Getting Out Of Rio: Return To Kafka Land ...

I understand the rap about taking advantage when you have a monopoly.  Of course prices rise during the Olympics, when there is a severe snowstorm, when wood is hard to find following a hurricane, and so forth.  That is basic economics.  Not to mention the ever present human element to maximize an advantage.  But the Brazilians have perfected this into a kind of institutional kleptocracy.  I’ll try to explain.  Feels again a bit like Kafka Land to me, despite the many weeks of respite I’ve had with it since Chile and my chase after a Brazilian visa.

Got out of bed at 4:30, after hitting the sack at 1:30.  Tired from the get go.  Taxi to the airport.  Plenty early for a 9 AM flight, on the theory that the internet ticket I started yesterday and failed to print out or get a validation code because the airline website crashed while paying for my ticket will be made good.  It isn’t.  Airline says “even though they sell our tickets, we’re not responsible.  So sorry.  By the way, price is doubled today.”  That is what happens when you buy airfare close to or on the day of departure.  Anybody who knows me can predict I didn’t take this laying down.  Demanded to talk to supervisors.  Checked other airlines.  Tried to make a nuisance of myself.  Play helpless at others (ugh!).  Almost pretended to be on a mercy mission, and even considered the “death in the family gambit” before my pride interrupted and I just decided to get on with it.  So went online, and most of the flights for where I want to go now can’t be scheduled with less than 24 hours in advance.  The only flight to Cayenne, French Guiana (with a mandatory stayover at Belem, at the Mouth Of The Amazon) is booked for the next two weeks.  So, I can’t take off today.  Well, maybe a couple midnight flights.  But these get sold out later in the day as I try to access them.  By this time, the idea of staying in Rio any longer is beginning to give my boyish skin back, neck and forehead hair.  I HAVE TO GET OUT of this place.  Among other reasons, it is just way too expensive.  Especially now that I’ve been here for a week and Carnivale is over.

So I find the lowest internet fare.  Apply online for what looks like the simplest website.  One agonizing line at a time.  No “English option.”  Just Portugese.  And there is no free wi-fi at the airport.  One must use an internet café, with seven times the usual rate.  Half of the two hour block you are purchasing, is spent merely getting codes straightened out and the system operational.  Again, one agonizing line at a time.  Occasionally people with English proficiency come by and help me interpret a particular line.  Each airline calls the same thing, by different names.  So it is not the same from airline website to a similar website.  There is no standardization. Wording always keep changing.  Even local Brazilians, stumbled over much of the language and what it really means.  After four hours, we get to the end of one online application.  Then it asks for a coding number.  A 45 minute discussion ensues about what code they are looking for?  Passport number?  No problem.  Social security number?  Not sure why they need it in Brazil.  I try everything but Obama’s credentials for being a Columbia Law Professor.  Nothing works.  Ends up, it is a CPE number that is required.  Only Brazilians have them.  Therefore only they can get the discount.  It is out and out discrimination.  Had we tried this trick in the United States, the lawsuits and international bloviating would endure for years.  Exception is you getting lucky enough to come across an obscure English language web version that shows an American or English flag so it is obvious you have that option.  Or without knowing why, should you elect to pay for the airfare ticket with an American Express card.  Then the CPE requirement quietly disappears. But this isn’t announced out loud or printed out anywhere, and remains merely a rumor.  I recheck the info and try all over again (three times), with a bilingual editor present.  They can’t figure it out either.  We quit this website, and chase the next lowest fare.  Eventually I wear out my translator’s patience also – more from the repetition of the problems we encounter, than the effort.  I pay for their beer, they move on, and another eventually moves in.  Same thing.  Different airline, same result.  Always comes down to a missing CPE number, and the airlines sympathize but won’t help, as the webfare gig isn’t theirs …  Spend 12 hours on the internet and going to the airline direct ticket offices downstairs chasing fares.  The lack of other language options for the websites, the clear primary alternative being English, is astounding.  I think they are meant to drive low-fare customers into quiet moments of desperation and that willingness to open up the wallet and say “I’ll pay anything, just move me.  Just get me out of here.”  This was exacerbated by virtually all of the travel agents in Rio being closed the last three days for Carnivale.  And yet, 12 hours later, I have a ticket.  This can be subscribed to sheer perseverance.  There IS a pony somewhere in that pasture full of rotting fertilizer, right?  Caracas, Venezuela it is.

No idea what I’ll do when I get there tomorrow.  I am advised it is the most dangerous place in South American right now and given several interesting theories why.  No idea what I’ll do upon landing except inquire about the easiest and cheapest way to get to the 3 dwarfs (French Guiana, Suriname, and Guyana), maybe Angel Falls – though money being the issue it is, that may be in doubt now.  Might depend on how much flow the webcam for the falls is showing?  Will finally end up in Colombia.  The cash is pouring out without remorse, and I have little control over that.  So many things are absolutely NECESSARY, like timely taxi rides, plane rides paid for day of travel (most expensive thing on the planet!) how to maximize keeping hydrated, paying for computer time today for over six hours (no free wi-fi), the occasional meal (though in a tourist town, at maximum holiday rates, and in the airport to boot things are going to be expensive). The list seems endless. Beginning to have my doubts about being able to get to Cuba also, simply due to the growing money concerns now flanking me.  Even though good info is coming in regularly now about where to stay in Cuba, how to deal with their dual “official” money vs. street (black market) money, and other good intel.  Actually keep track of expenditures daily as I go.  Figure a riale as 2/3^rds of a dollar.  Today went something like this so far: pay hotel final bill for incidentals, 82 riales: taxi to airport, 44 riales; breakfast, 18 riales; lunch (gladly shared with interpreters) 42.5 riales; computer use 36.4 riales; ticket to Caracas, 699 riales; various sodas about 20 riales, and so it goes.  It is still only 9 PM.  Won’t have dinner, but will be plenty thirsty the rest of the night.  And that is without a booze or wine bill.  Don’t plan to return to town, largely because the taxi would be another 45 riales going and 45 coming back plus even more for additional computer time.  I’ll just pull an all nighter of sorts here at the airport, read a lot, camp a little in some comfy seats, and be up early for the 9 am flight.  The flight to uncertainty …