Festival de Ciranda - Day 1

Wow. What a night last night. Very good performance, music, culture and atmosphere. It's events like this that make me truly appreciate Brazil and its fascinating culture. Tonight a different performance hopefully just as good as last night! Oh, still haven't heard from AVIS!

Off to Ciranda!

Well two days now with intermittent electricity... Thank God I am getting acclimated to the heat. Tomorrow I leave for Manacapuru for the annual folklore festival. Always enjoy good Amazon culture and dance. Check out this festival held annually there. It is not a big as Boi Bumba but very close:

Festival de Ciranda de Manacapuru

Thank God for AceVPN

Before moving to Brazil I realized that I would be giving up certain luxuries I have at home. One being access to American TV. I have found an awesome solution to bypass American TV networks detection of my IP Address - AceVPN (www.acevpn.com). With this service I am given a VPN solution in which I login and obtain an IP address located in various cities within the United States, and abroad as well. In addition I have access to Free TV which allows me to use my Roku and Apple TV as if I never left home. I have used the service actively for two weeks and have experienced no issues with reliability or performance. The VPN does not degrade your network speed at all, and movies/TV shows stream without issue. Two packages are available depending on what you need. Check it out - a must for expatriates. Thank you AceVPN for providing this awesome service.

Culture shock - no car, banking made agonizing)

For the first time in my life I have no car and now must use others methods or transportation to get around Manaus... I still have not subjected myself to public transit but this Friday I will.. not looking forward to it at all but it is much cheaper than a taxi (R$2.90 = bus anywhere in Manaus.) Yesterday I spent R$30 on a 2.5 hour trip to the bank and grocery store. And banking here is painful. I never have waited longer in my life to deposit money or complete a simple transaction. The ATM machines are not reliable either, hit or miss if they work. You can always find the gringo because they are the ones trying to use the broken ATM because they don't speak Portuguese! (ME) ...

Rental Car Nightmare 8/25/13

Decided to take a weekend trip to Novo Airão this weekend in a rental car with my spouse. What a horrible place for A CAR KEY TO BREAK. Yes, that's right a car key. The kicker is it was a VW which of course had the $350 security chip inside. Needless to say there was no VW dealer in Novo Airão. The most logical and simplistic thing to do would have been to send someone from Manaus with another key or send a tow truck locally. What does AVIS do? Then send a tow truck from Manaus (3 hour drive one-way) to move a car less than 1/4km. Why? Because of insurance reasons. So I'm back in Manaus, with no car - the car remains in Novo Airão awaiting what? That's correct another tow. Updates to follow! Welcome to Brazil!