Hi-

There’ll be a reckoning, and a full telling of all the stories, but for now, here’s the juicy bit of my travel to Brazil. I twittered a bunch and got people all up in arms and worried, so here’s the disclosure to calm beating hearts.

We went to Foz do Iguacu on an ill-thought out trip for bad reasons, and it went kind of all to hell. The place was all disneyfied, the town was kind of lame, the food wasn’t interesting, etc, etc, but it was going to be fine.

Until we went to the airport to leave.

But first some backstory. I went to Brazil to spend time with my pal J. He moved down there some months ago to hang with pals in Belo Horizonte, and has a really nice life of hanging out, working on some tech stuff in the US, spending time with pals and generally enjoying life. I love his setup, and he does too. But, he is not, how shall we say, legal. He has a visa that may have expired some time ago.

So, back to the airport near the Argentine border:

We have a reservation for the plane together, and I go to check in and they ask for a passport instead of just an ID. Apparently, since this airport is near the border, they want to make sure you have a valid visa to be in Brazil, in case you snuck across in the jungle from Paraguay or something. Thus, panic sets in. We know that J will be deported or detained if he checks into the plane, so we send him out of the airport to go have a smoke outside.

I, incredibly stupidly, check my bag and get a boarding pass.

After realizing that he’s doomed, I decide to play hero and rent us a car last minute to take an exciting all night 1,600km roadtrip across Brazil to parts unknown. It’s all touch-and-go (sniff, record label how I miss you), since I’ve just failed to get an international drivers license a week earlier (Thanks for the try Hudson!!). Luckily my tactics of distraction and asking endless stupid questions means that Hertz never asks for anything other than my passport and CA driver’s license (and a serious credit card).

SO WE’RE OFF! It’s a big adventure, and I’m going to learn to drive on Brazilian roads and we’re going to have a fun roadtrip! We head back to the hotel to use their computers to print out some google map foo (heaven forbid anyone in the fucking town sell a goddamned map or iphone charger). Big ups for Mercure hotel chain, because they totally saved our asses. We get some snacks, we get some cokes, and we head out with our maps. Which I inputted the wrong STARTING address, so this is clearly not auspicious. Sheesh. J saves the day with just good navigation techniques.