SolaceSoul

Yes. The expiration date on the visa is for the date entry into the country. The number of days of your legal stay are counted starting your date of entry as the first.

If you do get caught at Brazilian customs, yes you could get into trouble. In the very least, you would be sent back to your home country and lose your visa / entering privileges for about 5-10 years. At the very most, you could wind up in a Brazilian jail / prison. But yes, others have reported that they have not had a problem entering Brazil with poppers (I don’t think they were searched at Customs, though).

Amyl nitrate is consider a controlled substance in Brazil. You can’t import poppers or buy them there without a prescription— at least not legally. But like with any other recreational controlled substance, you can find it there on the black market if you just ask around enough. As for XXL condoms, bring your own — as well as good, synthetic-based lube.

“The violence in Sao Paulo is very location-specific. São Paulo (the capital city, not the state) has 96 districts. 33 of those districts have a homicide rate smaller than the USA (4.8 per 100 thousand inhabitants). On the other hand, 28 districts have a homicide rate higher than in Nigeria. Some districts, like Jaçanã, are more violent than Mexico. Other districts, like Jardim Paulista, are safer than Germany.“ https://expatriateconsultancy.com/is-sao-paulo-safe/

What country are you from? 60 days is an unusually long time to stay in Cuba, especially for a first-time visitor that needs to work from the internet access while there. Cuba only allows 60-day tourist visas to nationals of a handful of countries. Most are 30 days max, that can be renewed for another 30 days once there. This would be quite a bit of a heavy lift for a first-timer with no contacts or relationships on the island.

Deleted.

You cannot open a bank account in Brazil with just a CPF number. A Brazilian bank also requires an RNE / RNM number on the CRNM (the residency card similar to the “green card” in the USA) for a foreigner to open an account. And of course, in order to obtain one of those, you first need to have a residency visa — not a tourist one.

If you’re younger or just don’t “look the part”, you’re just going to have to do the approaching for better results.

If you can make it to 117 around 9 pm on a Friday, you’ll most likely have a waning crowd of garotos and clients. But you should be able to find someone that tickles your fancy. If you’re arriving at 10 pm, it becomes even riskier. Regarding a brief trip to São Paulo, 11 days is enough time for you to manage that.

This part. clients go to saunas for beautiful, available men (must haves), not architecture, dinner menus or stage shows (nice to haves, but not musts).

February is a whole 8 months away. I suggest reading the main forum’s posts on Brazil to get some leads.

I’m unfamiliar with any way for a local or a tourist to access the internet in Cuba other than the scratch cards, and that internet is very spotty and weak. I doubt you’d have much success getting any work don, as most US-based sites are blocked (email is hard enough, but transferring files is next to impossible). My advice would be to skip the trip until you can go without having to use the internet for work. Cuba is a great place to unplug.

Those rules pertain to US citizens and US legal permanent residents only.

But the point is, you’re NOT a local! The average Dominican makes only $4,080 in US dollars every year (which means 1/2 of all Dominicans make even less than that). This is about the same as what the average US resident makes in one month. What the average Dominicano makes in a month, I often spend on just dinner and drinks on a night out in the US. Keep that in mind when you're piddling over a few pesos in the DR. #FirstWorldProblems (I’m preaching to the choir here, I realize. Not targeting you, personally. There are readers and lurkers that might not get this.)

This web page answers all of your questions. https://www.ndangira.net/steps-to-get-cpf-number-in-brazil-as-a-foreigner/

Thermas Lagoa is permanently closed. However, its replacement, Espaço Lagoa, is still very open.

Exactly! I don’t get why some clients (current or potential) don’t get this. Viagra like a lot of pharmaceuticals are available at any farmacia in the DR without a prescription. Just go up to the pharmacist and ask for Viagra and pay for it. There are at least two farmacias on El Conde alone, even more all through Zona Colonial. If you’re not bringing your own stash on the trip, go get your blue pills when you go to the ATM or to get a cup of coffee. Clients looking like Thomas Jefferson or George Jefferson expecting young hot studs to show up to their hotel rooms / AirBnBs all turned on with massive erections. Oy vey! OK, even if you resemble George Clooney, Chris Evans, Ricky Martin or Michael B. Jordan (and if I had a nickel for every time a poster said they were “handsome and fit”…), the same rule applies! (P.S. The garotos at the saunas in Brazil and Barcelona also are all using viagra to maintain those hard dicks. Don’t flatter yourself.!

I guess they both wanted more nudity!

The only coffee table book I’m aware of is “Dominicanos”. And the photography of the men is beautiful and an absolute work of art. I doubt he did it for the money. https://www.amazon.com/Dominicanos-Ernest-Montgomery/dp/3867876630

I agree with you. I’ve been at the client game almost all my adult life, and I’ve witnessed and heard about some terrible client behavior. I’m not suggesting that every “hooker has a heart of gold” — just that there are a lot of clients and wannabe clients that simply are up to no good and are not to be trusted. Guard your good reputation with the locals, and guard your connections. Well, you have shitty non-client photo collectors who waste the time of the procurer and the worker — some even going as far as to pretend they’re in Santo Domingo and having Manny or Juan Bin Bin (or Freddy, and probably even other procurers) showing up with the working guy to fake addresses — wasting expensive fuel and time (which the procurer then has to then pay the guy out of his own pocket for showing up to the fake date). Then, you have potential clients who demand that Manny exclusively drive them all over the city and island for a week and introduce them to guys, insisting on multiple photos and videos before committing to payment, but then refuse to pay for a reasonable day’s or week’s work of exclusive time from a driver and procurer. Then, you have a relatively new poster here accusing Manny of being a “scammer” for simply doing what any good procurer does for those who don’t have the time to scour the island for various available guys. Wouldn’t you bake in a bit extra to give yourself some insurance from an unknown entity, given all the flakes, the snakes, the shady, shifty characters? I haven’t needed a procurer’s services in years, but given the behavior that i have witnessed or heard about from some traveling clients, I completely understand the business move of reasonably increased rates.

I doubt this will do much good. There are a few posters (here and at other similar travel boards) who post under different screen names / accounts (it’s obvious because of their writing style / almost exact word-for-word comments, etc). The offender will probably just create a new username and use a VPN blocker to hide his IP address. The best strategy is for posters to be circumspect and cautious about what they post here — and to be careful about what they share privately in private messages, as well as with whom they share.

It may be the same poster that gave you the problem. OR it could be yet another poster, or just a lurker, or someone not even on the message boards. My global travel experiences have taught me that — unfortunately — there are more than enough shitty travelers to go around, usually (but not always) Americans (the term “Ugly Americans” wasn’t just invented out of thin air). As I mentioned in another post, the DR has been invaded by these kinds of bad travelers in the past several years.

Do you understand the risk/reward calculation made by the victim here?

“A source with knowledge of the investigation told NoticiasSIN that the alleged killer was in Jeffrey McMahon’s car when they arrived at the complex before he fled in it.” https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10779325/Minnesota-cigar-brand-exec-stabbed-death-Dominican-Republic.html

This story has “crew involvement with drug smuggling” written all over it.