Brazil Vacation Post 1
Day 1 - January 4, 2006:
This was actually day 2, since I started out from Westbury about 2PM on Jan. 3, but unless you count an ice storm, massive delays at Laguardia airport, late-night wandering around Miami International, getting my luggage lost (I can only speculate as to the exact time this happened), nothing really happened that day.

So: Day 1 - January 4, 2006:
Deserted ticket counters at Miami Internatio- nal Airport


Departed Miami International at 11:30 PM (the night before, but who´s counting?) on a HUGE 767 to Sao Paolo; probably the longest flight I´ve ever been on: 4000+KMs, almost 8 hours. The coolest part was the inflight GPS that showed the planes position relative to a map on a big screen. I woke up about 3 am just as we were going over Manaus, the jungle capital in the heart of the Amazon (and several hundred KMs south of the equator!!) Unfortuntately, it was (as the entirety of Brazil, as far as I could tell) completely covered by clouds.


Arrived in Sao Paolo about 10am,


(7am NY time - who knew countries stuck so far out into the Atlantic? Actually 1 hour of that is DST, since it´s SUMMER there. Interestingly (logically?) Daylight savings time is not observed in Fortaleza, where every day is the same as every other day - sunny and 12 hours long, as far as I have heard.)

This is when I learned about the missing bag. Oh, well; who wanted to be stuck with that monstrosity for 12 hours while I waited for my connection to Fortaleza? The nice agent PROMISED that they would have the bag to me soon. By this time - missed flights, 12 hour delay, missing luggage, anything else? - I was pretty depressed. Luckily Varig airlines (my carrier on to Foraleza) did something to pull me out of the doldrums: they offered me a voucher for a hotel room for the day and a free lunch.