport we found the Baggage Claim office and filled in the appropriate forms, the baggage claim reference number and a number to phone if we had problems. The baggage will be delivered to the hotel this evening. It did not come and no-one answered the phone on the number given.

Thursday evening back to the airport because no-one answered the number given and because the LAN internet baggage trace did not recognize the number we had been given. We were given the number of the phone on the baggage claim desk and the prefix for the baggage claim number. The baggage we were assured would come to the the hotel at 8.30 pm on Friday. An internet check showed that the system did not know where our luggage was.

Friday. Go to the LAN office to reschedule our flights. When the LAN man saw us he just got up and went for an interpreter. To reschedule our flight and a penalty for not using the Rio to Buenos Aires flight cost us US$175 each.

More attempts to phone the baggage claim office. The new number given to us was not connected or something so we could not use that. After much dialling we finally got through on the original number and yes, the luggage was on the flight and would be delivered at 8.30 pm. We sat up until after 11 pm waiting for it then gave up and went to bed prepared to skip Argentina and fly back to Australia. At 1.30 am Saturday the hotel desk called that our luggage has arrived and we had to sign for it.

Saturday we flew to Buenos Aires and rejoined our group. Some of the group reported that the Rio LAN man reported that the request to send the luggage only arrived on Friday morning.

We did not get to Brazil nor the falls in Argentina, one of the reasons for our trip, and that is why there are no photos of it. Had LAN got the luggage back reasonably promptly we would have been able to go to the falls and meet the group there.

Moral: if you are going to Brazil make sure your visa is still current and don't get yourself in position where you need help from LAN. Their Santiago central, airport and Rio agents do not talk to each other. As a trouble shooter friend with an international company said, it is difficult to do business in South America.

I must add that the desk lady and all the staff at the Kapital hotel where we were staying in Santiago were most helpful even though they had no English, and the free internet was a a Godsend. Mick, our Guide, and Scenic Tours also did everything they could to sort out the mess. Thank you Mick, Condor Tours and Scenic Tours.

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