“Like Sardines” is an Understatement.

Right before we left Porto Velho, the boat really filled up.   Before I knew it people were stringing their hammocks directly above me and directly below me.   “Are you kidding!?” I thought.   No, not kidding.   Apparently you can fit nine people into a space seven-foot-tall, six feet wide, and maybe seven-feet deep.   Unfortunately, Pat and I are night-owls, and so we were the last ones to wiggle into our spaces, which meant absolutely no room.   (The girl above me basically slept on top of me all night.)   We restrung in the morning so that if we had to have someone above/below us, it wasn ´t an unfamiliar butt/back/head/foot.   Space and individualism are so highly valued in the U.S., that it ´s quite a change being here where everyone shares everything.   Although it takes some getting used to, I actually prefer it.   It ´s way more friendly and warm, and when you ´re not expected to “succeed” and have all your own things and own space, you never worry about it and you have nothing to guard or protect.   Also, the boat trips between cities always take 3-5 days, so for sure by mid-day #2, your neighbors have become your friends, and the whole thing turns into one big party/sleepover.   Writing in my journal also invoked plenty of attention; I made plenty of new friends and had more conversations (chock full of sign language of course) in one hour than I had on the rest of the trip!

Pink dolphins in the river were a highlight of the trip (for real… pink river dolphins… flamingo pink!), as well as all the time we spent hanging out on the top level bow (the boat had three levels), not to mention all the beer and  cocktails.   Surprisingly, we never got bored.   It ´s so nice to sit on the bow and watch the forest fly by, basking in the sun and cool breeze, and there ´s always some relaxing to be had in your hammock (not so many neighbors during the day).

We were both shocked and delighted to find showers on the boat, which are incredibly refreshing during the day, when the heat, despíte the breeze, tends to get to you.   The water is pumped straight from the river and cholorinated, so we indulged a few times.   We ´ve noticed Brazilians are obsessed with showering and teeth brushing.   At least the ones we ´ve travelled with.   I suppose all our neighbors thought we had terrible hygiene, only showering every other day and brushing our teeth in the morning.

The meals were monotonous but delicious.   Beans, rice, farofa, veggies, and hunks of beef or chicken were presented at each meal.   And breakfast was the usual bread, butter, and coffee.   We would soon find out we were being spoiled (see next blog).

Something that I found absolutely appalling was the standards for dealing with trash.   Brazilians may keep themselves super duper clean, but what they do with their trash is horrifying.   Almost all of it went straight into the river, even when a person was standing right next to the garbage can.   It ´s like putting all the trash in the same location doesn ´t even occur to them.   And it ´s the same on land.   It seems like no one even looks for a trash can.   If they finish their drink, they just throw the cup/can/bottle in the gutter.   Done with your chips?   Toss the bag over your shoulder.   It just upsets me, because most of the perceptions of the United States that I have encountered in my travels are that the U.S. is this incredibly rich, pristine paradise full of mansions will rolling green lawns, etc.   I think the visual pollution of trash is a really powerful image, and we don ´t have it.   Except for really big cities like downtown New York, Chicago, L.A., every place else in the U.S. is super clean.   But I feel like the perception is,  “Oh, you lucky, privileged rich people who get to live in pristine, clean places where all the  trash is picked up.”   Because here, all the towns have people whose  job it is to  walk around and  pick up trash.   But the reason  everything is so clean in the U.S.  is because we don ´t throw  trash on the ground in the first place.

I ´m not really saying what I mean.   It just makes me mad because I it seems that the perception is that the pristine condition of 90% of the U.S. has to do with money, and I feel like that ´s just not so.   It ´s a cultural thing.   It ´s not clean because we pay for it to be clean.   It ´s clean because our culture teaches that throwing your trash on the ground or in rivers instead of finding a trash can is lazy, pathetic, and wrong.   And don ´t think they lack for service to empty the trash cans all the time.   All those people that spend their days wandering around with brooms and trash pans would probably much rather be gathering up sacks of already collected trash.

Enough.

Anyway… As we approached our destination (Manaus, the biggest port city 1000 miles upriver from the Atlantic on the Amazon), we got to see the “meeting of the waters”.   It ´s really cool.   Manaus is where two rivers come together.   One is called the Rio Negro (black river) and one the Rio Solimões.   The black river really is black as a result of the soil in the area that it flows through.   The other river is like coffee with cream.   Because of the different temperatures and flow rates of the two rivers, they join, but don ´t mix together for about four miles.   It ´s really neat to be boating along side the wavy center line watching the stark contrast of the two rivers flowing alongside one another and not mixing.   This meeting of the waters is also inspiration for almost all the artistic stone work in all of Brazil.   It started in Manaus, using white and black stones in sidewalks and streets to create different designs.   The contrast, of course, represents the meeting of the waters.   We ´ve seen it all over Brazil, and it was really neat to finally understand and see where it all came from .

Once we arrived in Manaus, one of the many uniformed tourist touts trying to make a buck asked us if we were bound for Belem, the Amazon ´s other large port city near the Atlantic ocean.   We were, and he said the only boat leaving that day, the Onze de Maio (11th of May) was $230 reais (the Brazilian currency).   We were expecting to pay no more than $160, so I told him we ´d have to find another boat.   At which point he told me, “Oh… well, I have a “friend” on the boat.   I can get you a deal for $160.   I knew something was up if he could afford to drop the price $70.   He showed us the boat, and I told him I had to go to the bank to get money.   He tried to get me to leave my passport so they could fill out my ticket while I was gone.   Of course I refused.   I asked the gate guard in the terminal for an ATM and he said I ´d have to walk to the main street.   When I returned with cash in my pocket, he waved me through security, and I headed back towards the dock.   The tourist tout had gone, and the people at the ticket counter couldn ´t understand why I didn ´t already have a ticket.   Finally, they wrote us out tickets direct from the boat for $150 each.   Apparently the system is that the uniformed touts are authorized provide the service of running around to arriving boats and drawing business to departing boats.   Instead of a commission, they get as much dough as they can scam out of the tourists.   You agree on a price with the uniformed tout, pay him, he writes you out a “ticket” that you then present at the ticket counter where they write you out a real ticket.   Later, once you ´re out of eyesight, the tout hands over the actual fare and pockets the rest.   Luckily, we escaped the system.

With several hours to spare before departure, Pat and I headed into town together this time to pick up some supplies at the market.

When we returned, my amigo manning the security checkpoint waved us back through, but his buddy atthe final counter asked to see our tickets.   I realized how lucky I had been that the security officer had remembered me and waved me through the first time I ´d left, since I wouldn ´t have had a ticket to get back through!   We showed him our tickets, and he turned us away just as our shuttle was arriving.   He sent us back to my amigo who said we couldn ´t get on the boat at this port… that we had to go to another.   I panicked.   We knew the boat was leaving within an hour (we could never get a straight answer), and we were just ON the boat in THIS port!   How can we not get back on!?   The guard escorted Pat and the panicking Jema to an information counter, where, after much number crunching and computer research, they handed us a small piece of paper with a seven digit number on it and sent us back to security.   This time, they greeted us smiling and waved us on to the shuttle.   PHEW.

We found out later that passengers aren ´t allowed to board in that port… only cargo.   You have to go to another port and take a boat taxi.   Silly system, and if I hadn ´t asked that guard about the ATM, I would have been so screwed when I tried to come back with the money to buy tickets.   We have had some incredible luck with this trip!

I’ll Die with My Eyes Squeezed Shut

I realized, as our taxi raced up on a semi  hauling logs going ten miles an hour for the third time, that  if I don ´t die of natural causes, I will die with my eyes squeezed shut.   But I ´m getting ahead of myself.

Our stay on the Bolivian side of the border in Guajaramirim ended without much fanfare.    Since we planned on exiting  Sunday morning as early as possible, we went Saturday afternoon to get our exit stamps.   After much inquiry  to the police at the ferry dock, and several taxi drivers offering to take us to immigration (two  blocks down the street), we finally found the building, doors closed and padlocked.    Some fellows were sitting around a cart outside playing cards, so  I asked them if they knew when office opened.   Bolivian accents, especially in the lowlands,  are near impossible to understand unless that ´s where you learned Spanish.   If you ´ve ever seen Snatch, with Brad Pitt, you know what I ´m talking about it.   The film features a group of Pikey ´s who speak English so muddled that the whole movie is sub-titled.   Anyway… once I realized the men were saying the office was only open on Tuesday (lunes) and not “in the evenings” (luna means moon, and I thought it might be a colloquial way of refering to the evening hours), it didn ´t take long to understand that the only way to get a stamp on any day but Tuesday is to go to the passport official ´s house.   OH.   THAT ´S why all the taxis were trying to take us to immigration.   And somewhat strange… this woman is like the mayor.   Everyone knows where she lives and what she does.

So, we hailed a moto-taxi cum chariot, with a canopied-cart meant to seat three.

Youd think maybe youd feel safer in a nice big cart instead of clinging to the back of the moto taxi driver. Not so.

We bumped our way across town until we hit the outskirts.   Finally we pulled up outside a walled-in, compound-esque house (almost all houses are like this all over Latin, Central, and South America) with a HUGE party going on.   Pink and Yellow balloons hid every inch of wall space and plenty of dressed-up folk roamed with drinks in hand as music blared from an impressive sound system.   The taxi driver kind of left us to our own devices, but thankfully the gringos were quickly noticed and dealt with.   The passport official held out her hand for our passports, and we hesitantly turned them over.   She disappeared into the house, and came back a few minutes later with paper work, a stamp, and an ink pad.   On her kitchen counter, next to the raw chicken, she flipped through our pages, recorded the appropriate information, stamped us, and sent us on our way.   Thanks for visiting Bolivia.   Come Again Soon!

Thanks to the advice of one of the other hotel guests, a Brazilian who looked mid-twenties and told us he was an undercover cop investigating a drug trafficking investigation, we decided to wait until Monday to leave.   Our guide book, although occasionally inaccurate, promised no boats until Tuesday.   We wanted to check for ourselves, but assuming they weren ´t wrong, we ´d be spending lots of money unneccesarily (sleeping and eating are lots more expensive in Brazil).   So we stuck around for another day, during which time we got quite a bit more suspicious of Samuel (the Brazilian undercover-cop).   Why would he tell us he was an undercover cop?   Why would he offer to drive us around São Paulo when we get back there?   Why would he offer to take us to the airport (!)?   We think we won ´t be calling him.

So, we burned another day sitting around the plaza watching all the families on motorcycles – everything from dirt-bikes to mopeds.   We never saw more than four people on one bike, but shockingly we saw women hauling around plenty of tiny babies.   Even newborns!   Eating at a cafe, we watched a woman and her friend crawl into their SUV, both carrying 18 month-old children on their laps.   I couldn ´t figure out why that looked so weird to me until I realized that I never saw it in the U.S. because it ´s illegal!   We also got treated to a military parade (both the land and sea units) marching around the plaza, albeit sloppily (according to Pat and all his army expertise).

Monday morning we finally escaped Bolivia by ferry, if you can call it that.   Everyone loaded on to a 25 foot boat with bench seats all the way back, and then we motored across the Rio Mamoré with the top edge of our boat inches from the water ´s surface.   Sketchy!

When we set foot on shore, we were checked for Yellow Fever Vaccinations for the first time ever.   You ´d be crazy not to have one – the sickness is potentially lethal, and if you don ´t die, you ´ll wish you would the whole time you ´re sick.   After getting entrance stamps from the Policia Federal, we walked the mile and a half  to the bus station in the sweltering heat.   Funny, because we didn ´t have a map of the town… just lacksadasical directions from a Canadian biologist we met.   So, we kept asking the ice cream vendors (soft serve on every third corner).   They kept saying, “Oh!   It ´s so far!   So, so, so, so far.   You just go and go and go and go.   Ask when you get closer.”   Finally, we asked one of these people to quantify for us, after we ´d walked over a mile.   I said, “Like a kilometer, or what?”   She said, “oh… no, not that far.   But ten blocks at least.”   Funny to see the different perceptions.   Maybe it ´s the tropical climate; nobody ´s crazy enough to walk more than four blocks in the heat.

At the bus station, thanks to a bicycle companion we ´d picked up along the  way (people love practising their English here, and jump at the chance to speak with us), we managed to quickly assess our travel situation.   Our intended destination was three hours away, and we needed to arrive as soon as possible to stake out the boat situation for the following morning.   The $17 bus didn ´t leave for seven hours, but the $22 dollar taxi was ready to jet.   So we sprung for the extra expense and headed back to the ferry dock (retracing the entire distance we ´d just walked) to pick up two more passengers.   The condition of the road was astounding in both great and terrifying ways.   The first hour or so was heaven compared to Bolivia ´s highway offerings.

However, the potholes that reared their ugly heads for the last few hours made for a heart-pounding experience.   Our driver (not to mention all the other cars on the road), kept it steady between 80 and 95.   We don ´t slow down for potholes.   We just swerve.   Usually towards the center of the road (although not the center line – they don ´t have one of those).   If there ´s oncoming traffic, we swerve towards the outside – my heart leaping into my throat each time as there is no shoulder.   I ´m not a very fearful person, and I (perhaps moronically) believe that I will not get hurt, a requisite personality trait for every risk taker.   However, as we swerve within millimeters of a sure crash, or race up on a semi nearly running under the back end, I continue to think everything will be fine until the second before I think death or injury is certain.   Then I involuntarilly squeeze my eyes shut and hold my breath.   The long drive gave me plenty of time to think, and after several of these experience, I realized I am almost certain to die with my eyes squeezed shut.

Our arrival in Porto Velho was sudden and unexpected.   Suddenly we were dumped out of the cab with every tour agent looking to make a buck trying to get us to buy a ticket to one of the many boats floating at the end of several steep and somewhat ramshackle staircases.

Right before my brain exploded, we settled on the AlmTE Alfredo Zanys and set about stringing our hammocks.   With much luck, we found an incredible dinner of rice, beans, meat skewers, farofa, and veggies for $1.25 a plate and ice cream for just as cheap.   The peanut butter is my favorite!   Back on the boat, we got acquainted with Anthony from Austria and Prash from London.   Anthony had just spent a year and a half in Bolivia doing his civil service.   He told us about all the women in his williage who would go to wisit the other willages, yah.   Anthony liked to hear himself speak English, but never really had much to say.   Prash was really awesome… a 19 year-old college student with an easy going attitude.   We watched a really terrible movie about vampires (BloodRayne) dubbed in Portuguese and subtitled in English.   Great for learning Portuguese, and you hardly notice the cheesiness when you ´re so focused on learning how to say “We are starting to lose our strength, Maldone!”   Afterwards, we had a few more beers with the two gringos (do you have to be white to be a gringo?   I guess so…).   We got to rub elbows with the both of them, and plenty of other folk, for the next couple of days. With a promised departure of noon, we woke up the next morning after our first night in our hammocks (not bad!) and hustled to the village for supplies and breakfast.   Three o ´clock rolled around, and we were wishing we hadn ´t hurried so much.   By five, we finally cast off down the Rio Madeira, embarking on our first Amazon boat trip.

The constant culture shock is really starting to wear on us.

Our flight to Guayarmerin on the Brazil/Bolivian border was much less eventful than expected (thank god).   Other than taking off late (surprise, surprise) and having to wait in the sweltering heat instead of in the shade with everyone else (to beat the other tall guy [6`5″]  to the exit row), all went well.   This ended up being one of those small 20-seater planes with one seat on either side of the aisle, and three across the back, which Pat and I rushed to claim as our own.   The plane was so tiny!   I literally had to bend in half to keep my head from hitting the ceiling, and poor Pat practically had to crawl down the aisle.

We landed at a po-dunk airport on a strip of dirt (kind of scary!).   We could feel the plane actually sink into the dirt, and little chunks of earth flew everywhere when they threw the engines into reverse (or whatever it is they do to slow the planes down).   After a confusing security process (we thought the guy was trying to either steal our bags or force us to take a taxi ride with him by getting us to give him our claim tickets… [why isn`t he helping anyone else?]), we finally had our mochilas in hand.   Turns out the airport is barely even on the outskirts of town.   Actually, it`s in a field in the middle of town.   After a short conversation with a guy about where we should stay, buy hammocks, etc. (thank god for my Spanish), we set off on foot and bumped into our chosen hotel a few mintues later.

The room was cute, and we threw down for a three hour nap.   No, we are not lazy, just totally beat from way too much travelling.   And I`m sick.   The five-million-hour, fill-your-lungs-with-dirt bus rides have left me with all the symptoms of a common cold. Greeeeat.   After procuring hammocks, some cheap eats (we`re subsiting on bread, water, and fruit now thanks to the plane ticket splurge), and water (we go through at least a gallon a day here!), we dropped off our stuff at the hotel and went for some air-conditioned internet-time.   Yay!

We intended to cross the border today and take the five hour bus to Porto Velho, but my illness, combined with our collective lack of motivation, along with the fact that the guide book (published two years ago) promises we won`t be able to get a boat until Tuesday anyway, kept us here for one more day.   So, instead of getting up early, and packing up, and going through the stress of getting our exit stamps, entry stamps, finding a way to Porto Velho, and remembering how to speak Portuguese again, we just got up, showered, ate and what-not, and then napped for three more hours.   I wish I could say that did the trick, but I am still feeling under the weather.   It`s weird to have a “cold” in 90 degree, humid weather.   I hope I bounce back soon!

On another note, the constant culture shock (always moving to new towns with different customs, food, ways of doing things, modes of transportation, legal procedures, etc.) is really kicking our butts right now.   Both of us would kill to be in Gillette shopping for a cabbage-rice-shrimp dinner at Albertson`s

I just want to buy some triscuits and some shrimp and some whole grain brown rice and nice clean head of cabbage without and flies on it.

and renting a movie from Video Experience and going for a hike up the state-land butte.   But instead, we are in a Bolivian backwater where the only food we recognize is pizza, and flies swarm the meat cuts hanging for sale in market shops, and little boys pee in the gutters at their mother`s commands.   Usually the different ways of life are interesting and exciting, but right now they`re just sort of depressing.

Nonetheless, we will be moving on tomorrow, down the Rio Madiera (I think.   It`s one of the Amazon`s biggest tributaries… I know that…) to Manaus, and then down the Amazon itself to Belem on the coast.   From there, we hope it will be beaches and wonderful spicy food all the way back to Rio de Janiero  and finally to Sao Paulo.   We are both much looking forward to lazing the days away in our hammocks reading and playing cards and spying pink dolphins and red macaws.

Hope all is well with everyone.   Take care!

Don’t Drink the Water!

So, we arrived in San Borja hot, sticky, dirty, tired, grouchy, sore, cranky, and of course more than ready to get on yet another 1950`s bus and go down yet another bumpy, rutted dirt road.   Seriously, the roads here are unbelievable.   They have to drive like drunken maniacs, swerving rapidly back and forth to miss the holes, and there`s always a set of deep ruts from the last time it rained on either side of the bus.

About five minutes before the bus was scheduled to depart, the bus driver hopped in and drove away.   I approached the bus next door and asked what happened, to which the driver replied, “Oh, he`ll be back in just a quick little second.”   Well, a quick little forty-five minutes later, after we had sweated out our most recent bottles of water, he rolled back up in an entirely different bus, and FINALLY we started loading.   I should mention that this a process that is NEVER expedient.   Once the driver and his cohort had stacked all our gear (how can 20 people have SO much stuff?) plus all the packages, spare tires, tools, bicycle carts, etc. on top of the bus (at a height of at least 1/2 the bus… a good six feet!) and after several shouted complaints from the other passengers (Vamos!   Vaaaaaaaaaaamoooooooosssss!!!), we were finally on the road.

Pat got the sweet seat again (although I`m sure it`s slightly blasphemous to call any seats on these busses “sweet”), dead center with aisle leg room at the back of the bus.   This bus was by far the most extreme we`d encountered.   If you can remember back to your school days… the bench style seats covered in vinyl were the only thing on offer.   Woohoo!   Since we had to keep the windows open to avoid dying from heat exhaustion, we were immediately covered in dust and our lungs filled with lots of icky dirtiness.   I`m still recovering three days post!

Our bus was blue, but this is a pretty good likeness to the vehicle we bumped along in for 10 hours sucking dust.

The locals were really awesome, and we were the only gringos.   Despite the crappy ride, it`s actually great to be off the gringo trail.   Going to places like the Pantanal and Uyuni and Machu Picchu isn`t really experiencing South America the way South Americans do, it`s really not a whole lot different than going to a beautiful resort in Mexico.   Except for the fact that you can`t drink the water, everything is held as close to gringo standards as possible.   After a few conversations with other passengers, combined with the slow realization that this crappy, bumpy, 10 hour ride was the norm for everyone else, I started to loosen up and enjoy being so much more immersed in another culture.   There`s also something about going through a not-so-fun experience with people that sort of bonds you and makes it not so bad.

While the bus company sell tickets two to a seat, they definitely fit only 1.5 Jema`s, and only 1 Pat.   So, across the back of the bus, in an area meant for 5, Pat took the middle, I took the right side, and we formed the “back seat alliance” with another guy on Pat`s left.   He shared mandarins, and we shared potato chips inbetween clouds of dust and grime.   In typical Bolivian style, we picked up anyone alongside the road with a thumb out.   At one point, all the seats, save for one plus our back row, were full.   A kid about 1/2 Pat`s size suggested that Pat scoot into one of the 1/2 spaces either next to me or our amigo so the kid could sit in the middle instead of away from his friends with the woman a few seats up.   Not this time!   Out the window went all the guilt from the previous trips.   I thought, “There is no way you`re making my 6`7″ boyfriend cram into a space meant for a child.”   I told the young man, “No.   He has to sit here.   Look at his legs.   He`s over 2 meters tall.   You`ll have to sit up there.”   Score one for the gringos!

After a promise of “one more hour” to the half way town, we rolled into San Ignacio six hours after departure… only three hours late!   The woman who sold me my bottle of water was really disappointed that I didn`t want to buy chicken from her.   “There`s chicken.   Are you sure you want just the water.”   Yes I`m sure.   “There`s chicken too, you know.   You just want this tiny little water?”   Yes, that`s all, thank you.   “But, there`s chicken.”   Just the water, please.   “Well, okay.”   Really rather comical.

We loaded back up on the bus after thirty mintues, ready for more brain rattling.   We were five minutes down the road before the bus drove through some heinous construction sites and really deep ditches (our precarious top-load conspiring with gravity and tipping us dangerously) before coming to an abrupt stop.   All the passengers started getting up, so we followed the leader.   Outside the bus, a man was selling ice cream.   He had dished it up and handed it over before we could decide whether or not to take the health risk (an ingredient of ice cream is water!), so we threw caution to the wind and downed our delicious vanillia, strawberry, banana, chocolate scoops.   It didn`t take us long to realize that the reason the bus had stopped and all had piled off had something to do with the river we`d just arrived at.   On the other shore, a fuel truck was driving out onto an early 1900`s wooden thing floating in the water.   It was so strange to see such a modern (relatively) piece of equipment on such an archaic structure.   Only a few more seconds were gone before all the pieces came together.   “Wait a minute.   That`s a ferry, I guess.   And they`re coming over here.   And when they get here, our bus is going over there.”   Sure enough, one tiny little mideval canoe built of barn wood with a 10-15 horsepower motor mounted on back was hooked along-side the giant, rotting ferry.   We loaded up.   First the motorist slammed it into reverse to get the boat moving away from shore.   Then a cohort grabbed the bow-line and hooked the canoe onto the back of the boat.   Then they gunned it, and slowly, our bus and all the passengers trying desperately to balance on the one inch slats placed 12 inches apart (on either side of the tire pads, of course), ferried across the river.   Once on the other side, as soon as the ferry touches dry ground, boys take chains mounted on either side of the platform-of-death and run like mad to wrap them around the grounding posts before physics makes the boat bounce back out into the river.

This is a much newer, way less shoddy version of the ferries we took across the rivers.

Our river crossing, combined with seeing the teams of brahma bulls pulling carts with yokes straight out of the 1800`s made me feel like I was in a dream world.   The different technologies we saw ranged anywhere from medival (the ferry, the cart and cattle combos) to modern day (cellphones and backhoes) to everything in between (the bus, the ferry motors, and the huts or mud/brick houses).

After another hour or so of dirt roads, there was a commotion a few seats up, and the driver pulled over and got out.   At their leisure, passengers started to get off.   We decided to join the fun, and found the driver outside loosening lugnuts on the left duals.   I asked the woman standing next to me what happened, and she told me, as if I was the owner of a mere three brain cells, “It went flat.”   Oh.   Well, it didn`t look flat, so it must have been the inside tire.   Pat was called upon to use his superpower and get the spare down off the top of the bus.   I wish I would have gotten a picture of all of us standing around, the men (plus one Jema) watching the action, and the women standing on the other side of the bus cracking cocounuts on the ground and inviting us to partake in the surprisingly delicious fare.

Maybe it`s just a certain kind of coconut, but apparently you just rap them on the ground to crack them open. Delicious!

We arrived finally in Trinidad, not too much worse for the wear, save my poor ragged throat.   I felt like I`d just come home from a hot summer day at the mine on the blasting crew with no airconditioning.   Pat said I looked like I`d just come home from two.   Pat`s superpower was again enlisted for the unloading phase while I talked to people about which hotel we should stay at and how we should get there (MOTO TAXI!!!! I love these things!).   The only down side is having to ride on seperate motorcycles… we often can`t stay together in traffic, and our drivers take different routes, which has left Pat wondering where the heck his girlfriend is a time or two.   I usually turn up (or vice versa) just seconds before his mind (or mine) turns to imagining the worst.

Our hotel room was kind of weird.   One double bed with eight other singles, but the owner promised we`d have the whole thing to ourselves.   Trinidad is hot, hot, hot, and more hot, so the walls, save for the cement support walls, were only waist high, the rest made of mosquito netting.   The vaulted ceilings made me feel like we were in a theater, onstage.   The shower didn`t actually produce hot water, but this time we were thankful.   The woman explained that the water got a little heated as it waited in a tank on top of the building to be used, but that`s a hot as we were going to want it.   She was right.   I delighted in two refreshingly crisp showers while we were there.

Exhausted from all the travelling, we went immediately to sleep (at 8:30), and didn`t move for 11 hours (who could in all that heat?).   We woke up feeling miserable, cranky, head-achy, nauseous… mostly just awful.   I couldn`t bear to choke down more than a few pieces of dry white toast and butter while Pat ate his ham and eggs.   A few aspirin later, we were feeling a little better.   We inquired at a travel agency about our river options, but they said (as did the guide books) that we`d have to go directly to the river.   So, we hopped some moto taxi`s to Puerto Almacen.   Upon arrive, I asked for the Transportes Fluviales office.   The drivers said, “Oh.   That`s another 5 km upriver at Puerto Varador.”   One glance at the river (or do I mean muck hole) was enough to know no boats were leaving from Almacen.   I explained our plight to the drivers, and after much muddled conversation, I deduced that there was no water at the other port either, and that if we wanted to travel by boat, we should go to the other port and talk to the captain about our options.   The drivers were quite certain that 50 kms (2 hours in a the back of a truck or on a bus on the bumpy dirt roads) away there was a river flowing that we could take north.   They REALLY wanted to take us to the other port (there was 30 bolivianos each in it for them), but our luggage was back in Trinidad, so I had them return us to the plaza.

At this point, these two travel-worn gringos had three options.   1) Pack up our bags, buy hammocks, walk two miles to the gas station, hitch a truck two hours to the river with water, and hope a boat was departing soon.   2) Go to the bus station and find out when the next miserable 30 hour bus to Guayamerin is departing. (don`t get me wrong… the busses are a good character building experience, but my character could use a rest day).   3) See if, on the off chance, we might be able to afford a flight.

We looked into option 3 first, and after finding out the flight was $70 USD, we decided to splurge and hooked up with the following day`s departure to the Brazil/Bolivia border.   Alleluia!

Record Setting

After a long, overnight bus ride on rough dirt roads on an overcroweded bus, we finally arrived in La Paz.   All told, by the time we leave this country, Pat and I will have spent over 120 hours on crappy Bolivian transport systems, train, bus, Land Cruiser,  and maybe plane.   Plane?   Yes, more on that later.

La Paz from the top coming into the city. Unbelievable.

Besides peeing out behind some random restaurant in some small-town stop, the bus ride to La Paz was pretty uneventful.   The wonderful bus-office ladies booked Pat and I the seats with the most leg room.   That way, instead of one leg in the aisle and one leg crammed into the back of the seat in front of him, he can have one leg kicked out, and one comfortably in front of him.   However, thanks to typical Bolivian overcrowding,  instead of kicking a leg out, he had to stay stuffed into his little area.   Two older, traditional Bolivian women showed up at the last minute and sat right on Pat`s foot.   He`s learned (partly via my experience on the Sucre-Potosì bus) that if you give them an inch, they`ll take a mile, so in order to keep her from flowing over into his actual knee space, he had to leave his foot there underneath her.

A typical street in La Paz. You can see it drop into the canyon before rising up sharply on the other side.

Here it`s not like polite, organized, there`s-enough-for-everyone, first-world cultures where if someone presses up against you, you scoot over a few inches to maintain personal space.   No, here, if someone presses up against you, you better push back, or they`ll take as much of your space as possible.   Also somewhat comical were the frequent comments the women made to Pat until they realized he really didn`t understand.   They kept trying to guilt him into giving them our seats.   They would say things like, “Look at you.   You are so young, and we are old grandmothers sitting on the floor.”   Part of me wanted to tell them, “Yeah, and you`re also old grandmothers who insisted on getting on the bus even though it was full instead of waiting until tomorrow like everybody else. (that`s what they told another passenger on the bus)” and another part of me felt pretty guilty for even being in a position to give up my seat on a bus.`

A fairly good example of how the houses cover every possible almost-vertical inch.

Our arrival in La Paz was incredible.   The city is in a canyon (like Deadwood, SD, only add 1.5 million people), and you drop into it from the rim.   Houses are plugged into the canyon walls almost on terraces niched out of the rock.   Standing at the bottom looking up is even more incredible.   The whole city is like an auditorium, and as far as the eye can see, houses and buildings rapidly climb the canyon walls.   Even more incredible are the canyon faces that are 90 degrees, straight up and down, or even a 115 degree overhang where it`s impossible to build houses.   These giant stretches of wild, fierce nature combined with this gravity-defying city are shocking and amazing.   I`ve included photos, but of course they don`t do it any justice.

We had no plans to stay in La Paz, thanks to our fast and furious travel schedule, so we headed directly for Villa Fatima, a neighborhood where north-bound busses depart.   We managed to nab the last two tickets to San Borja (separate seats, of course, and not our intended destination, but as far as we could get on one ticket) before wandering the streets in search of breakfast.   We happened upon a sopapilla stand, and I`m not as picky as Pat (only in South America… in the U.S., I`m pickier), so I picked one up.   Pat won`t settle for bread or peanuts or cookies, so we wandered until we found a stand selling fried egg sandwhiches.   After Pat had downed one, I decided I probably ought to get some protein, so we had a few more.   I would never even consider eating an egg deep-fried in old, dirty, hot oil on a slice of white bread complete with unwashed tomatoes, but here I barely think twice about my poor arteries or the potentially rampant bacterial.   Bon apetite!

Finally, we killed an hour in an internet cafe (my the time just flies by writing entries and emails) before heading back to the bus station.   When we got there, our bus hadn`t.   The Bolivian accent is hard for me to understand, so it took a few tries before I understood the bus would be there in ten minutes.   Half an hour later, one of two busses had departed, and a new bus had shown up.   Not ours though.   We stood sweltering in the hot sun for an hour with frequent promises of “10 little minutes!” before the bus rolled in and we finally started loading gear.   Of course you can`t actually get on the bus until all the gear is loaded, so more standing in the hot sun until they got an unbelievable amount of baggage (bus companies double as mail companies) on board (thank god it wasn`t on top like usual).

Since Pat and I didn`t have seats together (and we really want seats together on a 17 hour overnight ride), we had to choose whose seat we were going to try to exchange.   My assigned seat partner refused to switch.   Pat had the middle seat of the five that are crammed across the back of the bus, so I went back there to see if someone on either side of him would switch with me.   There was a big hullabaloo, because the back seats weren`t numbered, and people had been promised certain seats on the bus maps but sold numbers that didn`t match the seats once on the bus.   After much arguing and chatter amongst 7 or 8 people, we finally got things worked out.

We took off for the Cordillera Real – a gorgeous mountain range.   The distance we had to cover was only 150 miles.   Why 17 hours?   Because it`s 150 miles on Bolivian mountain roads.   You can`t even imagine.   The overloaded bus took forever to climb up out of the canyon (on paved roads!) to the top of the mountain.   The Cordillera Real, and in fact of all of the Andes mountains, are absolutely breathtaking.   Much like the Andes where Machu Picchu is located, these sharp, wedge-shaped mountains blast out of the earth and reach incredible heights.

We started out at 12,000 feet in La Paz (the world`s highest capital city… record number one!) and climbed to 15,600 feet. As the spines of mountains rose up sharply on one side and canyons plummeted on the other.   After we crested the top, we had 14,300 feet to descend.   Not kidding.   Also, shortly after we dropped over the top, the road turned to dirt.   When you`re riding in the back seat of a bus this is not a good thing.   In fact this is a very bad thing.   Finally the dirt turned into a one lane road, but we still had traffic in both directions!   Eventually, the canyon dropped almost instantly on the left side of the bus, and the cliffside rose directly on the right side.   At some points, the road was actually notched into the canyon wall underneath an overhang.

A good example of the way the road is literally cut out of the cliff.

A biker on the road. This one is a good example of the overhangs we drove under about half the time.

Had we had time to spend in La Paz, one of the tourist activities we considered participating in was a 30 mile bike ride down the “World`s Most Dangerous Road.”   Pat and I started to put two and two together, and after consulting the guide book and maps, we realized we had unknowingly signed up for a  17 hour bus ride on the “world`s most dangerous road.”   Yes, the whole 17 hours.   Oh. My. God.   Record number two.   Not only is it the most dangerous because of the constant impending death if you were to go off the road, but also because it is the ONLY overland route from La Paz (the capital city) to the center of the country and north.   Therefore it`s highly travelled.   Highly. Travelled.   One way road with almost constant two-way traffic.   We met another vehicle every two mintues.

Some folks peeking over the edge down into the bottomless canyon. I included this one for perspective. Look at the size of the people in relation to the road. Now imagine a giant farm truck hauling a load of goods plus as many people as can fit on top of the load.

Perfect demonstration of the average truck size in conjunction with the average road size. Not kidding.

Sitting one row in front of us was a family of five that had only purchased tickets for two.   So, the smallest children (a three-year-old boy and a four-year old girl) sat on the  laps of the parents while the seven-year-old  girl snoozed in the aisle.   They saw fit to nudge Pat`s feet out of they way so they could keep their travel bag handy, instead of under their seats, so he was stuck with a choice of one leg position on a 17 hour ride.   He felt bad saying anything.   I mean, maybe they`re just scamming the bus company and trying to get as much as they can for as little as possible no matter who they have to take it from (a lot of Bolivians are like that!).   But then again, maybe they really are so poor that they can`t afford more than two tickets to ride the bus back home or to Grandma`s house.   They made it a pretty miserable trip for Pat, nonetheless.   One of the guys sitting next to us suggested they move the bag under their seats, but Pat had already moved for them, so they just ignored Pat`s right-hand man.

Back to this ridiculous, incredible road.   Vegetation clung desperately to the cliffsides making for really amazing scenery.   Being as the road was one way and uphill vehicles have the right of way (thank god we were going downhill!), we frequently had to stop in the “pullouts” where the road is barely wide enough for two vehicles.   Scary because 1) there`s a left hand traffic/uphill vehicles  get the inside rule.   I guess maybe because they`re putting more torque on the road or something and they want to avoid wearing away the edge.   Or maybe because a car couldn`t get around a large vehicle (bus or truck) stopped on the inside without going off the cliff.   Scary no. 2 regarding stopping: sometimes the bus driver wouldn`t see the vehicle in time, so he would just BACK UP!   We had the back seats on the bus, and therefore a perfect view out the back window (no bathrooms).   Holy crap.   I usually didn`t look (I just prefer to have faith that everything will be okay), but Pat did.   And sometimes he`d mumble, “Okay, that`s enough.”   And the bus driver would still be backing up.   Those were definite panic moments for me.

Two trucks meeting on the road.

For the remaining six hour of daylight and the nighttime full-moon light, we encountered infinite hair pin turns.   The canyons were so steep and so deep that we never saw the bottoms before it got dark.   Several times vehicles squeezed by us on our right, overtaking the bus, and fuel cum fruit  trucks (a fuel truck with a stack of oranges on top of the tank) got dangerously close.   Often our driver would race to a pullout or to a corner so he wouldn`t have to stop for an oncoming vehicle or back up.   Anything above 10 mph is way too fast for this road, and our driver was often going a good 20-25!

Around one overhung corner, we passed under/behind the remains of a waterfall… I`m sure it`s full-blown crazy raging water in the wet season!   The worst part we saw during the daylight hours was a corner so eroded that the canyonside (i.e the side of impending death) was a good three feet lower than the cliffside.   Going around this corner in a bus was definitely heart-stopping.   You know when the Bolivians are hanging out the windows gaping or freaking out, clinging to their seats, you should definitely be scared.

Once it was dark out, I managed on and off sleep most of the time.   Scariest was when I was awake for the many times the road dropped sharply downhill (like a 15% grade… not kidding).   I felt like I was on a rollercoaster at Disneyland.   Surprisingly, we made it in one piece, albeit grouchy and travel-worn, to the tiny town of San Borja in time to buy an onward ticket to Trinidad!

Other Worlds and Pinche Thieves!

The Salar de Uyuni (Salt Flats) tour we went on was absolutely incredible.   The first day was my favorite, as we raced through the actual salar (the following days were in the altiplano).   The  Salt Flats are at an elevation of 12,000 ft. and cover 8,000 sq. miles – pretty incredible.   The salt is 7 meters (about 23 feet) thick and blindingly white, much like fresh snow.   I imagine it ´s much like being on Antarctica, only it ´s slightly above zero during the day instead of -40.

Before we left town, we stopped at the Train Cemetery on the Uyuni city limits.   We were skeptical at first… it sounded mostly like another thing to add to the itinerary so you think you ´re getting more for you money.   We expected nothing more than  a junk pile of metal, but were surprised to find the ghost of history  in all of the rusting steam engines used to haul silver and lead in the sixties.

The haunting train cemetary at the edge of town. We saw the kind of tourists that give gringos a bad name writing "The English were here, 2006" (in Spanish, of course) on a train. Jerks.

The haunting train cemetary at the edge of town. We saw the kind of tourists that give gringos a bad name writing “The English were here, 2006” (in Spanish, of course) on a train. Jerks.

The average view on the journey across the immense salar. Amazing and surreal. Trippy, even.

Our next stop  was  at the edge of the salar where they are mining the salt  completely by hand.   Our guide didn ´t know anything, so I approached one of the miners with my questions.   Having worked in a mining environment, I was shocked at the lack of machinery to do anything.   Men, with a tool that looks much like a hoe, scrape the salt into piles three to four feet tall.   They let them sit for a few days so the moisture drains out.   Then, they drive a mini dump-truck along side the piles and hand-shovel it all into the back of the truck.   The salt is then taken to a refinery in a town to the north and mixed with other minerals and better salt before it is sold as table salt or mixed with sugar water to make a kind of cement.   The miners get about $2 a ton, which is 17 Bolivianos – roughly the cost of a pair of gloves here.   I wasn ´t able to ask how many tons they shovel in a day, but I can ´t imagine it would be more than 10 or 15.   The miners were incredibly friendly (it ´s hit and miss with the locals here), and when I asked to photograph the truck, they let Pat shovel a pile ´s worth of salt into the back end.   Afterwards I got my turn, too.   It weighs about as much as snow, so for those of you in areas with real winters, just imagine shoveling your driveway all day long.

The amazing cactus-covered Isla Pescado in the middle of the Salar. Each cactus grows 1 meter (3 feet) every 100 years. Some are over 1200 years old!

Of course, before we got back in the Toyota Land Cruiser, we had to taste the unfinished product.   Surprisingly not that salty, but blindingly white nonetheless.   We raced across the expanse until we arrived at the most famous of the salt hotels.   All the buildings in the salar are made of salt blocks and the salt cement.   And all the furniture is made of salt (tables, chairs, bed shelves, etc.)   The salt hotel had some really awesome dining furniture inside these coves.   It was basically a bench against a wall, but there was a rounded seat back of salt for each person… very medieval looking.   Outside, we found some Bolivian tourists taking funny pictures.   The  immense white background allows for some pretty awesome camera tricks.

The medieval seating at the first salt hotel.

Next, we were off to an island in the middle of the salar.   We spotted it well before we arrived.   It is almost impossible to judge distance in such a homogenous setting.   I felt like I was  on a movie set… like the Truman Show.   The island really helped us imagine the archaic lake that used to cover the area.   The salt literally looked like surf washing up on shore.   The island is covered in ancient cacti, petrified coral, and volcanic rock.   After picking up a pair of funky earrings from a local artisan, we hiked up to the high point of the island to have a look around.   I don`t know if it`s the type of cactus or the climate it`s growing in, but these cacti only grow 1 meter (a little more than a yard) every 100 years.   Which means we got to see cacti that were well over 1000 years old.   Mindblowing!

Good example of what our rooms looked like. I don`t know this woman. 🙂

Lunch was held at the picnic tables made of salt on “shore.”   I would never have ventured to mix plain pasta with chunks of avocado, tomato, and  cucumber, but it was delicious!   We  packed up  and headed for our nighttime digs at the edge of the salar.   The hotel we stayed in was really cute.   It`s really amazing how absolutely everything  is made of salt!   Even the mattresses are on giant salt shelves.   It was dorm style with three bedrooms coming off the dining/common area; six beds to a room.

A vicua (pronouced v-eye-coon-yuh) grazing on the altiplano (high plain).

We had some wonderful hot drinks to accompany our early evening journalling before we all ran outside (brrrrr!) to see the sunset over the salar.   Beautiful, clear days like the one we had don`t do as much for sunsets as cloudy days do, but the colors were still magnificent.   For dinner, we had some absolutely incredible vegetable soup (I can`t believe I forgot to get the recipe!) and some not so incredible chicken, rice, and greasy greasy greasy fried potatoes.   We sat around the salt tables for the rest of the evening playing cards, drinking wine, and eating oreos with three wonderful young austrailian women who were part of our group of six that was continuously cramming into the Land Cruiser.

Endangered Andean flamingos. I don`t know how these things don`t freeze their feathers off.

The next morning we were up in time for the sunrise, which is absolutely magical in a place so other-wordly.   Breakfast cake, yogurt, and cornflakes were on offer as well as some excellent hot chocolate (cum mocha if you so desired).   Side note: the entire trip around the salar was almost 1000 km, so 700ish miles.   As a result, we did a lot of driving through some amazing country on some not-so-amazing roads.   The second morning was no exception as we high-tailed it through the altiplano (goodbye salt flats! 🙁   miss you!) past quinoa fields and  wild vicuñas (they look like a cross between llamas and antelope – you go to jail for thirty years if you kill one.)   For about three hours we cruised across land so high with no plantlife whatsoever, and volcanic rocks galore that we felt like we were on the moon.

The Arbol de Piedra… or tree of stone. Pretty nifty!

Finally we arrived at the viewpoint, a collection of giant, wind-weathered rocks that faced the toe of an active volcano puffing in the distance.   Once again we had a run-in with tourism habits that give gringos such a bad rap.   Used toilet paper was everywhere.   You`d think someone with a first-world education and/or money to travel would be smart enough to know that toilet paper doesn`t decompose at 13,000 feet and that leaving it anyway is just appallingly disrespectful.   Makes me absolutely furious.   I just want to run around lecturing all these people!

The infamous Laguna Colorada, and the 1/2 way point on the trip. The micro-organisms in the water make it this color.

Anyway, more sitting in the Land Cruiser follwed as we passed several high alpine lakes, one chock-full of a mineral used to make detergent.   Finally we arrive at our lunch spot and got to see our first Andean flamingos.   Bet you thought flamingos were only tropical birds.   Me too.   But, no!   The minerals around the lake are quite sulfurous and the ground itself is terribly soft.   Our guide warned us not to venture out across the stepping-stone islands, as most tourists who don`t listen end up sinking in the soft mud up to their belts.   The mountain winds blasted us as we hovered around the shore line waiting for lunch to be ready.   Out cook was wonderful and prepared the meal in the back of the land cruiser.   Most the other tour groups got lunch that was 1/2 food and 1/2 blowing sand.   Lunch was delicious… cauliflower patties (who woulda thunk?), boiled potatoes, peas, and carrots, mixed with the standard avacado and tomato.   Mmmm….

The mountain of seven colors… why do photos never do real justice to nature`s beauties!

Seeing as patience is not my strong suit, the next couple of hours in the vehicle were particularly rough for me.   Sometimes I`m just overcome with antsy, child-like energy.   I got to take most of it out on Pat.   We played a long round of the ABC game, I sang him songs, told him stories, and then tackled him repeatedly once we finally got the the Arbol de Piedra (tree of stone) weathered by the wind.   We got a neat picture with me on his shoulders under the “tree” before hustling around to all the other nifty rock formations.

A rather shoddy photo of the place the jeeps stop in the Valley of the rocks. This is just a great view point, but the valley itself is breathtaking.

Finally, we passed through on last stretch of desert with a beautiful “mountain of seven colors” watching over us.   Reds, browns, whites, greys, and a little pink and purple made for a spectacular sight.   Awhile later, we rounded the bend to Laguna Colorada (Red Lagoon… the real word for red is rojo, but colorada is a shade of red – kind of like we say magenta  and fuschia).   We had to pay an entrance fee to the park (it`s one of Bolivia`s 22 preserved areas) before dropping off our stuff and heading for a walk around the red lake, complete with more flamingos!

We had more wonderful vegetable soup along with Bolivian spaghetti (sauce more like salsa) for dinner and free wine compliments of the company.   The spoiled rich kids, all U.S. pre-med undergrads from various ivy-leagues  spending a $5000 summer pumping up their resumes in Bolivian health clinics, took it upon themselves to usurp the only heater (a device attached to the end of a propane bottle), so the five of us retired to our room to shiver and play cards until I finally asked the kitchen if we might have another heater.   They obliged us, and we spent the rest of the evening playing “golf” (a beefed up version from the one I know) and drinking some inventive rum/vodka cocktails.   The generator was shutdown at 8:30, so we all turned in pretty early.   Not a bad thing, since we were to be up and loaded by 5:30 the following morning.

We braved the icy morning air, and shivered throughout the hour-long ride the geyers.   When you`re from the state that`s home to Yellowstone National Park, it`s tough to be impressed by geothermal activity anywhere else.   The “geyers” ended up being fumaroles, mudpots, and one artificial steam vent drilled back in the seventies.   Pat and I both did a quick tour through the freezing area (no boardwalks and nothing to keep people away from the 125 degree heat) before jumping back into the Land Cruiser (no heat).

Finally, shortly after sun-up, we arrived at the aguas termales (hot springs) where those who are a few bricks short of a load can strip down in the below-zero temps  and swim in the 96 degree water.   I don`t know how I got talked into it (or did I talk myself into it?), but fifteen mintues later, I was twirling around in my skivvies in the toasty water.   I expected to freeze when I got  out, but my core temperature was up so high that  I was enjoying coffee and scrambled eggs  well before I started to feel  the chilly air trying to work its way back  into my bones.

After breakfast, it was on to the Salvador Dali desert, and finally to the Laguna Verde, which was frozen over, and therefore not so verde (green).   It was the birthday of one of the Australian women, so we sang Happy Birthday, loud and proud, before heading to the Chilean border where we dropped off yet another wonderful Aussie for her onward journey.   A whole-lotta-driving later, we arrived at a little llama ranch/farm (a shack next to a water hole) and had tasty tuna and rice w/… you`ll never guess.   Avacados and tomatoes!   Even more driving brought us to a villiage where we tried desperately to work out our antsy by walking the length of the pueblo, but no luck.   So back in the car again to drive, drive, drive to the Valley of the Rocks.   This place was truly amazing and very much worth seeing.   Reminded me of Utah/Nevada Natl. Parks.   Really fabulous incredible views.   After this, we had two more hours to Uyuni.   30 minutes from town, the driver pulled the car over and announced we were out of gas.   Uh oh.   They were prepared, however, and lugged a 10 gallon container off the roof for a fill-up.

We arrived safely in Uyuni, and had our guide drop us off at the bus station so we could leave our bags and get dinner before our departure to LaPaz an hour later.   Pat and I really didn`t feel like getting on a bus for another 13 hours after bouncing in the Land Cruiser all day long, but we had purchased our tickets already.   When we arrived at the station, I discovered that the company had sold our fare to another company and presented us with these tickets.   Fine enough.   When the Australian women tried to get their tickets though, the woman behind the counter said the tickets hadn`t been paid for (the Aussies bought them through a travel agency) and therefore no seats in their names  had been purchased from the new company.   Uh oh.

But Then The Unexpected Happened

Seeing as Pat and I didn`t even want to go to LaPaz that night, I asked the counter attendant if we could trade places with the Australians.   While I helped with translating and understanding what was going on in the ticket office, Pat waited outside with our bags (as per the usual, although much more scattered than usual as a result of our recent salar tour return).   As I was chatting with the women about different possibilities, Pat rushes into the station carrying all our stuff, blankets dangling, etc. and says, “Your bag just got jacked.”  

Oh shit.   No, not “oh no” or “oh crap” or “oh god”   Oh shit.

Pat took off outside, and I followed shortly thereafter.   I started to follow him, but realized two pairs of eyes would be better on different streets.   So, I ran down the next street, eyes, peeled.   I just kept going, searching and searching fruitlessly, until I decided to ask some young men if they knew any mochila (backpack) thieves and could help me get my bag back.   Seeing as I don`t have and therefore don`t tote around the standard gringo digital camera, ipod, etc. and I wear my passport and money at all times, there is almost nothing of value in my bag.   I was wearing all my clothes minus two pair of socks and four t-shirts.   All I had were three used disposable cameras, 1/2 used bottles of shampoo/sunscreen, and all my Portuguese notes and information.   Things only valuable to me.

The young men didn`t know anything, so I just kept walking and asking people.   Finally some six/seven year old boys told me the bag would be taken to a market and re-sold, probably to another gringo.   As for the rest, I was right… probably thrown out.   The boys escorted me to the police station, where I was told to come back in the morning at 9 or 10 since I didn`t have a description of the guy.   I asked the officer where I should look in the meantime.   He said, “that`s what we`ll do tomorrow.”   I told him that`s what I wanted to do NOW.   So he said just to look around the outskirts of the city and kind of waved me off.   Yay Bolivian police.

I decided I better head back to the bus station, since Pat didn`t know the city well and was probably either lost by this time, or sitting there waiting, waiting, waiting for me to show back up.   I passed one of the Australian girls come out of the public bathroom.   She said, “Pat got your bag back, but he`s been looking for you.”   Alleluia!!!    I got back to the bus office just after Pat had left in search of me again.   I blew my whistle 1thanks Jerri Moro, and Pat came running back in a panic.   As soon as my bag got stolen right from under his nose, Uyuni had become a desperate and dangerous place for him, so his mind had been racing with terrible things that might have happened to his girlfriend on  one of the dark streets of town.   After reuniting and several minutes of, “Oh my god.   I`m so glad you`re okay,” Pat explained what happened.

He knows most scams are distraction based in busy areas.   Usually someone spits a luggi on your neck or smears sticky junk (like syrup or honey) all over you or your bag.   Then, while they are helping you clean it off, their counterpart lifts your stuff.   Well, this time the distraction was just conversation.   A forty-something guy came up to Pat and started talking to him in Spanish.   Since Pat speaks almost no Spanish (he knows basic words from working construction in Gillette), he thought maybe the guy was trying to buy a shovel off the stack behind him.   Abruptly the man walked away, which Pat found rather odd.   When he glanced back at our pile of stuff, my bag was gone.

After scooping up the rest of the stuff and dumping it in the office, he ran down the sidewalk peering at everyone.   Just as he was about to give up, a street worker called him over and said “Amigo… insertspanishthatpatdoesntunderstand” and pointed down the street.   So, Pat ran up to and older man (50`s and less than 5 foot tall) carrying a black gunny sack over his shoulder and questioned him with “Amigo, mochila?   Amigo, mochila.   Amigo, mochila… amigo, mochila.”  2Pat learned “mochila” from our guide standing on top of the land cruiser every morning yowling, “Mochiiiiiiiiiiila.   Mochiiiilas, mochilas, mochiiiiiilas!”  The guy just kept walking trying to blow Pat off with a little Spanish, which seemed suspicious, so Pat kept up with him and kept saying, “Amigo, mochila-   Amigo, mochila.”   Suddenly, probably because a gringo-giant was hounding him (Pat was a solid two feet taller than the thief), the guy stopped and   dumped the gunnysack out onto the sidewalk, and my mochila spilled into the street.   Pat scooped it up as the thief took off running down the street.  Relieved that he`d gotten the bag back, Pat offered up a rather comical “gracias” before hightailing it back to the bus station.

At this point, I was probably walking through the carnival downtown, a gringo-free area packed corner to corner with people (like Mardi Gras), hoping to pick up some tips about my bag.   So, it was probably a good half-hour before I met back up with the very frantic Patrick.   Pobrecito!   🙁

If I didn`t say it already, we ended up definitely changing tickets with Jess and Julie (the Aussies), and after much relieved hugging and smooching, checked into a hotel, showered, and picked up some pizza.   What a night!

References

References
↑1 thanks Jerri Moro
↑2 Pat learned “mochila” from our guide standing on top of the land cruiser every morning yowling, “Mochiiiiiiiiiiila.   Mochiiiilas, mochilas, mochiiiiiilas!”

Push, shove, grab, jostle… whatever it takes!

I feel like we`ve been to hell and back, but as they say here, “Vale la pena.”   Literally, “the pain has value” or in English, “it`s worth it.”

We`ve finally arrived in Uyuni, the jumping off point for the spectacular Salt Flats.   To get here on the incredibly tight time schedule, we spent three days straight getting crappy sleep on trains and busses, living out of bus terminals, not showering, and wearing clothes so dirty I was afraid to touch my own body.   From Quijarro to Santa Cruz, we rode the train, nearly a 24 hour journey.   All in all not bad, but 24 hours on a train still makes for an exhausted couple of travellers.   In Santa Cruz, as we suspected, we got taken on our bus tickets.   We paid double the price ($12 instead of $6).   The agency took our money, scribbled out some faux tickets, went and bought tickets from another agency for half the price, made up some story about a later departure than they originally told us (the bus is having mechanical problems or some such nonsense), and then last minute escorted us personally to the front door of the bus from the second agency and handed us the 1/2 price tickets.   I was too shocked to really say anything, but now I regret not getting somewhat miffed and demanding that they return at least 1/2 of the extra money.   From Santa Cruz to Sucre was to be the most comfortable bus ride of them all, little did we know.   We left Santa Cruz in the evening, travelled overnight, and arrived Sucre early morning hoping to go directly to Potosì (we`ve no time for stops in between major destinations since we`ve committed ourselves to such a demanding schedule).   We managed to get a bus leaving at 9:00am (we`re now on day three of travel with no real sleep, mind you).   Thankfully, the small bus (seats for 26)  was not crowded, and Pat was able to have a seat all to himself with a vast expanse of leg room.   Or so we thought.   We left the terminal, but stopped every few blocks until the bus got so full, that I jumped over to share Pat`s seat with him.   At one stop, the seats finally filled up, but people kept cramming onto the bus.   I had the aisle seat, which meant plenty of other people`s stinky body parts  in my face.   It turns out my shoulders were the perfect place for aisle-standers to sit whenever they needed to let someone else squeeze by.   Finally we were on the road, as I squirmmed to maintain the small space I had paid for.   Slowly but surely, the woman and her child standing just slightly in front of me started to inch their way into my foot space until the child was actually standing on my feet.

Average Bolivian road. Did I mention they`re generally not paved. 7-12 hours on a bumpy dirt road in a shoddy bus is the norm. At least it`s cheap!
bolivia-bus

Typical Bolivian bus. I`m glad for the experience, but I want to repeat it as little as possible.

Side note:  it`s really difficult for me, being from a country where there is enough for everyone, and everyone waits their turn (at least in the cities and environments that I live, work, and play in) to be in a place like this.   In the U.S., our golden motto is: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.   Here in Bolivia, it seems to be: do unto others whatever you need to do to get whatever you want.   Because in the U.S., if you are patient and wait in line, surely your turn will come.   Here, if you are patient and wait in line, your turn will never come because people will continue to shove in front of you.   I try not to be appalled, and I try to remind myself continuously that most of these people are quite poor and have to fight for everything they have (or at least more so than I am used to), but sometimes I can`t help but be frustrated and annoyed.

And, the bus between Sucre and Potosì was no exception.   The constant battle with the woman and her child for the leg/foot space I had paid for was a definite test of my resolve.   The low point was when the woman, who had finally decided to put her butt in the aisle and her feet on top of mine, instead of vice versa, covered the mouth of her coughing child.   Wait, not coughing.   Wretching, I realized too late, as the three-year-old boy projectile vomited across my feet!   I managed to jerk my feet out of the way just in time to miss the main stream, and sat crouched like a monkey in my seat for the next (and last) hour of the trip to avoid the mess.   This, of course,  pleased the woman, because it meant more room for her as she stretched the rest of the way into the area the bus designer intended for my knees, shins, and feet and squeezed her son between the wall and Pat`s knees.   I wish I were kidding.

You`d think that was the low point, but instead, I`d say we hit bottom and flat-lined.   When we got to Potosì, the highest city in the world, we missed the afternoon Uyuni departure by an hour, and the only mine tour we had time to go on by 1/2 an hour.   We bought our evening departure Uyuni tickets, only to find that the bus didn`t leave from the main terminal, but from another office.   The man behind the counter would only give me vague, half-hearted directions (are we getting scammed again!?), so we finally left to wander around in hope we could find said office.   After walking uphill for fifteen minutes  in the thin, dry atmosphere of the highest city in the world looking like lost tourists, we were finally redirected to the office we sought by a woman hoping to sell us bus tickets.   We were able to drop our bags and wander about the streets hoping to find lunch, but it seemed chicken and fried potatoes were the only fare on order.   Bolivia is well known for it`s lack of cleanliness and therefore rampant food poisioning if you are a first-world traveller unaccustomed to the bacterial-onslaught.   Therefore, we thought it best to avoid the chicken, and no place would sell us just fried potatoes.   So, tummies rumbling, we ambled slowly (to avoid the headaches, etc. brought on by any kind of fast paced activity at 13,400 ft.) up and down the streets until we saw a slightly more promising restaurant (i.e. with a menu instead of just having to know what`s being served and how it all works).   Finally Pat was able to get a coke and a quesadilla with rice, and I was able to use the first clean bathroom I`d seen in four days. Alleluia!

After lunch, we set about procuring more food for the bus trip, but the food on offer is so unfamiliar to us that I ended up just getting roasted corn (a less salty form of Corn Nuts), some bread, and some choclate.   Finally I found a stand selling fresh sopapillas and downed two before we finally tossed our bags up top and boarded the tiny onibus for the worst bus ride of our lives.   A tour group boarded immediately after us.   Groups tend to be annoying at the least, and outright rude and disrespectful of everyone else at the most.   Except for the loud boisterous chatter, the ten Russians weren`t bad.   It was seven o`clock, and we were finally off to Uyuni, where laundry and hot showers awaited us.   Oh, but don`t get excited yet.   We were told the ride would be six to seven hours.   Depressing because it meant an early morning arrival with questionable potential to sleep on the bus until sunrise.   Ten miles down the road, we started praying it would be just six hours instead of the potential seven.   The seats on the bus were no wider than my shoulders (which means 1/2 as wide as Pat`s), and the padding in the seats had gone out long ago, which meant our bones were purchased on metal rods.   Roads in Bolivia are known for being shoddy at best, and eternally miserable at worst.   Our road was somewhere inbetween.   Pat tried to solve his seat-width issue by flipping his arm rest up, but every bump tossed him into the aisle.   My attempts to sleep were futile, as were Pat`s.   At the first stop we decided to try and layer ourselves across the two seats.   Pat wiggled into place first, and as I struggled to find a comfortable position on top of him, the Russians started disscussing our collective plight with us.   Pat commented that he was to big, to which the man behind us said in his wonderfully thick Russian accent, “No!   Not too big!   The bus is too small!”   Shortly thereafter, one his friends offered to trade us seats.   Five seats stretched across the back of the bus, one at the end of the aisle, which meant limitless leg room.   We made the rest of the ride in slightly better condition and arrived three hours earlier than expected.   A tour peddler awaiting the arrival of the bus shuttled us to a hotel and we got to sleep in a bed for the first time in four days.

If we can`t get the boat from central Bolivia to the Brazilian border, this is the road we will travel for 30 hours. Please, God, no.

Now, here we are.   Uyuni is cold and dry.   We sleep under eight blankets, but I actually don`t mind the cold.   It makes me feel like I`m camping, and I am happier here than I have been in days.   Today, we finally got our clothes washed, and we had a nice hot shower for the first time in days.

Today marks five months of dating, or whatever you might call it, so tonight we are celebrating with a feast at a pizza buffett.   We have to hurry up and choose a tour as well as get onward tickets (I hear it`s quite easy to get stuck here) to LaPaz, but today has been wonderfully relaxing.

I am so looking forward to the salt flats.   The altitude never drops below 14,000, and it`s winter here (no snow… that comes in the wet season… summer), so I am fully prepared to freeze my butt off.   I can`t wait!

Brings New Meaning to “Brain Fried”

Happy 4th of July!   Days like today really make me wish I could have my cake and eat it, too.   I would love to be in the U.S. right now, popping the top on a Bud Light, and chowing a hamburger and some home-made waffle-fries.   And fireworks!   I guess there`s always next year!

Right now we`re in Santa Cruz, Bolivia awaiting the departure of our 4:00 bus to Sucre and on to Potosì (the highest town in the world in the dead of winter… I`m sure that`ll be a story!) to hopefully tour the famous silver mines there.   After, we plan to go to the Salar de Uyuni in the SW corner of Bolivia, said to be one of the most spectacular sights in South America.   We were never planning on Uyuni, and have now put so much on our plate that we might have to take a flight and skip over the most boring 3 days of the Amazon where the river is 30 miles wide and you can`t see either shore.   We`ll still get our Amazon experience, but we`re just going to skip the boring part.   Assuming we can afford it.   We haven`t actually checked prices, yet.

Anyway, yesterday morning we got up to nice, HOT showers at the hostel (YAY!) before donning our backpacks and jumping a local bus to the border at seven-thirty with Karen, a young British woman we met at the hostel.   When we got to the border, we discovered they didn`t even open until 8, and so were thankful we didn`t go for the extremely hard-core option of getting up at 5:30 to be the first ones to the border and therefore the first ones in line to buy train tickets.ç

The Bolivian border crossing process is divided between several workers, so we had to wait an extra half an hour for the “stamp man” to show.   Finally we were on our way to the train station in a rickety-station wagon.   The drivers door kept coming open as we were going down the road, no seatbelts, and the interior looked like they`d pulled the car straight out of a junkyard a few days ago.   An poor Pat got stuck in the backseat, both literally and figuratively.   He couldn`t get out of the car!

The lines for train tickets weren`t quite of “Cuban” proportions, but we did have to stand there for quite awhile.   We managed to get on the first, cheapest train, but it`s cheap because it doesn`t include meals or entertainment.   So, Pat and I fell into our usual roles… he babysat the bags while I ran around finding food for the trip.

The train-ride itself was a good experience.   I would recommend it, but I probably wouldn`t do it again.   We bounced back and forth for almost 24 hours, which made for interesting sleeping.   There were peddlers with food options at every stop, which came in handy at dinner-time.   We got hooked up with an awesome chicken-rice-tomatoes-potatoes mixture.   The train was full of Brazilians who are now on holiday (as I understand it –  their July is like our December), and Brazilians tend to be really friendly, so we had a great time!

It`s really astouding how poor Bolivia is.   I was thinking about it on the train, as peddlers were strolling the ailes hawking their fare.   I bought a bag of six grapefruit for one Boliviano.   To a Bolivian, that`s a dollar, of which you would have to have 300 or so to pay the rent.   But to me, it`s about $.13.   Essentially, a month`s rent here  would be about $45 for an American/Canadian/European/Australian, etc.   It`s just astouding to me that there are so many people in the world working just as hard or harder than people in industrialized, first-world nations, and getting far less for it.   Just to afford a ticket to ride the train that brought us here, the average Bolivian would have to work three or four days.   It`s really perspective-altering to see, again, how fortunate most my family, friends, and aquaintances are.

On a similar note… or maybe just another note, we are SO dirty!   Because we have committed ourselves to such a fast pace of travelling.   We won`t have time to do laundry until, at least, tomorrow.   I have been wearing the same shirt, over and over, for about five days now.   And my jeans used to be where I wiped my dirty hands.   Now my jeans are so dirty, I fear wiping my hands on them would get my hands dirtier.   Needless to say, we anxiously await the day (hopefully tomorrow) when we are forced to layover somewhere (because of availability of bus departures) and get to wash our clothes.   On the upside, we have been getting to shower quite frequently, so we`ve yet to start smelling.

One of the typical brahma cattle that flood the country-side here. Strange to me because of the thick slag of loose skin that hangs from their throat, not to mention the huge, buffalo-like spinal process.

One of the typical brahma cattle that flood the country-side here. Strange to me because of the thick slag of loose skin that hangs from their throat, not to mention the huge, buffalo-like spinal process.

We had quite an interesting experience in the bus/train station today.   When we arrived, we immediately sought out onward tickets, only to be turned away from every ticket window, save for three.   Once we had finally gotten money out of the ATM to purchase the tickets, only one of the ticket windows had seats left to sell.   However, everything was quite sketchy.   Ever counter I approached that said they had tickets told ME that had tickets to Sucre, but other people would come up and ask while I was standing there, and the men behind the counter would turn them away.   When  I finally bought tickets and handed over my money, the guy at the counter wrote me out a ticket (the kind with a perforation, where half is usually taken upon entrance) with my name on one side and Pat`s on the other.   Each side had a pre-printed number, one was 4465 and the other 04465, so essentially the same ticket, right?   Also, when I asked to see where the seats were on the bus, someone elses name was written in the spaces he was selling me.   I fired off several questions, most of which I couldn`t get a clear answer to, and finally crossed my fingers and went to report back to Pat.   We decided to go to the information to ask if the ticket was real and find out if we were getting scammed.   I explained to her that it seemed fishy to me to give us a perforated ticket with a different name on each half.   She motioned for us to follow as she blasted off for our company`s ticket counter.   We practically ran through the station after her, and then listened to her argue with the guy in rapid Spanish.   Finally she told him, “give them TWO tickets.”   The guy said okay, and she left.   As soon as she was gone, he pushed our money back over the counter and told us there was no room for the likes of us.   So, we still don`t know if we were going to get scammed or not.   Shortly thereafter, one of the counters that turned me away previously miraculously had tickets, but were confused because they thought they saw us buy tickets from the other folks.   After trying to explain the situation, they finally sold us two seats (also with someone`s name on them, but they said it was a reservation only good until 10 a.m.).   Long story short, we still don`t know if we were sold bogus tickets.   We`ll see in a few hours!

Since we`ve been travelling for so long, and still have another 14 hr. bus trip coming up in just a few hours, I am definitely starting to feel like a zombie.   We didn`t intend to travel like this, but I am prone to taking on more than I can handle.   Our theory is, we don`t know when we`ll have the chance to do this again, so we ought to see as much as we can now!   Potosì, Uyuni… here we come!

Flithy Creepy Crawlies

We arrived in Corumba last night with a recommendation from our Pantanal guide in hand.   He said they ´re always waiting at the bus station, so we were quite surprised to arrive and find no one.   After looking into onward tickets for the Bolivian train, the travel agent called the hostel for us, and they said they ´d come pick us up.   In the meantime, we found out from bystanders that Brazil LOST to  France  in the world cup!   No  way!   We really thought they ´d make it to the final four, but no luck!   While we were  awaiting our hostel escort ´s arrival,  three young women from England, who had arrived on the same bus, had a woman from another hostel turn up to greet them.   Then, another guy from another hostel showed up trying to get us to come to his place.   We finally decided to go with the place our guide recommended since it was the same price as the hostel the London-women were going to.

BIG MISTAKE.   It became quite obvious to us that our guide must have been looking out for his buddies.   I don ´t mind simple and run-down, which is what this place was a first glance.   But they had a kitchen, laundry service, our own room, and free internet.   After dropping our bags in our room, we went to wait for the internet.   We ate dinner (tomato and hot-sauce sandwhiches and peanuts in the shell) and read through our guide books while waiting for the computer to free up, but it never did!   It seemed we were the only guests at the hostel, and the other eighteen people milling around either lived there or worked there.   They kept doing some sort of hot-seat change out with the computer, all the while casting frequent glances in our direction.   We felt quite unwelcome, and eventually gave up.   Pat ´s hair is getting long, and the idea of me cutting his hair (something I have never done  for a man  using just scissors) has come up in conversation several times.   So, last night we decided to go for it.   It actually turned out quite well.   A little short on top, and a tiny bit chunky in the bright sunlight, but on the whole, not bad for my first stab at it.

It took about an hour and a half between the kitchen scissors and the cuticle-clippers/sewing kit snippers to get it finished, and six of the hostel/tour workers sat around joking and laughing about it.   The only other guest, a Japanese guy who ´s been travelling around the world for about two and a half years, made caipirinhas – the best I ´ve had so far!  – while I was snipping away and offered us a  glass.   Really delicious!

After we finished the haircut was when the nastiness set in.   After feeling so unwelcome, and being covered in little pieces of hair: ITCHY!, not to mention all the Pantanal mosquito bites and potential burrowing fleas (which made us very nervous about every single bite and itch – we ´ve yet to give eachother the once-over), all we wanted was a hot shower.   Well, guess what.   No hot water.   So I passed on the shower, as Pat braved the freezing water to clean his new do.   While I was lounging in the bedroom, I noticed a stain on the sheets that looked like an old blood stain.   Not a big deal… not everyone in the world can afford to be replacing sheets all the time.   However, when my hand slid across it, it was hard and crusty!   Like it still hadn ´t been washed.   EWWWWWWWW!     Not to mention the sticky brown goo splattered on the outside of our door.   Not to mention the rusting mirror.   Not to mention the complete lack of toilet seat.   Not to mention the weaved chairs with huge holes in them.   Not to mention the general dirtiness of the place.   I don ´t mind simple, basic, and run-down, as long as the people have enough pride to take care of the little that they do have.   This place was nasty.   So we broke out our fleece sleeping bags, but we feared they were flea infested from the Pantanal, so we grabbed a cleaner-looking sheet from one of the other beds in the room and tried not to move or touch anything.   It was a really gross night.

After breakfast (included in the price -nasty coffee and the basic bread and butter), we packed up and high-tailed it to the other cheap hostel, which was much cleaner, slightly more friendly, and had several more tourists.   We met a young woman from London who had a bed in our room-to-be, and ended up walking around town with her trying to find out information about tickets for the Bolivian train.

Our plan is to cross the border and take a train to Santa Cruz  (in very high demand as it is basically the only form of transportation between here and Santa Cruz, Bolvia, except a pot-hole filled dirt road that runs near the tracks and takes and extra 12 hours).   We have the option of buying tickets on this side of the border, but it ´s more expensive, as every agency charges a pretty significant commission (up to 50% of the ticket price!).   Our other option is just to cross the border and stand in lines (said to be of “Cuban” proportions) to buy our tickets.   While we don ´t want to miss getting on the train because it runs out of seats while we ´re in line, even more we don ´t want to get screwed out of an extra $30 (about two days worth of our budget!).   So, after much deliberation, Karen (the young woman from London), Pat and I decided to go across early tomorrow to get in line for the train.

Because we ´re leaving early, we had to get our Brazilian exit stamps during the mere three hours that the office was open today.   20 minutes of standing in line, and 20 seconds of paperwork was all it took for us to be officially “no where.”   All the guide books and locals say we won ´t have problems turning up in Bolivia a day after we ´ve “left” Brazil; I hope they ´re right!   We ´ll cross and try to get the first train, which  is much cheaper, but more popular because of the lower price.   Since Bolivia has been shut-down transportation-wise for the weekend, it means really high demand for tomorrow ´s trains.   If we can ´t get on the first, we ´ll buy the double-price tickets for the other train (much nicer with movies and meals and waiters, etc.) that evening. They had an election in Bolivia over the weekend, which could make for a very tumulous political situation.   I just pray we don ´t get stuck there and end up spending the rest of our trip in some tiny, po-dunk Bolivian town.   Please cross your fingers for us!

Our plan for the short term is to try to find some eats.   This town has been shut down all day long (on account of it being Sunday).   I hope our new hostel has hot water!   Bolivia is said to be very third-world, so this might be our last hot shower for quite awhile!

Rice, Beans, and Farofa

Oh… the Pantanal.   We have just returned!

Preface:  they Patanal is widely known and oft visited, as it is the ecological hotspot of  South America (you thought it was the Amazon, didn ´t you?).   It has the same wildlife diversity as the Amazon, but the difference is the rainfall, humidity, and year round temp.   The soul of the Pantanal carries hints of nearly every place I ´ve ever been.   It seemed like a deserty swamp.   Or maybe a swampy desert.   If NE Wyoming flooded, you ´d have the Pantanal.   Because the area only receives rain for half the year, it floods in the summer and dries up in the winter.   Result: little islands of dense vegetation, with plenty of open areas for animal spotting in between.   We visited during the best time of year, before the water is all gone, before is gets really chilly, as the mosquitos are dwindling, etc.

This huge stork is the trademark of the pantanal – theyre only a foot or two shorter than me!

I have sort of mixed feelings about the experience.   The only way to see the area is to go on a tour (you ´re not allowed to go it alone.   There are even signs along the roadways warning that all tourists are required to have a guide).   I really don ´t like tours, where you ´re put on an the tourist assembly line and sort of run through the system like you ´re not even a person.   Second, the place we stayed was a ranch in the middle of the Pantanal.   I ´m sure this is a very unique and rustic and memorable experience for someone from never-been-out-of-the-city London or something.   But, as I am from a state with more ranches than cities, instead of being novel, it just made me have nightmares about my ex-boyfriend.

We made it to the area in the afternoon, and were dropped off at  a hotel first.   We  explored the boardwalks and rope bridges that kept us suspended above the slowly drying swamp, and after a buffet lunch based on rice and beans (I ´m always hesitant with the meat.   Unless it ´s pot roast.), we were taken on a cheesy canoe trip.   Despite making me feel like a tacky-tourist, having Pat there made things really fun.   We laughed the whole way down the river, in between spotting caiman (alligators, basically),

monkeys, capybara, marsh deer (HUGE!), tuiuius (4 foot tall stork), caracaras (crazy birds of prey), toucans, and egrets.   You see, the canoe was a very small, VERY tippy two person number.   Pat is at least a foot taller than me, and about seven times as strong, which means he ´s got nearly 100 pounds on me.   They made me get in the canoe first, so my dry-life was in Pat ´s hands as he tried best he could to ease into the boat.   Together we probably weigh in at about 400 pounds, which left only four or five inches between the lip of the boat and the surface of the river.   As a result, we had these hilarious mini-panic attacks the whole way down stream, and couldn ´t stop laughing.

Small jaws, but these things are ferocious!

After our trip, we jumped in the back of a pickup complete with benches for our “safari” (i.e. the drive to the ranch).   Like I said… for  city dwelling folk, riding in the back of a truck is probably a thrilling, novel experience.   For me, it just reminded me of being in high school and running around with my friends.   The “safari” was neat, though.   We spotted several toucan, caiman galore (these things are as thick as antelope are in Wyoming),

The Pantanal has more caiman than you can shake a stick at (or would want to). Almost more caiman than mosquitos

The Pantanal has more caiman than you can shake a stick at (or would want to). Almost more caiman than mosquitos

plenty of birds (this place is a bird-lover ´s paradise), a coatis (like a racoon) and blue macaws as we were arriving at the ranch.

A female howler monkey

Dinner was more rice and beans (you ´ll have to ask Pat about the mystery meat) with farofa (a salty, garlicy, floury substance that you mix with your food… about the consistency of corn meal).   As I am quite satisfied, with rice, beans, farofa, and tomatoes, I ´d probably say the food was my favorite part of the whole experience.   They also fried up the pirana catches of the group that had returned shortly before dinner.   Most of the tourists didn ´t want to eat theirs (I guess the appeal only lies in reeling them in), so I got to try two or three.   The meat on them is pretty scarce, but thanks to my dad, I knew to dig into the cheeks, which are an even bigger prize in piranas than in trout.   MMMMMmmmm!!!   Delicious!

Coatis – the racoon like animals that wander in the Pantanal

We spent the rest of the evening watching a huge toad (as big as Pat ´s hands)  catch his evening fare, chatting with the other tourists and playing cards by candlelight after they shut off the generators.   Hammocks in a giant bunk-house (room for… 50ish) made for an interesting sleep situation.   The middle third of the wall was punched out with mosquito screen stapled on to keep the bugs out, making for a fantastic 360 degree view of the surrounding country.   We rolled out our fleece sleeping bags by flashlight and bedded down for the night.   The hammocks were suprisingly comfortable, and I slept quite well.   I woke up about 5:30 to a brilliant sunrise, barking dogs, and roosters crowing.

A male howler monkey. He grunts to keep the group together as they forage for food. You should hear the noise he makes that gives these animals their name; its sounds like a two-ton dying pig.

All the other tourists had to take off that morning, so it was just Pat and I for the rest of the day.   After breakfast we set out on horseback for several miles, alternating between waist-deep swamp and patches of trees and dry land.   Even though it was one of those terrible “trail rides” where the horses have the route brainwashed into them, we still had a lot of fun.   I ´ve always wanted to have horses and live the kind of life where I ´d get to ride them everyday, so even being around “pre-programmed” horses is still thrilling in a way.   We saw mostly birds on our ride with our guide who went about his job quite half-heartedly.   Other highlights were snail eggs, wild boar holes, red macaws, and the strange skinny cattle (I think they ´re Brahmas?)   Of course the galloping across the wide open parts of the swamp was the most enjoyable.   It ´s crazy to be on a horse that ´s charging through two-three feet of standing water.   I felt like I was in a movie, and we got SOAKED!   The horse our guide was on was pretty skittish (the caiman/gators don ´t attack, but they react with their teeth, just like a dog would, if you step on them).   After we crossed through the last gate, the guide was mounting his horse when it started bucking like crazy, threw him off, and then took off running.   Well, since the horses are pre-programmed, the mares Pat and I were on wanted desperately to follow the leader.   We tried to keep them reined in for about thirty seconds until our guide told us just to head for the ranch… he ´d walk back.   So we blasted across the wide open back to the ranch without our guide, a thrill all its own!]

An aerial view of the Pantanal during the wet season, even though it doesnt go far in sharing with you the Pantanal that *I* experienced.

After lunch we lazed about in our hammocks (I ´m excited for the Amazon… I LOVE these things!) until it was time to go fishing for piranas.   We got everything ready to go to the lake, only to discover that our guide had mis-informed us.   Well, actually he hadn ´t really informed us at all.   He didn ´t do a very good job of keeping us up to speed with the itinerary.   Come to find out, the “lake” was no more than fifty feet long and thirty feet across.   I suppose to make the experience seem more rustic or adventurous, they put you in a boat out in the middle of the pond, that I assume has been mostly fished out.   A caiman lurked in the water near the boat the whole time, which was exciting.   I tossed my meat-baited line in the water several time, and got bite after bite (I could even SEE them nibbling away half the time), but for the life of me I couldn ´t set the hook.   It (the hook) was huge anyway, and most the fish were quite small (three to four inches long, the biggest possible is ten), but one of the ranch staff still managed to hook a few.   I gave up (patience is not my strong suit) and layed in the back of the boat swatting mosquitoes and watching the sunset.   I think I will try again on the Amazon.   I want to catch a pirana!   We also fed the remainder of our bait to the caiman.   It was cool to see him slink into the water and swim around the meat getting a good eyeball on it before he suddenly snapped it up with lightning-quick jaws.

That night before dinner, we taught Joacir (one of the staff) to play Egyptian-Rat-Slap (or Killer, or whatever you might call it).   It was funny because he didn ´t speak a lick of English, and we speak very little Portuguese.   And, after much conversation, I finally discovered part of the difficulty stemmed from different card values.   In the games Joacir plays, a King is worth the least, a jack the second most valuable, a queen the third, and an Ace means nothing.   A seven is the highest point value.   So, it goes without saying that confusion abounded.   Funnily enough, Joacir creamed us three games in a row before dinner.   Here we have a perfect example of why I hate tours.   No matter what you do, you  can ´t really get personal with people.   I thought, since we were all playing cards and being buddy-buddy, that we ´d eat dinner together.   Nope.   When the food went on the table, all the staff disappeared to their seperate eating quarters, even though we were the only guests on the ranch.   And so Pat and I ate alone in a dining room meant to hold 40.   Woe.

After some fast games of Spit, some serious games of Rummy (by candlelight of course), and a little stargazing/fire-fly spotting,  we slipped back to our hammocks for the night.   On the last day we got up with the sun to go on a morning walk with a cacophony on birds and howler monkeys filling the air.   Really neat to experience.   The walk kind of sucked… seemed rather pointless.   We waded through knee-deep swamp water and walked through patches of trees where fig tree roots strangled the palm trees.   We saw lots of toucans and monkeys (with babies!), but that was about it.   In between getting bit by mosquitos and wondering why our guide wasn ´t taking more initiative to teach us about the local flora and fauna (or to even interact with us at all), we eyeballed the water for caiman lest we step on one and get our feet bit off.

We spent the rest of the morning playing cards after breakfast (complete with fresh papaya!) until it was time to shower and head out.   Of course there is no hot water heater, and since the only available electricity is from the generators, it makes no sense to have an electric shower head (the average fare in all tourist accomodations in South America).   So, I took a freezing shower to top off my Pantanal experienced.

We tossed our bags in the back of the truck a short while later and blasted the twenty or so miles back to the paved road just in time for the bus.   After a  very bumpy hour and a half complete with bi-polar airconditioning, we arrived in Corumbá to begin the next leg of our trip!