Put your hand up if you are in a foreign country illegaly

Shit my hand is up. I just spent the morning with the Federal Police going over the finer points of extending my visa and here is how it breaks down.
When I crossed the border between Argentina and Brazil the guy on the Brazilian side was a douchbag and only gave me a 45 day visa (instead of the 90 day tourist visa I am entitled to) and told me that I could renew my visa when it had expired. What I didnt realise was how important it was to renew my visa BEFORE it expired. Unfortunately sometimes I enjoy putting things off so today when I went to renew my visa I was told that because my visa had expired 13 days ago I could not renew it and I would have to pay a fine of $8.27 for every day I stay past that 45 days. Doesnt sound that bad right? I was ready to pay, no problem. There is one catch though. Once you pay the fine for overstaying you visa you then have to leave the country within eight days. Luckily for me I was siting next to an Irish guy who had been through this a few times and he was able to tell me the finer points of how to deal with this kind of thing. Because Im travelling by bus and boat Im not going to encounter any static but I do have to fly from Manaus to Sao Paulo on the 11th of September. Thats all good though because I fly home on the 18th so if I go in and pay my fine on the 10th everything will be cool.

So all that shit aside let me tell you whats been happening. I spent last week in Jericoacoara (or just Jeri) and it was pretty awesome. Jeri is an hours drive away, by 4WD along the sand dunes, from a town called Jijoca and has sand streets and an extreemly laid back atmosphere. It also has a lot of soap dodgers but the good with the bad right? For a small town with not too much to do it was another high lite of the trip which I put down to the awesome people I was hanging with. We had Italians, Izralies, Americans, French, Brazilians, Ze Germans, Swiss and Dutchies. Basically the routine was get up about 9, have breakfast, talk shit till lunch time, have lunch, maybe do something in the afternoon but probably not, go to the sunset dune and watch the sun go down, go and watch the Capoiera on the beach till it got too dark, go and have some drinks, have dinner, go out, get drunk, go to bed, repeat. I did this for about a week straight. Almost everyone who goes to Jeri ends up staying longer than expected. Hopefully this afternoon I will have some photo´s up so you can see what it was like.

Today I am in Sao Luis just handling some business. Tomorrow I will catch my last long distance bus (11 hours, thank FUCK!) to Belem and in Belem I will just chill for a few days before I catch the boat down the Amazon to Santarem, then on to Manaus. Im hella excited about this boat ride. I have had people tell me that its a bit boring because it is just the same shit for days but how many chances am I going to have to catch a boat down the Amazon, sleeping in a hammock just watching the water go buy? I cant wait.

Here is a song that I actually dont like too much - its that same cliched shit about how much money this guy has, but man the chorus makes me laugh. Im not going to say too much just have a listern. Jamie Hay, this ones for you.



But to make up for that here is an awseome song by Syl Johnson ``Is it because Im black?``. Some of you guys will know I get excited by sample spotting. This song was sampled by Wu Tang on their track ``Hollow Bones`` which is also a good track.



I would also like to make some apologies. First to Fortaleza - Im sure that Fortaleza is a nice place once you get to know it. It doesnt blow goats. Secondly, busses arent just for poofs. Hetrosexuals, lesbians, bi/curios and transgender people also use busses. Sorry. Like I said - dont drink and blog.

You see me, bye haters.