Brazil makes a bad first impression

Peruvians didn´t exactly come across as warm and welcoming.

Bolivians were somewhat so after you started speaking to them.

But both countries welcomed us warmly at their borders. Not so in Brazil.

We arrived from Bolivia to Corrumba Brazil via a 14 hour train ride. This was the worst, most ridiculous train I have ever been on. It honestly felt like an amusement park ride. At one point I was certain the train was hurtling down stairs - we´d move forward and drop, move forward and drop, over and over again. They showed a movie - Deuce Bigelow, European Jigalow - but I couldn´t watch it because trying to focus on the screen during the drops made me nauseaus.

But we arrived at 8:30 AM as we were supposed to, got out, and progressed without incident through Bolivian customs. The officers there even told me they liked my name.

Upon stepping outside, we were told by some random guy that there was no one at the Brazilian customs office and they would just take us into the city for no charge, that we should not worry about it. We walked the 100 yards to the office and there was indeed no one there. It appears the Brazilian customs officers were on strike. And we learned these nice men were Pantanal tour operators - the place we were headed - so everything started to make sense.

We told the guy we would go with him as he represented a tour group we had read about. As we went to hop in his pick-up, two other men suddenly joined him, and I started wondering where I´d packed my pocket knife.

They told us they would take us to their office. We drove into and through the town however - the place you would expect an office to be. Instead, we stopped in front of a house and a residential street. I located my knife and moved it to my jacket pocket.

Inside they showed us dated, worn and tattered maps, pictures, and guide books. I used their restroom and observed more people sleeping upstairs. The driver stood outside by the car...just outside the locked gate. I´m generally uncomfortable in unfamiliar situations like these and couldn´t wait to leave.

After hearing their pitch, we went to the bus station on word that the Immigration officers might be working there. They weren´t. We were told the strike would end on Friday, two days later, while we were in the Pantanal wetlands. The owner of the tour company assured us that he knew someone in Campo Grande - our next stop after the tour - who could get us our stamp with no problem. Perfect.

Our last night of the tour our guide comes to tell us he spoke to the bossman Al and there was nothing he could do for us. Instead of proceeding on the Campo Grande as we had planned, we would have to return the two hours to Corrumba just to get our passports stamped.

The Immigration office is open from only 8 AM to 11 AM, and then again from 2 PM till 4:30 PM. These officers work for less than 6 hours a day, they look at papers and stamp said papers, and they were on stike for more money. Despite the fact that we all had our visas, we all had our exit stamps from Bolivia, we had gone to not one but two offices in the city, and we had documentation for where we were during the stike, we had to change our travel plans to accomodate their strike. But it got worse.

We had an our to kill between our bus arriving and the immigration office opening. Two of us went into town to get food and drinks, the other two stayed with out bags. We arrived back at 2:15, leaving us with :45 minutes - at a bus station in a little town keep in mind - to get through immigration before our bus was supposed to depart. We didn´t make it.

First, there is only one person processing people entering the country. There were at least three other people in the back office doing apparently nothing, and one woman who would work with people leaving the country for a few minutes, then take a break.

Rather than letting people line-up and processing them in order as they do everywhere else in the world I´ve been, they take your passport from you and into the back office, then call names out. While it isn´t random, it also isn´t in order.

Half the people who walked up to the window didn´t get their stamp for whatever reason. If anyone in Brazil took an operations class, they might consider adding a first step - apparently for Bolivians seeking entry - to look for the specific articles or information that many of them appeared to be missing. This could help speed the process for everyone.]

As the time slipped away, we indicated to the officer that our bus left at 3:00 and asked that they process our documents in time to allow us to make our bus. The first time he told us to just wait. The second time he ignored us. The third time - at two minutes to three - he said okay, we´d be next. He then called three more people before us. Finally, at ten after three, he processed us both in thirty seconds (everyone else took about five minutes I would say) and acted as though he had done us a favor even though we´d heard the announcement that the bus had departed several minutes previously.

Instead of leaving directly from the Pantanal to Campo Grande, we had to come back to Corrumba because of the strike. This cost us four hours. Instead of making our 3:00 bus, we are now on an 11:00, costing us another eight hours. The wonderful Brazilian Immigration Officers cost four of us a day of our vacation. They took money away from some hostal in Campo Grande, because we are now sleeping on the bus. I now feel about Brazil like I feel about possums or people with no awareness of others or Hunts ketchup. Brazil and their lazy-ass customs officers can go to hell. I hope that man enjoys his life, working 5.5 hours a day, looking at the same forms over and over, feeling all powerful because he can give a simple stamp to some people and not to others, while he lives in this drug-trafficking and animal poaching border town that no one cares about except to get to the Amazon basin. Oh, and the Portugese he speaks so proudly is an ugly language, almost on par with German.

I wish I weren´t so bitter, but I am.