After almost three months of staying at home in Salvador, Brazil, we’re finally back in the US! Thankfully, we didn’t have any issues getting back other than it taking a really long time. We had to take three flights and rent a car, which ended up taking around 27 hours. Our domestic flight in Brazil and the one from Fort Lauderdale to Baltimore were packed, which was surprising. The international flight still had a lot of people but there were at least a lot of empty seats in our section. I was more surprised by the lack of any kind of health screenings. When we arrived in the US, we filled out a short form (~5 questions) and handed it to someone, but they just looked at it and noticed that we said that we weren’t sick and they let us go. Nobody took our temperature at any of the airports. Maybe they don’t think that’s a good way to test for the virus, but if they’re going to take my temperature at the supermarket, I would think that they would do the same at the airports. We ended up overstaying our visa in Brazil by a month, but we were told that all visas would be automatically extended until the crisis is over. There were a few moments at the airport when it seemed like it was going to be an issue, but they eventually let us through without asking any questions.
Things in Salvador ended up working out well given the situation. We had a really nice apartment that made it easy to shelter in place. We had a couple of good supermarkets close by that were always stocked. Unfortunately, Brazil seems to be the new coronavirus hotspot, but thankfully Salvador hasn’t been as affected as places like Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and even the Amazon.
It’s definitely weird being back. On the one hand, we’re glad to be in our home country during this pandemic. Not being able to speak the language and being from a country with the most infections was a bit scary at first, but in the end, it wasn’t bad at all. I was able to find some good resources online to get an idea of what was going on and what restrictions were in place, and no one ever gave us any trouble. But now that we’re back, we’re in a holding pattern and aren’t sure what we’re going to do. We were planning on staying in South and Central America until Thanksgiving and had started talking about going to Australia and New Zealand next year. But of course, no one knows when it will be safe to travel again. But once we feel it’s safe enough to travel, we’ll more than likely go back to South America to finish where we left off. We’ll need to because we were only able to get vouchers instead of refunds for some things, with the biggest one being our scuba diving liveaboard in the Galapagos.
Right now, we’re in Virginia at Therese’s family vacation house and our two-week self-quarantine is almost over. We’ve been renting out our house in Boulder, so going back home wasn’t an option, and to be honest, I’d rather get that rental income while we figure out what our next steps are. We’re planning to be here in Virginia for the foreseeable future, but that could change at any second since Therese’s family is selling this house. But until then, we’ll be able to enjoy the beautiful Smith Mountain Lake that’s in our backyard. Now we just need to get our boating license so we can take out the family boat!