Yesterday my wife and I had a regrettable experience at the Brazil Border Crossing into Argentina at Foz de Iguacu / Puerto Iguazu.
Background:
We are on a 10 week journey across the world, and have USA passports with recently issued, valid Brazil Tourist visas. We have been staying on the Argentina side of Iguazu Falls for the last few days in a Posada. Yesterday, we crossed into Brazil for the first time for a day trip to the falls, and returned back to Argentina that night.
- We took a public bus from Puerto Iguazu, Argentina to Foz de Iguacu, Brazil. As we exited Argnetina, we had our passport stamped by Argentina. On entry into Brazil, the bus did not stop at the border crossing, and we were waived on through.
- We spent the day sightseeing the beautiful falls from the Brazil side. They have had record low, and wet temperatures, so it was a cold, wet day. By the end of the day we were cold, wet, and exhausted and looking forward to a warm shower at our Posada in Puerto Iguazu
- From the Brazil National Park, we shared a taxi with 2 other Americans we met that also had Brazil Tourist Visas in their USA Passport. They arrived that morning to the Brazil park by taxi, which like our bus, did not stop at the Brazil border crossing in the morning as they were waived through.
- When our taxi arrived at the Brazil Border, we went to the Brazil border with our passports to exit Brazil and re-enter Argentina. The brazil border team, and in particular one Federal Police guy was perturbed that we had not received an entry stamp when coming into Brazil. We told him that we arrived this morning by public bus (and the other 2 by taxi), and were waived right through the checkpoint. He said this was illegal, and that we all had to pay a "tax" for this mistake.
At this point, I figured he was looking for a bribe or something. Prior to coming to Iguazu Falls, I had done alot of research about the border crossings and have never seen any reports of something like this happen. However, he did not ask for a bribe and for the next 45 minutes filled out paperwork, generated some documents on the computer, and presumably made some notes about us in the Brazil immigration systems.
Finally he came with documents in Portuguese (which we don't read - although our English, Spanish, and French knowledge helped us get the gist). Basically they say that on August 26, we violated Migration law
Art. 125 XVI, c/c Arts. 22 e 24 da Lei n 6.815/80 modificada pela Lei n 6.964/81 punishable with a fine of
413.88 Reals each (~$190 USD). We had no choice but to sign these or he said we would continue to be detained. It didn't help that we were cold and wet and getting colder. He said that we would have to go to a Bank of Brazil branch to pay the fine, or else we would have immigration issues when coming/leaving Brazil.
When this was over, we walked to the Argentina border, crossed in, and took a bus back to our Posada.
I don't know what to do. I can't figure out how to get into Brazil to pay this extortion at a Bank of Brazil branch without getting the ire of the immigration officials. We have a domestic flight in a few days from Foz de Iguacu airport in Brazil to Sao Paulo, a few days of sightseeing in Sao Paulo, and then an onward flight to Istanbul to continue our journey around the world. When we cross the border again from Argentina to Brazil to catch our flight at Foz de Iguacu airport, do we stop at the border to get a stamp in? Or will we get the ire of the immigration officials? I know we can zip on through in a taxi or bus like 99% of people do, and then take a domestic flight where our passports won't be scrutinized. But then we'll face the ire on exit in Sao Paulo when catching our flight to Istanbul. So we are in a bit of a catch 22.
In hindsight we should have got our passports stamped on the way in, or told our taxi driver on the way out to just pass on through. In all my research on this topic, I have only seen this happen one other time, to a Chinese national:
http://www.scmp.com/article/154447/g...zil-avoid-fine
What would you do in our shoes? Any thoughts supporting us, berating us, or anything in between are appreciated!
