Destination: Brazil

Since I had toyed with the idea of doing carnival for such a long time, I finally decided to take the leap and visit Brazil. 

I visited Brazil in March but I missed Carnival. What can I say? 

Life is hard but God is good.

And I say this because this was maybe the most stress less visa process I as a Nigerian had ever encountered. 

All the regular requirements apply here, passport with over 6 month validity; Hotel bookings; bank statement; payslip; flight tickets; letter from employer; Proof of payment for Visa into the consulate's Stanbic bank account; passport pictures and a filled out visa form, and a printed out acknowledgement sheet of the visa application  filled online.

This is the site where you’d fill the form out from- if you are like me, and you  don’t speak Brazilian Portuguese, please click English on the top right of the website, and it’d change most of the text to English. Its pretty standard visa application- name, place of work, mother name, proposed travel dates, proposed address in Brazil, etc etc, that sort of thing.

On the last page, they ask you to attach all the documents and group them according to what category the documentation falls into- accommodation, travel documents, bank documents etc, and then the last one for other documentation. 

Also, you need to attach your passport photo less than 30kb or so- I can’t remember- but you can use an online photo compressor tool to sort this out. 

Then you submit, get an acknowledgement page, with a bar code, you print that out and take that to the embassy.

I was not aware of this at the time, but apparently instead of going to the bank to wait for your bank statement like a mug aka me, you can use the GT internet banking platform to send your bank statement directly to the Brazilian embassy. I have no idea how it works and I’ve never tried it but it’s a feature currently available. If anyone has tried this, let me know.

It’s important to note that the photo you upload online; is the same one you’d need to attach to the physical form when you arrive at the embassy to do your document drop off.

The physical form looks like this and a cursory google search should get you a copy.

The embassy is at 257 Kofo Abayomi street VI, right after intercontinental hotel in VI on the same side of the road ( it doesn’t matter as the road is one way) and there is a saner parking situation that VFS.

The embassy takes walk in for visa’s from 10-12pm Mondays to Thursdays. Even though it is open from 8am to 4pm.

The visa costs roughly $100, because I paid NGN36,000 and had to bring a physical deposit slip. 

Details for the payment of the visa fee:

Stanbic IBTC Bank Plc

Account Name: Brazilian Consulate General of Brazil-General

Account Number: 0015680632

The visa takes 10-15 working days to process and usually the embassy grants multiple entry for 90 days. Fun fact about the visa is that it starts counting for pick up date unlike schengen which might be for a 5 day window or something like that.

I know this sounds like a lot, but trust me, this was the most stress-less visa application- and I had just completed a non appearance application via a travel agent for Morocco. 

And this was still less stressful.

Has anyone ever been to brazil? If yes- where did you go, and did you love it or did you love it????
If anyone is looking to go, I'm currently putting together a number of what I did in brazil posts so keep your eyes peeled for that!

Tchau! (thats bye in Brazilian Portugese)

Ps: Fun fact the portugese spoken in portugal and the portugese spoken in brazil are different! The brazilian one has such a huge Yoruba influence! 

Pss: unlike in Paris where you can't see the eiffel tower from anywhere, from most of Rio Cristo Redentor is visible from almost everywhere! ( and its one of the wonders of the world)

 Psss: can you tell I am still salty from my French visa rejection?