Upon Arrival

The wait at the baggage claim in Sao Paulo was longer than I expected
and, after immigration and customs, by the time I made it to the
check-in counter for my connecting flight to Manaus there were only 20
minutes to take-off. I was told the flight was closed and it wasn't
possible to load my luggage and get me on the flight in that amount of
time. After some argument with one staff of the domestic airline who
wanted me to go back to the international airline I'd just flown in from
Dubai with to rebook a domestic ticket to Manaus, I convinced her that her logic
made no sense and she finally agreed to re-arrange my ticket and put me on the next flight, which departed a few hours later.
That would put me in Manaus 1am, two and a half hours after my scheduled
arrival, but there was nothing I could do. I tried to get in touch with
my coworkers to let them know so that our driver would be there at the
right time, but my cell phone was dead and Skype wasn't getting through
to them. So I sent an email and hoped for the best. Nevertheless, when I
got to Manaus I wasn't too astounded that there was no one there to pick
me up; apparently, no one got the email I sent and my pick-up was
canceled when I didn't show at 10:30. Luckily I had some Brazilian
currency on me and arranged a taxi myself to the hotel, arriving around
3am. So, after about 40 hours on the road (22 of which were in
airplanes, and about 18 in airports), I checked into my hotel and am
very, very ready for bed.