Pre-Trip

My trip began with a bit of a crisis - I had camera problems, which pretty much snowballed into losing me the financial cushion I had for the trip. Because of this, the whole voyage was coloured by financial matters, which made it quite a bit less fun than it would have otherwise been.

But look at the bright side: Rarely have the financial consequences of a trip been so carefully thought through, at least judging by different mongers' reports. In this trip, you'll learn how much everything cost, and why, because I had to learn that to keep my head more or less above water.

The flight and customs

The flight was supposed to leave at 2:30, so I arrived at the airport around 12:35, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready to go!

Only to find the flight was delayed for four hours, thanks to an Asian flight being late. They were kind enough to give me a meal voucher for $15, so I deliberately went to the priciest restaurant in LAX, spent something like $14.85, and had a surprisingly good meal, as airport fare goes.

After that, I was so bored that I shot and edited a brief movie of the various vehicles wandering around the airport. I guess I just can't stand sitting around doing nothing :-).

The departure time wound up being 7:30, so that makes the flight 5 hours late. I wonder about Varig; they do some nice classy things, but they seem to be failing badly in execution. But perhaps this is just an off day. I guess we'll find out when I return.

The flight was surprisingly easy. I'm not saying it was truly easy, or that I didn't want a lot more sleep than I got. But it was tolerable; I didn't feel like it was some kind of middle ages torture ritual needed to join the Rio club. Perhaps it was that my fellow passengers seemed like pretty nice people; perhaps it's because Varig at least tries to provide good service, even they don't quite deliver; or perhaps because I was so excited at finally getting to Rio that even misery wouldn't ruin my trip.

But perhaps the biggest secret of the flight was that I was awake until midnight on the day before the flight, I got up at 6am to finish packing, and so I had plenty of sleep to make up. That might be the best way of all to get sleep on the plane - just become so tired you really don't care where you sleep as long as you do. Unfortunately, it also leaves you in Rio with way too little sleep, and as you will see, that's not such a good thing, either.

Clearing Customs was, well, easy. When I went to Cuba last year, I remember a few brief moments of steely-eyed interrogation and then being released into the world. In Rio, one immigration girl stamped something, an immigration guy stamped something else, and then a guy behind a table glanced at my paperwork and pointed towards the exit. And it was, in fact, the exit. All done, before I could even start feeling nervous about the whole business. My four cameras, two above the theoretical legal limit of one still and one video, were completely unmolested.

On the Ground

There were about a million touts on the ground. It's just about impossible to avoid having one attach himself to you, leechlike, and not let go for a minute. A tout offered me a taxi; I brushed him off; another offered me a taxi; I brushed him off. Eventually I wound up not having the fortitude to brush one off anymore, but I had a bright idea: I would say I needed to exchange money into the local currency first.

So the tout, of course, led me to a money exchange place, where I exchanged $50 at a rate of R$2.70 to the dollar. He then led me to a cab, but at least it was a "amarellas", or yellow one, which I already knew was metered and a decent deal.

I didn't know where the Debret hotel was, and since I mispronounced it, the cab driver didn't have much of a clue, either. I finally said "It's near Help". The tout said "Helpe" and we were off. He then asked for a "propina" persistently and I gave him R$2. (Can anyone in the audience give some guidance on how to tip touts? Or should we ignore them with dignity? R$2 is about $ 0.70, so it's not a big deal, but it's, well, a little deal).

The cab driver was eventually able to find the hotel by looking it up in a hotel directory. Fare was R$37 but he gave me R$10 in change off a R$50 bill. I didn't think it was worth fussing about for a shade over $1.

Sandman had given me the contact information for his interpreter, and I found the pictures intriguing and her personality charming and sweet in email. So I decided she would be the right person to crack my Rio cherry. Unfortunately, my phone didn't work; when I tried calling her I just got an instant series of buzzes that indicated a busy signal.

So I decided to go out, find an Internet cafe and email both her and Sandman for help. When I did that, there was a message from her; I called her, and still no luck. I finally asked the lobby people to call for me. That worked, and we set up a meeting.

Well, she is sweet and charming, and definitely eager to please. But you should know that if you go on something that feels like a date to you, she will still want her fees for translation and interpreting services to be paid. She did make an effort to teach me some portuguese, but if I'd realized I was going to be charged, I would have left out a lot of personal stuff that made me get less out of the educational experience. What I had figured when it was happening was that this was a "girlfriend experience" type territory and she would be fairly compensated by her R$200 for the programa. This was, after all, exactly how my Cuba girl had worked.

At the same time, I have to say these thoughts are my mistake, and if I'd been looking hard enough, I would have realized this was so. So I don't consider this to be a slight against her, but more a warning; she can charm you, and if she does, you may not realize she's charging you for doing the charming.

She is definitely a "great girlfriend sex" type of girl in bed. She's great at slowly slipping off your clothes and hers, and she's a wonderful kisser. She will suck your cock like she's primping and polishing a great work of art. What she offers is very much the romantic, girlfriend experience, and it was grand.

At the end of this, it was about 9:00 and she wanted to leave, without giving me a second go. And she did charge me R$200 plus the US$5 (up from $4 due to exchange rate changes) an hour for non-programa services. This totalled $89. I gave her the same 2.7 exchange rate I got at both cambios. [See practical information section for more on exchange rates]

I didn't see her again during the trip, primarily because it was so short. But another reason was the lack of a second go, and the fact that her company over time would have been pretty expensive, and my budget was very tight on this trip :-(.

I decided I would look for an Internet cafe, check my email and such, and then take a brief nap before braving Help. However, fate intervened with Fabiana, a shapely beauty who had a real charm about her. I met her on the way back to my hotel, and she was so adorable -and cheap, at a promised R$150 - that I just had to take her home with me.

Fabiana (see pictures) is a Help/Meia Pataca girl. She has a delightful personality, which doesn't change in the room. However, she gives a mediocre blowjob with too much teeth. (My attempts to explain this to her were only intermittently successful). Her fuck, however, is excellent and carried me easily to orgasm. Because of her personality, I may do her again, but I don't think her raw sex performance would justify it.

More to the point, she appears to be very keen on raising the bill -she gave me $20 worth of "extras" that I don't think I ever agreed to, and she wanted to pick up any stray money she could find. She did ask first, at least. She also took a couple of drinks from the frigibar without asking me first. However, in partial mitigation, it has to be noted that the frigibar is very reasonably priced and so that didn't irk me as much as it otherwise would have.

She allowed pictures, and stayed in the room quite a while checking them out, as well as other pictures I'd taken.

She was quite insistent on getting back together with me, even trying to rope in the front office staff as translators. I didn't commit to a fixed time, but I did ask where she was (Meia Pataca and Help) and got her cellular number.

I would have definitely done her again if I could have gotten her to agree to a "photographos cinema", but no go. She finally said maybe for US$100. I was thinking of accepting, but I think she had second thoughts about the offer. And of course who knows what it would have included?

Maybe someone can tell me what the secret is to getting a second fuck out of these garotas. On the other hand, I'm still looking at pretty cheap prices; Fabiana cost about $75 even with the extra money she managed to grab, and Alline was $90 including her extra translator money. [Prices were largely quoted in Reals but since I had trouble finding a cambio late at night, they were mainly paid in US$. I had no problem getting the garotas to accept the odd looking drab green currency].

One thing I've been pleased with is that the Garotas seem to genuinely like me. Of course they extract all the money they can, but they don't use tricks like convincing me to take them to the room on a low-ball and then tripling the price. All in all, they all were committed to my sexual pleasure and wanted to make my experience as wonderful as they could.

Tomorrow I see Sandman and find out if he discovered any good women for my movie venture. Alline has already backed out of the idea, so I'm starting from ground zero. Sadly, this may wind up being a simple vacation after all.

Christ Almighty David... it sounds like you got fucked in more ways than one.

That cab driver was fucking with you. All of them know where Helpe is located. When he asked for a "propina", I would have told him to "propina my balls."

As for the Meia Petaca girl... she sounds like one of those sharks Don warned me about, and that is why he was so useful. That was the first thing he told me... stay away from Meia Petaca, and watch what I bring out of Help.

Also, the ATM next to Blockbuster never failed me, and I got the best rates whenever I went there for Reals. I also exchanged USD in Help at a very good rate, but it usually works against you when you pay the girls in USD.

Referrals and terma girls are the only girls I am ever going to do. They are trackable and they have something to lose.

First off, what a well-written reasonable report. I personally am glad to see someone who writes about a trip on a real budget. I would not sweat too much the few extra dollars that you wasted. Rio has a pretty fucking high learning curve. In fact, in my estimation, you got so reasonably fucked for your first day that you should be happy/satisfied. It's not like you didn't know that touts are worthless, we all just want them to go away. I suggest a bunch of American pennies as they will be momentarily confused with you so gone as the realization sets in.

As far as hookers are concerned, Termas are the place for the straightforward business deal. Everybody loves not getting hassled, but if you can't sack up enough to bargain w/ your salesperson, then you are a pussy. (Not meant to be too inflammatory) And keep in mind that if you are not fucking her for free than you are paying too much, obviously. I suggest clearing the terms of the deal out of the way upfront, and although that 'ruins the mood', the mood quickly comes back when your dick is in her mouth. Also, a post-mortem on my experience made me realize that I did not cum on enough of my providers faces. Think about it.

Also, I have a lot of questions about the video stuff you use as I am producing some short films. Please email me @ kitesurfer1977 at the ol' Yahoo punto com. (Cryptography on!) (and yes, I do live vicariously through me screen name) ha.

Peace.

ps. If you are not playing level 10 Tetris, you ain't playing.

Where are the Fabiana pictures?

The cab driver didn't know what Debret was, which is a likely scenario. I've known of plenty of instances where cab drivers didn't know where someplace was. This site has plenty of addresses, so keeping addresses in your wallet of your hotel and a few other places may not be a bad idea.

I disagree that Rio has a high learning curve. There are some things it helps to know and some things you should be careful about, but termas are the easiest place in the world to get laid in my opinion. Maybe FKKs are easier but I have never been.

I don't know about level 10 Tetris, but I've passed a 10 foot DDR Heavy song.

Oh yeah, I used to do that staying up all night thing, but I'm leaning against it now. Part of building up your immune system is proper rest, and it's best to have your body at a peak before going on a trip. Getting sick sucks. I got a little bug on my Philippines trip and it slowed me down. Fortunately it didn't develop into a full cold.

Davidd, BTW what was the extras Fabiana charged
you additional 20$

Oh-oh - Fabiana pictures. I did promise 'em and in the excitement of all this and the California recall, I forgot about 'em.

I will post them sometime in the next few days and mail you when they're up.

D