Concerned about your safety and health while in Brazil this summer? Here's what the U.S. State Department has to say about travel in Brazil. Remember, being informed is the one of the best ways to stay safe while making sure you have an enjoyable visit. This same info is also available in Adobe pdf format here.
Curious about where you'll be traveling? Take a look here...
Here are some road maps of the various places we'll visit. I've left them in Microsoft Word format, which many people can open, because the image quality is better than the converted pdf documents. (Browse the documents folder at your own risk here.):
Manaus: Darned few roads around here! But, as you can see, lots of water! (138 KB)
Lago Salvador is somewhere in the vicinity of Santa Maria (upstream from Manaus). Encontra das Aguas ("Meeting of the Waters") is probably somewhere around Careiro da Varzea (downstream from Manaus).
Belo Horizonte: We actually stay in Nova Lima, a "suburb" on the southeast side of BH. (168 KB)
Ouro Preto: It's about an hour to the southeast of Belo Horizonte. Not far from Ouro Preto ("Black Gold")is the village of Ouro Branco ("White Gold"). (206 KB)
Rio de Janeiro: Petropolis is at the top center; Copacabana is at the bottom center. (234 KB)
Copacabana: You simply can't imagine how difficult it is to find a good street map of the area. I had to navigate Rio de Janeiro's official municipal website, download their GIS software (in Portuguese, no less!), and create my own map (again, in Portuguese!) -- all for your viewing pleasure. Print it at the highest resolution your printer will support. Best in color. It will print on regular letter-size paper. (A better map is on the way. This one is 2.3 MB.)
Our hotel is on Avenida Atlantica, just south of Rua Xavier da Silveira, about 40% up from the bottom of the page, near the post office ("correio").
Some other state highway maps, courtesy of the Brazilian Department of Transportation, are available below. You don't even need to navigate their website in Portuguese to enjoy them. These are huge Adobe pdf files (1.5 to 2.5 MB each), so you'll need Adobe Acrobat Reader, they will take a while to download, and you will have to magnify them to 200-400% to see the detail you might want. Even so, no city "street map" kind of detail, even at that magnification. But if you're something of a "map freak" likeI am, you'll get a kick out of them.
-- Amazonas: Manaus
-- Minas Gerais: Belo Horizonte and Ouro Preto
-- Rio de Janeiro: Rio and Petropolis
In case you're a procrastinator (naughty, naughty!) and haven't applied for your visa yet because you've lost your copy of the itinerary, here it is in Adobe pdf format.
Despite what the letter in our visa application package said, you do NOT have a sponsor letter. Ignore that.
Remember, you should be applying for a tourist visa, so mark "tourism" in block 21 on the back page. Under comments, state that you are visiting cultural and historical sites in Brazil with a student group. Do not mention AYS or concert performances.
Be sure to mail your application to Houston right away (like "yesterday"), and please let Mrs. Myers know when you sent it.
