Hey guys...I'm new to CH...I have been in Rio continuously for 4 months now and I spent 3 months here last year. I joined a Samba school...Salgueiro...and marched in carnaval. I think I am going to teach english and stay. Anyway, what is frustrating is I cannot access the Brazil pictures since I am locked out by living here. I would love it if anybody would email me pics when you go through the process of emailing your stuff to CH. I am pretty sure I know a lot of the girls I read about and I would like to know if I am right.
I would be glad to answer any questions anybody has as I have been and am going to be here awhile.
I could also try to deliver messages!
email: travelsrr@yahoo.com

Couple of Questions for you. I am interested in doing exactly what you are doing (Staying in Rio)

Where are you staying and how much are you paying?

How are you getting around the tourist visa?

How much can you make by teaching english?

I stay in places MUCH cheaper than recommended on CH. I stay in motels and hostels. Hotel Copa Linda...60 reas a night single room, shared bathroom. If I stay I will get an apartment, probably in Gloria or Botofogo...Copacobana is very expensive.

Tourist visa...I made a quick trip to Argentina.Coming back, the90 days starts over. You can also get an extension for another 120 days (I think that is the amount) with the federal police and it is not difficult.

Teaching english...I am visiting schools this week to learn what is involved with training and long term visas. Haven`t got to the money part yet but you won`t get rich doing it!

Copa Linda is a dump. It is a low end "love motel" where basic (and I mean basic) rooms are about 30 Reals for 3 hours. If you are at all affected by your surroundings, don't stay there. If you want to save that much money, you can join others sleeping on a piece of cardboard on the sidewalk near the Copa Linda. There too you will share a place to piss...usually 3-4 feet from where you sleep.

I believe tourist visas limit the holder to a total presence in Brasil for six months out of the previous twelve months from whatever date you are calculating. You don't get six months in each calendar year, so you can't legally stay the last six months of one calendar year and the first six months of the the next calendar year. This limit is rrespective of any trips to Argentina, Iraq or elsewhere and any visa extension you get from the Federal Police will not extend the six months total limit.

However the only problems I've heard of in overstaying the six months -- or otherwise being out of limits on a tourist visa -- are a potential shakedown for $ by the police should you get stopped and asked to produce your visa, and a potential fine of 2-3 Reals/day for the overstay when you go through passport control at GIG on your way out. Before I got my permanent visa, I exited GIG and had overstayed my tourist visa, but got no grief. I suspect that was because I had so many entrance/exit stamps for the previous 12 months that it would have taken them 45 minutes to figure out how many days I'd actually been in Brasil. They don't have computerized records available. At the Federal Police office in downtow Rio they actually calculate your time in Brasil by hand, looking at your passport stamps.

There is a great hostel in Copacabana about 6 blocks back on Siquiera Campos called Copa Praia Hostel. (google it for address and phone) It's about 30 reals a night for a bunk bed or 60-80 for a room to yourself. Lots of fun, maybe a little too party for some, but I don't think this group. Looking thru the apartment listings, unfurnished apartments seem quite cheap even in Copacabana. (a year ago, 1300 R. for an unfurnished 3 bedroom, about double for furnished)

Teaching english is always an easy job to get, but only paid about 13 reals an hour last time I heard. Just open your own Barraca stand on the beach, get some chairs and sell some drinks, ha ha.

As far as overstaying your visa goes, I found out the hard way that it costs 8 reais a day. In fact, I guess I got a little screwed since when I arrived in Brazil they stamped my visa for only a week. Not sure how this happened, but they do stamp a date on that yellow and green form. So when I left 80 some days later (thinking I was still under the 90 day radar!), they fined me for overstaying each day over the initial week allowance. If I had gone to the Federal Police in the first week, I may have been able to get an extension from the first week to the full 90 days. They gave me the maximum fine which ended up being 800+ reals. I had to pay it on the spot in cash or not catch my flight to Argentina. There was a bank upstairs with ATM, so I made it all happen, but it sure was a bummer.

Probably not the right thread for all this, but oh well.

KS -- Eight Hundred!!

As of 2003 it wasn't the visa that was stamped, it was the passport. The visa is in one of the passport pages. Mine is a rubber stamp with handwriting. I have entry and exit stamps from the Brazilian passport control personnel throughout my passport. The stamps indicate, respectively, a date of entry and date of exit. Both stamps are basically dates in a box, but they differ in that the final digit in the entry stamp is a "1" and the final digit in the exit stamp is a "2". Neither stamp has squat to do with the time you are permitted to stay in Brazil.

When did this happen to you??

Hi SF,

I have still not gotten my permanent residence visa for Brasil. I am still thinking about it. In the last twelve months, I have spent aobut 7 down here, and I have never heard a peep from anyone. I got a couple of questions:

1. If they catch you, it's on the way out, and then you pay the fine. Then do you have trouble getting back in. Are you somehow blacklisted?

2. How hard was it to get your permanent resident visa?

I am headed back to the States today after 6 weeks here. My plan this year is 6 weeks in Rio and 6 weeks in the States. Back and forth.

BT

1. I don't know if you get blacklisted BT, but if you have many entry and exit stamps for Brasil in your passport as I expect you do, the odds of the federales figuring out you've exceeded the 6 month limit are pretty small. This is because at GIG they apparently have no computerized system which displays all the entries/exits in and out of Brasil for a voyager. They literally have to make a list by hand from your passport, of all the entry stamps with all of the exit stamps, and then try and figure out which goes with which. This is a frustrating task (I know, I did it) when any entry stamp may be on one page and the corresponding exit stamp on another page, and when the stamps are often difficult, if not impossible to read because the ink is very light or the page wasn't stamped evenly.

2. I have a retirement visa. There are other types of permanent visas as well. Getting mine was not particularly hard...it just took 4 or 5 months and cost about US$1500 total ($300 to the Brazilians and the rest to my "expediter").

You have to begin the process at the Brazilian consulate in the US which has geographical jurisdiction over you. Which one it is depends on where your residence is. As indicated, I used an "expediter", one of many listed on the consulate's website, and was happy I did because the application and required supplemental documentation are a bureacrat's dream. Since the Brazilian consular office in the US sends the papers off to Brasilia for approval, if you don't have all your i's dotted etc., the application will bounce and you can be set back another 3-4 months.

There's a laundry list of requirements, including a requirement that you demonstrate an existing financial ability to draw $2K US/month for 36 months for living expenses in Brazil. You don't actually have to transfer the money to get the visa. You also have to show you are retired, and in my case, since I was self-employed, I simply did a notarized affidavit to that effect (The Brazilians are big on notarizations -- even if the only thing that's being notarized is the existence of the piece of paper which has the notary stamp -- e.g. notarizing a copy of your driver's license to show residence within the consular jurisdiction).

I'd be happy to answer any further questions you might have. Just inbox me and I'll give you my cell number.

Hi, I am a new to the site, and would appriciate much if some one could help me with phone info I need..........
I need to forward my calls to Brazil,without any one noticing me being there,not even when I call them from there ..............is that possible ? how ?............I thank you all in advance...
ps, I have no games going,..just afraid of out of town girlfrind finding out .