A few months ago I booked a roundtrip flight from Lima to Rio de Janeiro, stopping in Sao Paulo. The intention was on the return flight to just hop off in Sao Paulo, and say to heck with the ticket to Lima. It was significantly cheaper (as in many hundreds) than two separate one way flights, Lima-Rio, Rio-Sao Paulo. Grand total of $300 round trip sounded good to me. So, when I got to the airport in Rio to check in for my ‘return’ flight to Lima via Sao Paulo, I was of course worried about my bag. I’ve had to check it every time so far, and I did NOT want to check it through to Lima when I was getting off in Sao Paulo. Airlines are really strict about these things, and my bag is borderline too big….in San Francisco, they wouldn’t let me bring it on the plane.
I asked if it was OK at the ticket counter in Rio, and miraculously they said no problem, even after I saw the shoebox sized ‘acceptable bag should fit in here’ thing they have at airports. I proceeded to security, and they had no problems at all. A big relief! The catch, however, being that as I was checked all the way to Lima, they took my immigration card and stamped me through to Lima. I couldn’t really get out of that one, and didn’t really want to tell them I was hopping off in Sao Paulo, or they might say something. Luckily, when I got to Sao Paulo, I was able to go through an immigration line. They didn’t want to stamp my passport , though. I had to explain the situation, the border official went back and brought me to the manager, I explained that I was going to be in Sao Paulo until Monday and was coming from Rio and needed a new entry stamp. Reluctantly, they gave me one, so hopefully no problems when I fly to Montevideo on Monday. Moral of the story: Flying protocol blows.
Random Rio Pics:
Telephone booth!:
View from the Christo:
Christ the Redeemer:
Crazy Rio Hot Dog with like 20 things on it:
Some Brazilian Fruit:
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