Monday I cabbed over to the Embaixada do Brasil, at Avenida José Pardo #850, in the elegant Miraflores district, here in Lima, Perú, to apply for a 90-day tourist visa for Brazil.  For some reason, Brazil requires that you obtain a consular visa before you enter the country; you don’t just show up at the border, as you may in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Perú and Uruguay.  The application explains that this is a reciprocal procedure, since the US charges Brazilians a $100 fee.  So what is so special about Brazil, along with Paraguay?  I don’t know, to tell you the truth.

I was in Brazil from August, 2005 till February, 2006, with a 90-day extension of the original 90-day visa.  I tried to enter again last summer, but it was too early.  You’re allowed only 180 days in 365 consecutive calendar days, irrespective of the year.  So finally I’ve gotten around to applying again.

A novel feature was that this time I had to get a vaccination for yellow fever.  The embassy sent me over to nearby Laboratorio Roe, where I got the shot for about $25.  Then they sent me to Scotiabank to pay the $100; you don’t just pay at the embassy.  Fortunately, I had pictures of myself with me, or I’d have had to go out for that too.  Still the whole affair took half a day.  Then I had to return to the embassy yesterday to pick up my passport with the visa infixed inside like a large postage stamp.

I learned recently from a cab driver here in Lima that you can actually sail the Amazon from Iquitos, Perú to Manaus, Brazil.  I didn’t know that.  In January, 2006, I sailed upstream 800 miles from the mouth of the Amazon at Belém to Manaus, the great metropolis of the jungle in Amazonas, one of Brazil’s states.  I thought Manaus was the end of the line, but I guess I was wrong.  Now, if all goes according to plan, I’ll sail downsteam 950 miles from Iquitos to Manaus, through the deepest, wildest, most uninhabited part of the jungle.  I can hardly wait!  The catch is that I have to fly to roadless Iquitos, east of the Andes, in the jungle.  But it looks as if the airfare from Lima is only about $100. 

The only thing that is keeping me from going right now is that I’m waiting for a package that I ordered from the US that’s coming by mail.  Then I’ll be off to Iquitos.

My Peruvian visa doesn’t expire till about August 1, so what I’ll do, if I arrive in Iquitos about July 1, is just put up there for a month.  Today the temperature in Lima is only 61º, while the temperature in Iquitos is 84º, so I’ll be delighted to lap up that warmth.

I spent 5 months in Belém and a week in Manaus on my earlier visit, so I know exactly what to expect of the Amazon weatherwise.  The high and low temperatures in both cities are around 88º and 72º, every day of the year!  The sun shines every morning almost without fail, but it gets cloudy and rains every afternoon for an hour or two.  I would simply get home about 3 PM, so I got caught in the rain only once or twice.

I just love Belém and Manaus, and I’m hoping Iquitos will be much the same.  If I don’t like it I can just enter Brazil early.

Extending your visa in Brazil requires that you secure proof of passage out of the country.  But usually the only way to get proof of passage is to book a flight on ultra-expensive Varig Airlines, the premier Brazilian line.  Also, they won’t sell a foreigner a one-way ticket to another country where he is a foreigner.  So you have to buy round-trip tickets.

In the south of Brazil, you can buy a bus ticket to Uruguay, Paraguay or Argentina, but in Manaus, you cannot buy a ticket to Venezuela; I checked the last time around.  So when my 90 days are up, I’ll probably just leave. 

You can go by bus from Manaus to Caracas, Venezuela, but you can’t buy the whole passage in Manaus.  You have to buy a Brazilian bus ticket to Roraima, a state in Brazil, and then buy a Venezuelan ticket at the border.  Whether I would want to go to the border just to buy the ticket and then travel back to Manaus for another 90-days, on a visa extension, before entering Venezuela, seems doubtful at this point.  Anyway, Caracas ought to be great too, as a city of perpetual summer.  So far I haven’t been in Venezuela.

Here’s a map that shows Iquitos, Manaus, Belém and Caracas, but Lima is just outside the margin on the left, west of Cusco, which can be seen on the map too.

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