Before you plan your tour - a few suggestions

[gulliver]

1. Carlo Romano did a great jog of giving us printouts listing all gay bars, saunas with addresses and phone numbers. He booked all of our hotels. I would use him again BUT we did get booked into one real flea bag joint and it was easily remedied when we refused the accomodation and had our waiting cab driver take us to other places to look. This could be a disaster in high season so make sure all the hotels that are booked have a web site and you can see what they look like. For the four cities we reported on we would stay at the same hotels again.

 

2. NEGOTIATE ALL RATES - everything is negotiable. This includes your hotel, sauna boy fees, exdchange rates, beach chair rates and food. get the price UPFRONT.

 

3. I think you can have guests at almost any hotels so dont stay in a place that is somewhat dumpy - you can have guests almost anywhere.

 

4. street cruising is probably not so risky as long as you bring boy to your hotel. there were many hot men on street and we had no bad experience but then there were 2 of us.

 

5. call the saunas before you go. They will tell you how many "maggistas" are on duty on what nights and what are the best hours. They may stretch the truth but they will answer questions posed in spanish or portuguese.

 

6. Varig air pass was great - 100 a segment and 30 to change a segement after ticketing. All flights (even those less than an hour -except rio to sao paulo) come with a hot meal.

 

7. If you eat a large meal early in the day - many saunas have a great full meal you can have or great snacks in the evening - often well surpassing Rio saunas. You might want to go to the sauna at 6 or so and eat your evening food there.

 

8. If you are going to some of these places - you might want to try Natal, Belem, and possibly Manaus. we heard some very good things about the activities in Natal and Belem. We will do a report on these 3 places next year. Had to cut Brazilia and Belo Horozante out to do some paperwork in Rio for a house purchase. I would take Porto Allegre and Recife any day to Sao paulo and Lagoa.

 

9. Taxi drivers often were good sources of info. Therefore you need some basic portuguese or spanish if you are going to be traveling about.

 

10. As other posters are traveling and they meet an escort who is willing to give out his phone number and have other m4m guys contact him, it may be useful to those contemplating trips soon. It is a nice way to thank someone who made your stay special and who likes to be with other North Americans and it certainly was a good source of info for us. Both of the contacts we listed for Recife and Salvador would be good contact sources. You can even try out Salvador by having him (Carlos)meet you at the airport with his cab to make sure he is your type. Perhaps Floridarobb has contact number for his guys in Porto Allegre and Fortaleza.

[trilingual]

Gulliver, I think your suggestions are great except the one about bringing a street pick-up back to your hotel room (or house/apartment if you're staying somewhere other than a hotel). I'm glad you didn't run into any problems doing that, but it's absolutely NOT advisable to bring a stranger you meet on the street to your hotel. Go with him to a "motel" (hotel by the hour); every Brazilian city has them! Or go with him to a sauna. Better safe than sorry!