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Going To Brazil April / May 2008 
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< Trips 2008 > |
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The story of this trip is long but I’m going to spare you the boring details.
I'll only tell you that Stéphanie and I were supposed to get married two months later, so this trip was perfect to be some kind of our first honeymoon. First honeymoon? Yes, when you date the Metal Traveller, one honeymoon is not enough! Anyway, that didn’t happen. We didn’t get married, and the trip didn’t feel like a honeymoon, but at least I visited Brazil and that’s something great. |
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Anyway, German Airline Condor made what they call their “Eintagsfliegen” special offer. Condor is a historic airline in Germany. They belong to Thomas Cook and Lufthansa, although they might be part of the Air Berlin group in the near future. |
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The "Eintagsfliegen" offer consists on selling during two or three days tickets for a very low price. This low price was 29€ one way for short flights and 99€ one way for long haul, all including tax. Nowadays, with higher fuel prices, the minimum prices are 49€ for short flights and 199€ for long haul. This is still very interesting if you live in Germany, but coming from France, those prices are less appealing. |
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You can visit this site for low cost airlines offers, and the condor section to be aware of the next Eintagsfliegen offer. Anyway, Brazil was certainly the last trip I made with Condor for 99€ each way. I booked a flight from Frankfurt to Salvador and another from Recife to Frankfurt for 198€. Then I booked a return flight from Paris to Frankfurt with Lufthansa for 99€. Finally we took Tam from Salvador to Recife and paid 70€. |
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All in all, we paid 368€ for the whole trip, with 5 airplane sectors. That’s less than half of the normal price of a return ticket between France and Brazil. So yes, there are ways to travel cheap, but you have to find the right offer at the right time, and be able to leave. Regarding accommodation, we slept in some nice hotels. I still work in tourism so I can have discounted rates. We choose to stay at the Sofitel in Salvador and the Mercure in Recife. There is no beach in front of the Sofitel hotel, but the natural surroundings are awesome, with a river, a forest and lots of animals like birds and iguanas. |
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So we packed our bags, headed to Frankfurt where we spent a day, and flew on to Salvador on a Condor Boeing 767. The plane looked like a pub, as you can see on the picture above. |
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On the plane there was a 25 year old guy from Slovenia who spent as many time as he could in Brazil. He only gets back to Slovenia to work for a few months to get enough money to…return to Brazil. It’s a nice way to see life, don’t you think? |
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We arrived to Salvador Bahia in the middle of the afternoon. The Deputado Luís Eduardo Magalhães International Airport is modern and spacious, but customs staff was so slow… There were only two international flights (our Condor flight and another from Lisbon) and it took almost an hour to get through passport control (and there was still some queue after us). |
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A lot of people had told me that Brazil is a dangerous place. Well, maybe it is in some areas. Actually we almost got robbed twice in Recife. But as usual, it can be dangerous anywhere in the world if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time. |
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Anyway, we took a taxi to the hotel instead of trying to catch a bus. We did right; the Sofitel hotel is in Itapua, another city a few kilometres from Salvador. It’s a bit far from town, although near to the airport, but we wouldn’t have known where to get down from the bus and there was a monstrous traffic jam that evening. The location is great if you want to relax, and still good to visit the town during the day. |
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Not far from the Sofitel hotel there was a beach, where we went every night to eat and have a drink of Nova Schin Beer. It didn’t seem dangerous at all: restaurants and bars were full, kids were playing football at the beach even late at night and it felt safe. So, the following pages are about my first time in Brazil. Hope you’ll enjoy it. Despite some personal problems, I did! Travellers: Andrés, Stéphanie Countries: Germany, Brazil Cities: Salvador Bahia, Recife, Olinda, Mainz, Frankfurt. Airlines: Condor, TAM, Lufthansa. Click here to begin the trip to Brazil |
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< Trips 2008 > |
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