First I would like to thank all the members for all of the info that has been posted here. It made my first trip painless and enjoyable. Let me start by saying that I slept on the plane from Dallas to Sao Paulo and when I woke it was culture shock time because it seemed that everyone on the plane, even the flight attendants, were now speaking portuguese. I have done the majority of Asia and for the record Rio stomps mud holes into all those countries as far as the girls go. The airport inSao Paulo was only giving 230r for the dollar. I was disappointed and only exchanged $100 so I could get a phone card and something to eat while waiting for my flight to Rio. Finally I land and after reading about the cab guys and the scams they run I opted to take the bus. I am very adventerous and was pleased to only pay 7r for an airconditioned ride to Ave Atlantica. Oh, by the way I am 24 and am still working on my nest egg. I arrive at my apartment and get unpacked. I put my money in the safe and locked the key in my suitecase whick is locked with a combo lock and then used a gun cable lock to lock the suitecase to the closet. The idea is to to also lock my apt key in my suitecase while girls are spending the night. Go to the Cambio and get 245r to the dollar. Feeling better. Hit the Drogaria and get some Cialis, 4 20mg pills for 85r.(I'll get back to the Cialis in a minute) Pick up some booze from the supermarket and back to the apt. I took half of a 20 mg Cialis and at about midnight get into a cab and go to Help. Help was amazing! A lot of beautiful girls and the occasional ugly duckling. Danced the night away and went home with a beautiful girl for an all nighter, which cost 200r. Amazing sex and the positons we got into was unbeliveable. Now for the Cialis. I highly recommend not taking a half of Cialis 20mg if you don't need enhancement. I had an erection that would not go away. Some may say that is a good thing but 6 hours later is no fun!!! Got rid of the girl and hit the beach. Rented a chair and umbrella after haggling and telling the guy that I paid less yesterday resulted in chair and umbrella for 10r. There are a lot of underage girls on the beach and I felt like a bouncer checking ID's. went to Meia and got a dupla with two drop dead beautiful girls for 100r a piece.

Now this is where things went down hill and I broke every rule about Rio. Went to Help and Fell in lust. Spent the rest of my time in Rio very content with the same girl. I know that I will be flogged for this but I was happy. I know she is a program girl. The rest of the trip did the Corcavado and Sugar Loaf thing. Even went to the Flavelas to do some clubbing. Once again I know I broke the rules but like I said I was content.

Some tips to new guys (I am no expert I still consider myself a newbie) Serafina is a good restaruant with live music. Kilogram is a buffet restaruant where you pay by the kilo for what you get. Monchiqe (spelling?) is awesome. There are guys constantly walking around with squires of meat and they will cut off a piece right on your plate. It is also a buffet style restaurant. Never let the cabs pull off without starting the meter (they tried this 4 times on me). Take a cab everywhere you go (it's inexpensive) Haggle the price of the cabs outside of Help (they start with 15r but you can get them for 10r). For an early morning snack you can get a cheeseburger from the vendor on the street which I am not sure about cleanliness but is really good. (I call them "ok let's go fuck burgers) Not recommended for the weak stomach. I had no problems.

DON'T FALL IN LOVE.

I also don't recomend going to the flavela unless you are escorted by a local. The clubs there are great but I can understand how you can get yourself into trouble there.

I met her family and it was uneasy because I don't speak portuguese. I got to see another part of Rio. The part the tourists don't see and made a lot of friends there.

I plan on saving my pennies and returning to Rio in a couple of months. This place is amazing and is now at the top of my list for retirement location. No pics posted due to the fact that some members here grant the girls access and my life was threatened if the girs see themselves on the internet. I love this place and cannot wait to return.

By the way Jaguar.. the girl from the first night said Bunda and I wispered Presbyterian and couldn't help but start laughing. Fixing a drink and plan on reading your new report right now.

Glad you had a good time. I am off to Rio in 1 month, but wife will be with me.

If you do fall in love on your next fix, read about what to do in Rio when you are with your wife.

M

The point is to have a good time, and it sounds like you did. Just about everyone who's gone to Rio has "fallen in love" (lust, really) at least once. You'll get past that and become a complete safado cachorro in time.

Welcome to the club!
Bwana (back in Rio in 2 days!)

Thanks guys. Bwana your guide was instrumental in my planning. Thank you for all the info and the fellow mongers who have posted.

It seems a bunch of top management from Volkswagen also fell in love on their brazil vacations, and it has cost most of them their jobs. But I gotta head there at some point.

LOL

Soon....

Great report. I also hope I find lots of garotas that I can fall in love with. Looking forward to it, I can taste it.

Cooliebo,

Thanks for the report. Brought back memories. My first trip mirrored yours, about 8 years ago. Found one in Help, she had actually picked me up in Meia Pataca earlier in the day. Spent the week with her. Met her mom and brother - actually cooked for them in her apartment. Then went to the family house about a 3 hour bus ride south of Rio and met all the cousins, uncles, etc...

Needless to say, I beat myself up a bit later. But...NO MAN ON THE PLANET IS PREPARED FOR A BRAZILIAN WOMANS CHARM (and my first girlfriend when I was 15 was Brazilian - for 3 years we did nothing but enjoy each other physically - and I still fell down a bit - but later in life, after experience the lack of passion of American women). Just remember. Don't fall in love so much you end up paying for them remotely.

Looking forward to my trip in October. And many moments of falling in lust...

-S

Seems like I didn't make any mistakes and did the first trip to Rio just right. I will be going back at the end of the year and hope to re-create all the magical moments of the first trip.

Anyways I gotta nail a Pomba-Gira
Safadinho you know what I am talking about.

Peter27 - Is this an inside joke or something?

Cooliebo - I see nothing wrong with falling in love in Brazil, it's a far superior place to fall in love specially with a Brazilian rather than with North American girl. Both want your money but atleast Brazilian women reward us and show their gratitude. I'm back in Rio this Sept Oct to travel with a girl I met on my last trip in April.

As far as the threat against you for posting pics, that would by my challenge to post as many as possible. Ya only live once :-)

COOLIEBO- great to see you had such a great time on your first trip to rio .
i too had a very similar experience the first time i went to rio 7 years ago . i met this babe from sao paolo . she was a complete babe in every way . i paid her $100 for the first night and she never asked me for a penny after that . after a few days though together she told me that she had to go work but that she would return to my hotel to be with me after she worked which was after about an hour and a half. we stayed together for the remainder of my holiday which was about 10 days and she went to work in the way i described for about 2 days . when i left her on my last day in rio i gave her $150 . she did`nt ask for it . in fact the only time she ever asked for money was on the first night .
i returned to europe and kept in touch with her on the phone and after a week i got a letter from her which was incredibly romantic , she was saying that she loved me very much and that she wanted to see me as soon as possible .
i planned my next trip to see her and i flew in to sao paolo 4 months later to spend 3 weeks with her . it was incredible to be with her again and there was no mention of money although i paid for everything apt. food . nightlife etc.
bought her a few clothes but nothing extravagent . she used to hint about marriage and kids but i never fully understood at that time what she wanted from me.my portuguese was very poor(i learned a little in the 4 month period when we were apart) as was her english( her letter she wrote to me was translated to english by her friend) . anyway i went back to my country and we communicated for a while on the phone and by e- mail . she then phoned me one day and said that she was in germany and that she could`nt keep in touch any more because she was going to marry a german man that she knew for 10 years . he was 55 and she was 30 . i was pretty heartbroken about the whole thing because we got on so well together but communication was a problem .
when i returned to rio 8 months later on another holiday i met her best friend in help and she told me that valdeira ( sorry guys that was her name ) told her that if she met me to tell me that she really loved me .her friend went on to tell me that she did`nt believe that i was ready to get married , that i was too young ( 32 at the time ).
anyway things worked out ok for me with another girl - i`ll tell you that next time if your interested .
my advice to you COOLIEBO before you go back is to learn some portuguese - it is a beautiful language and it is essential if you want to have a relationship with a brazilian girl - not just to speak with her but her family also .
oh, and some more advice if i may - your worst enemy will be your brazilian girlfriend`s best friend or friends . she will do everything to break you apart . but she will be nice as pie to your face . this is my experience.
some will say you are crazy to have a realationship with a working girl in brazil but i say this is not a true statement .

I did a lot of thinking and I am going to stay with the whole girlfriend situation. Make a couple of trips down there and see where it goes. It's all about being happy and having fun. Right now I am having a great time. Rio is an amazing place and the women.....well you see what happened to me.

My advice - girlfriend at night, termas in the afternoon.

Hmmmm, I'm the opposite - girlfriend during the day and Help at night

"I have done the majority of Asia and for the record Rio stomps mud holes into all those countries as far as the girls go"


easy to say...

do ya have some examples of your asian or brazilian chicks?




"No pics posted due to the fact that some members here grant the girls access and my life was threatened if the girs see themselves on the internet. "

oh okkkk-- scratch out her face on the pic-- I'll try to keep blazer in-line


As for doing things right... I guess I'll have to stick a sock in it till' I see how my own willpower holds up down there. But gettin' whipped ain't any way to spend a week of whoring ;)

"My advice - girlfriend at night, termas in the afternoon."

Actually, better advice is this:

* Upon waking, nail the GF before she leaves in the late morning for school.
* After leaving, call KarlaModels for a nooner.
* 2pm, eat and hit the beach or hit the malls for some eye-candy(future possibilities).
* 4pm, hit the termas for a shower/massage and a sesssion
* 6pm, hit the gym or relax/nap
* 8pm comes around, hit up another terma session
* 10pm, GF is finished with school and time for dinner and going out.
* 12 - Bed, hopefully lots of partying/good sex with that lustful GF.

REPEAT the next day. Every 3rd/4th day, tell the GF you are tired and don't want to see her, replacing her w/a hot terma girl who have negotiated to take out from a previous visit, that mall hottie, or if need be a HELP girl.

As time passes by, the GF no longer will seem as desireable and she is then replaced with a new GF as the other GF is becoming too much of a "wife" (costing more money w/less sex). The idea is to always be looking for the new fresh lustful garota that blows your mind.

Well, after two years, I'm pretty happy with my setup. She doesn't go to "school", though. Of course, neither do most of the garotas who claim to be going to school. With so many GPs in the various colleges around Rio, who needs a terma? We should all be hanging out at the local university.

My schedule is a little more sedate. Get up, have sex, have breakfast, go for a walk together, hang by the pool, have lunch, then I'm off to the terma and she's off to the hair salon or shopping or whatever, then back together for dinner, a movie or some music or something, then sex then sleep.

BTW, Coolio mentions taking half a 20 mg Cialis. You should NEVER cut Cialis tabs. It is a time-release tab, and cutting it has negative effects on the release of the drug.

Bwana -- I've never cut them, but have been curious on how doing so could affect the time release qualities. Can you educate me on this?

SF-
One of the docs or pharmacists on the board should explain, but as I understand it, the time-release meds are built up in sections which dissolve at different rates. When you cut the pill you cut through those sections and they all dissolve at the same time, meaning you're getting meds intended to be released over a 24-36 hour period all at once.

Or something to that effect.

Interesting. The Lilly website cialis.com, contains the following:

"Will CIALIS work if I take half the tablet?

CIALIS is designed to be taken in a single 20
mg, 10 mg, or 5 mg dose as prescribed by your
doctor or other healthcare professional."

and:

"How should you take CIALIS?

Take CIALIS exactly as your doctor
prescribes. CIALIS comes in different doses
(5 mg, 10 mg, and 20 mg). For most men, the
recommended starting dose is 10 mg. CIALIS
should be taken no more than once a day. Some
men can only take a low dose of CIALIS
because of medical conditions or medicines
they take. Your doctor will prescribe the
dose that is right for you."

Note they DON'T say not to cut the tablet. Also, I haven't seen anything other than 20 mg dosages sold of the Lilly brand Cialis (non-generic). Finally, there's a toll-free number provided by Lilly:


"Ask Lilly ICOS


Contact the Lilly ICOS Answers Center at
1-877-CIALIS-1 (1-877-242-5471).


Thank you for your interest in contacting
Lilly ICOS. By calling this telephone number,
you will have access to a healthcare
professional who can provide additional
information similar to what you can find on
this Web site...This toll-free number is a
service provided by Lilly ICOS and is not
intended to replace the advice of your
healthcare provider.."

Can one of our US based Hombres can give them a call and report the results?

ALL - I was prsecribed the 20 mg Cialis by a Dr, and when I specifically asked for the 10 mg dose (I HATE CUTTING PILLS) he said that the 20 mg was cheaper and that cutting it had no ill effects. Besides, as many bros have mentioned, I haven't even seen the 10 mg size anywhere. Eh, I just pop the whole 20 and drive on! PS: It's 1944hrs here on the east coast and the Cialis hotline is closed for the night.

Let me chime in. I'll try not to get too technical. What Bwana said about time-release tablets where different sections of the tablet dissolve at different rates are mostly true. Breaking such tablets destroys the integrity of the system and therby usually dumps the entire load of the drug into the body. This is usually bad for several reasons which I won't get into, but you can probably guess.

There are different ways one can have a prolong duration of clinically active level of drug in the bloodstream. One way is via extended-release formulation. Another way is via very slow metabolism of the drug by the body. In the case of Cialis, it is metabolised by the body very slowly. Thus you get an active level of the drug in the bloodstream which may last up 36 hours, but most people usually see the effects fade after 24 hours since this is the point where 1/2 of the medication is eliminated by the body. Some people can be slow metabolizers and some can be fast, so for some people this works wonders and for others, not much use.

In any case, I don't see any danger in breaking the tablet in half. The only caveat is that the active ingredient in the tablets are not truly uniform throughout. Thus even if you break a tablet perfectly in half, most of the time you are not taking the amount you think you are taking.

Cooliebo,

What an entertaining and enjoyable report; keep writing, you have a very readable style. God, you're so damn smart too because you found Rio 31 years before I did at age 55. Why wasn't there an internet back in the 70's?

So that magic word worked for you, too?

With regards to cialis, I'm never taking that stuff again if I can help it. That fucking stuff stayed in my system for four, yes, four fucking days. Miss Bubble Lips finally got to the point where she wouldn't walk down the street with me and we had to take a taxi everywhere. I made so many pup tents in my pants, shorts and bathing suit, you would have thought there was a Boy Scout Jamboree in my pants. My advice is cut the damn thing in half and throw both halves away.

Does anyone else have these problems or is it only me?

SF-There was a guy on the board a few months ago talking about this (cutting pills in half). Sounded like he worked for Lilly or rep'd for them. He basically said nao problema cutting the things in half. I'll see if i can dig up the thread and post it.

Jag-Don't waste time cutting it. Just throw it away in whole and tell yourself you took it... he he!

Jaspersmack -- Aside from possibility of an uneven distribution of the medication within the pill, are you saying cutting the pill only reduces the time period it would be effective e.g. 36 to 24 hours? If so, why would a physician prescribe a lower dosage to some patients?

I ALWAYS cut my 20mg Cialis in half. I've NEVER noticed any effect (such as too much too soon or not enough). I've asked both doctor friends and my prescribing doctor about it and all have said no problem, cut away.

Having said that, what you say about distribution of the medecine is true... but it's evenly enough in there so that 1/2 might not be 50% but it's not going to vary that much (like 75/25 - maybe you'll get 55/45 or 58/42 or better 52/48).

Still, I agree, call Lilly.

Puhleeeeez, will somebody residing in the US get through to the toll free number and let us know what Lilly says? Thanks guys.

Fellas, my main point is that cutting the Cialis tablet in half does not pose any safety risks. And no you will not get a dose dumping effect.

Getting into other areas of discussion, in terms of content uniformity of the tablets, I believe that FDA have a control in place to test uniformity of blend in the tablets so usually the variation is minor. Variation is probably 5-10% at most. Thus if you break a 20 mg Cialis in half, the dosage in 1/2 tablet can vary from 9 mg to 11 mg. There is no way to verify this as all of this is proprietary information generated from Lilly, unless Lilly wishes to reveal it. Anyway this should not have any affect on safety whatsoever. It may have a minor effect, if any, on efficacy.

In terms of dosage, for the same individual, if you give a 10 mg versus a 20 mg, you will get approximately 1/2 the amount of the drug in the bloodstream compared to the 20 mg dose. Dose exposure in the body is directly proportional to the amount of drug taken. I want to correct something I posted earlier that 1/2 of the drug gets eliminated in 24 hours - that is not accurate; it is closer to 18 hours.

For why some people only need 10 mg and others need more, the analogy can be made to alcohol. Why does it only take some people 1 beer to get a buzz and others it takes an entire case? It all boils down to how your body handles this stuff. The pharmacokinetics of how the body distributes, binds, and breaks down Cialis is quite complicated and I don't have the knowledge to describe it. Doctors usually like to give patients a smaller dose of the medication to see how they tolerate it and how well it works. If it is not effective enough they can always increase the dose. However if they start off with a higher dose, greater side effects can appear. With a drug which lasts so long in your body, the side effects can prevail for 36 hours.

Hope this helps all you perverts, er.. scholars.

(Message edited by jaspersmack on July 27, 2005)

I just got off the phone with Lily. I told them I had been prescribed 20mg Cialis, but thought I only needed 10mg and would it be ok to cut the pill in half. The rep's response was that they did not recommend it, due to the lack of reliabile distribution of the medication. No mention of time release issue.
CG

no rep would recommend cutting any tablet in half.

The pricing of Viagra is such that any size tablet costs about 10 dollars. They want to charge you as much as the market will bear.

They would never recommend to cut a 100 mg pill in 4 parts, instead of using 4 25mg pills. Would make them lose 75% of their profit.

Same is probably true for Cialis.

Is it really a time release pill???

No Cialis is not time release. There is no problem cutting it and I have gotten The Lily drug reps that visit me in my office to admit that - off the record of course. They are indeed told not to talk about splitting pills for obvious reasons.
That being said --after splitting I would not let the other half sit out in the heat and humidity too long. Keep it in the bottle ,dry with a dessicant capsule if one was provided.

Khun_mor,

Did they provide any realistic info regarding extended usage? I know some guys who have taken a pill every other day or so while on a monger run, and have had some back pain/kidney pains/something in that general area. They laid off the Cialis for a day or two and all was fine.

What is the real-world procedure for extended use over a 1-2 week period?