Brasil!

Tuesday Jan. 22 and Wednesday Jan. 23, 2013

Today was an extremely long day. Today was the day that Eric, Ali, and I would venture into the unknown parts of Bolivia/Brasil that we didn't know anything about. We were up until about midnight last night making cinnamon rolls and kinoa bread for our travel, and packing up our gear. This morning our plan was to wake up at 7:00, and be on the road waiting for a taxi at 7:30 because we were told that our bus will be in town at 9:30. But even when we are dealing with just gringo's we STILL can't do anything on time in Bolivia.

While waiting for a taxi, nothing was coming. Time was getting shorter and shorter. So I decided to run back in and ask Juan if he could drive us in the truck. But what do you know, the moment I went to look for him, a slew of taxi's and what was presumed to be our floata, passed by. Once I told Juan that we thought our floata just went by, he rushed and we all piled in the truck and started into town. We were a little nervous that we wern't going to make our bus because on the way into town, we got stopped by road construction.

As we pulled into the bus station, we saw a floata sill there so we were relieved. But after we went in to buy our tickets, they told us that our floata still had not arrived. They expected it to arrive in 2 or 3 hours. So Eric took a moto into town and picked up some laundry and got us some bread from the French Bakery. So yum!

We were told that we could not buy our ticket until the day of the trip. So we were hoping that we were there early enough to get the seats in the very front of the bus where you are sitting behind a big window that lets you see everything out front. However, as it turns out, they had no idea when we asked them that. So on the day of, all the front seats were filled up which wasn't too bad because we got the row in the very back of the bus that was 5 seats wide.

Upon boarding, we had all 5 seats to ourselves. But that only lasted for about an hour and a half until we got to Reyes where we picked up more passengers. Once that happened, things got a little more snug. I had the window seat, Eric was beside me, and Ali had the middle seat with all the leg room.

The bus really wasn't that bad. The leg room wasn't too shabby and the windows opened. It was however quite dirty and the air conditioning didn't work. But we did have a sweet old man sitting in the row in front of us whom we talked to for awhile later on.

Although this bus ride was one of the longest bus rides I have been on, it was not short of amusement, laughs, or pain. A lot of our amusement came from us laughing at each other and just being goofy. We were taking pictures with dumb poses and jamming to some music and just being typical goobers. We watched a movie and pigged out on some snacks that we purchased for this trip along with snacks I recieved from my brother robert and his wonderful wife Shellie. Another thing to add to our amusement was the fact that every time the bus nailed a ditch in the road, Ali went flying in the air above everyone in the bus. She was like a rag doll. Extremely amusing.

The most "exciting" part of the journey for me was probably the "attack". Once nightfall had come, all of us went to sleep. Keep in mind, sleeping on a bus that has never seen paved roads is a bit challenging. It was almost impossible to fall asleep. But shortly after I did, I was abruptly awakened to a punch in my face! I jumped with an alarmed reaction ready to fight back. But when I came to, I saw nothing out of the ordinary except for Ali and Eric laughing their heads off. Once I knew that I was being attacked by a deranged bolivian physco, the pain of what happened hit me. It did not feel good at all and I couldn't figure out why Eric had just punched me in the face. As it turns out, Ali (who was now sitting next to me) had tried to reach over me and close the window because she was getting cold. But the window was jammed, so Eric tried to reach over with his 12 foot long arms and force it shut, but his arm slipped off the handle and all the force that he was using went directly into my face. Very funny now, but it did not feel good at the time.

Another thing of note for out journey was that the road we were traveling on was completely and utterly beautiful! Sure it wasn't the smoothest at all times, but it was absolutely gorgeous. So much nature and scenery. There were no other buildings, no cars, just trees, grass, water, and animals. We saw tons of crocodiles and saboo. It made me feel like we were driving through the Serenghetti in Africa. It was breath taking.

After 19.5 hours, we finally arrived in Guayaramerin Bolivia at 6:00 am. We didn't know the first thing about this place. No idea about any hotels or attractions or food. We simply showed up. But thats the best way to do things by far. It forces you to explore everything and find all the best places. So we went out in search of a hotel. But as it turns out, everything is very far away from the bus station. Not knowing that, we just started walking. Having no idea if we were heading in the right direction or not, we just kept walking. Eventually we saw a gas station and asked the guy if there were any hotels nearby and if we were walking in the right direction. He told us that we were and that we just needed to go about another 8 blocks or so. After doing so, then began the search for a hotel that had free wifi. After awhile of searching, we found what turns out to be the nicest hotel in all of Guayaramerin. It is about $14 per night which is quite pricey on Eric and I's budget, but we needed the internet and were ok splurging a little bit. Plus, this hotel has a pool, air conditioning, and a refrigerator in the rooms. Not too bad.

After settling into the room, we instantly took some showers, and crawled into out beds. We were so tired and filthy. But that was all changing right now.

After recharging our batteries for a little bit, we started the exploration process. We saw a couple small plaza's and several little restaurants. This was also the first time that we started seeing stores accept Real which is the currency of Brasil. We also started getting our first taste of portugese. There is a strong influence of Brasilian culture in this town because from the river that the town in on, you can almost throw a rock to the other side. All the excitement is building up in all of us to go over to Brasil, especially in Eric. He was the one that came up with this plan just so that he could say he has been to Brasil.

Not wanting to wait any longer, we went to the docks where they take people over. We were told that it was going to be super easy. We didn't need any documents or passports. This was very good because Eric and I's passports are still in Santa Cruz being processed. However, once we got to the docks, they told us that it was impossible for us to cross over. They told us that it isn't a problem for us to get over, but that it's impossible to come back to Bolivia without a passport. We couldn't believe it! We knew something had to be wrong. So we went straight to the immigration office several blocks away and talked with a very grumpy and rude man. He was telling us that we needed a passport or proof that we were applying for residency visa's in order to cross over. He asked us why we thought that just because we were in Bolivia, that rules didn't apply anymore. We had no idea why he said that, but we left unsatisfied.

After we left the office, we called Joy to see if she could get in contact with Victor, the man in Santa Cruz with our passports. We wanted to see if he could email us a document that said our visa's were being processed. She said that she would get back to us in a few hours and let us know what she found out. While we waited, we walked around town, looked around in several shops and bought a couple things. Then we went back to the hotel to get online which is kind of a joke in itself because the internet is completely rubbish. It is the slowest internet we have had since getting to Bolivia. But internet is internet right? We were still quite exhausted from all of our travels so we were ok resting. We didn't end up hearing back from Joy for awhile so we went back out to explore and to eat. We found this Brasilian restaurant and figured that if we couldn't go into Brasil, we were going to at least eat Brasilian food. It was quite the tasty meal actually. It was a buffet that was surprisingly very good and cheap.

Later that evening, we came back to the hotel, relaxed with our AC, and swam in the pool. We were simply ready to crash. So we ended up putting on a movie and going to sleep.

Thursday Jan. 24, 2013

This morning we woke up, caught our breakfast at the hotel which consisted of bread, and fruit. By now, Eric, Ali, and I cannot even stomach bread anymore. We have been eating so much of it that it has become distasteful. So we have been supplementing our diet with sugar. It really is pretty yuck how much sugar we have consumed. Between ice cream, oreo's, chocolates, soda, and other highly sugarfied goods, we have all but become walking sugar cane plants. But anyway, for breakfast, I was able to get a slice of bread and a rotten apple.

After breakfast, we all wanted to catch a taxi to the bus station to see if we could reserve good seats for us for our trip back. But the seats we wanted have been sold out for awhile, and our second choice is always open. So we decided not to buy them and wait until the day before.

After leaving the bus station, we decided that we wanted to see if we could get a ride to the other GMI school nearby. We had heard that is was a little ways away from the town, but had no idea where. We asked our taxi driver if he knew where it was and how far away it was. And as soon as we said Adventista, he said he knew where it was and that it was only 3 minutes away. But we had heard that it was at least 30 minutes outside of town so we just figured he was gunna take us to some random school. But we decided to go anyway. Nothing else for us to do in this tiny town right?

So he took us around the corner and what do you know? He pulled up to an Adventist school! It wasn't the one that we wanted, but it's a 300+ student Adventist School that we had never heard of! We got out, introduced ourselves, and told them that we were actually looking for the other school, but that we would love to look around. After looking around, they wanted us to meet the pastor there. So we went across the street and were greeted by a very happy, nice man. They were so happy that we stopped by and wanted us to stay for as long as we wanted. His wife then brought out some Guava to give to us, then a special drink that she had made that was basically fresh guava juice mixed with cinnamon. Gotta love fellow Adventists! They even had a pet bird that would sit on your should and walk around on your body. At one point, I think it started trying to eat bugs out of my hair! haha

After we left the pastors house we were still a little discouraged about not being able to go to Brasil, so we were not exactly sure what to do for the rest of our time in town. So we decided to just go near the docks and look around in some of the shops. Eric has had this obsession with Guarana which is a big Brasilian drink that is hard to find in Rurre. Anyway, there is tons around here with tons of different kinds. So he has gotten this goal in his mind that he wants to try every single differnt make of Guarana that he can find. He ended up spotting a new kind, so we went over to the store so he could buy it. But while he was getting it, I struck up a conversation with the store owner and told her why we were here and that we were a little upset that we weren't allowed to go into Brasil without our passports. Then she told me that we can definitely go over without any problems. This instantly got us super excited. We went directly to the docks to see if what she was saying was true.

As soon as we got there, they said it wasn't a problem if we wanted to go over for a few hours and come back. We were so excited that we just jumped on the boat without thinking. We didn't change any money over, we didn't have anything special packed. We simply went over while they said it was ok.

We made it!!! We got into Brasil. Eric could not have been happier. There wasn't too much to do once we got there though because it was siesta time when EVERYTHING is closed. We mostly just wondered around and took some pictures and tried to communicate with the locals. It is amazing how different the cultures are by simply crossing a small river. The hardest part by far is that it is crazy hard to communicate once again. I don't care what people say, spanish and portugese are different. Extremely different.

Once we felt that we had kind of seen everything, we decided to go back to make sure we wern't going to run into any problems getting back. We had absolutely no problems. It was incredibly easy.

After getting back onto our native soil of Bolivia, we were quite tired so we went back to the hotel to rest for a bit before we went to get dinner. We were extremely excited for dinner because we met this Italian guy who owns 2 restaurants in town. One of which is brasilian food and the other is Italian food but is only open for dinner. All of us were craving legitimate italian food and were ready for some sustenance in our bodies.

The food at this place was absolutely fantastic! SO GOOD! we all had pasta and fresh squeezed lemonade. We also ordered brushetta with balsalmic vinegerette dressing. Everything was fresh, cheap, and delicious!

Friday Jan. 25, 2013

This morning, we woke up early and needed to purchase our bus tickets back to Rurre. We are out of money and out of time to keep exploring. Only having one more day and night awy, we wanted to spend it in Brasil. So as soon as we purchased our tickets home, we went directly to the docks. We did a little changing of money into Real which is the currency of Brasil, then we were off.

Upon arriving on the other side, we went directly to a hotel that we had found yesterday and then looked up online called Hotel Little Star. It's a nice little hotel that was able to offer us a ton faster internet than we were getting at the other hotel in Bolivia. This was one of the biggest selling points for us. After spending a few minutes speaking spanish to a lady that speaks portugese, we were able to get a room on the second floor. But as soon as we walked into the room, we lost the wifi connection, and there were no windows at all. It simply wasn't going to work. So I went downstairs to talk to them and ask if we could switch into a room downstairs near the router. They had no problem with it at all.

After checking our mail, we went explorin! The first place we actually went to was a grocery store to get a few fruit snacks to tide us over. But while there, I spotted some Ramen noodles. Needless to say, I went to give them a closer look and saw the weirdest thing. They had pizza flavored, bean flavored, mexican flavored, and tomatato flavored Ramen! Now I am a college student and having lived in a dorm situation for 6 years, should be a professional on every single thing there is to know about ramen. But Brasil just blew my mind and opened my eyes into a whole other country in the world of Ramen!

Anyways, after I bought several packs of Ramen to take back with me, we all snacked on a little fruit before we started walking around town. We started looking for some shops to kill some time and to see if there were any good deals on Brazilian goods (even though our money seems to be disappearing faster than a candy around a little kid). We actually ended up finding a clothing store where everything is 10 reai (which is about $5). While there, I was able to find 2 pretty cool soccer jersey's that I got. After that, we continued to meander down the streets and eventually made our way to the Catholic cathedral that stuck out in the center of town. When we got there, there was no one in there except a receptionist. So we asked if we could walk around and take some pictures, which they had no problem with at all.

Continuing our journey, we stumbled upon a bakery that had tons of things to eat. It was probably one of the more fancy places that we have seen so far. It was also a jackpot for Eric because they had about 6 or 7 different makes of Guarana to which he bought most! We were mostly wanting to just keep tiding us over cheaply until dinner time. Yesterday, we saw a pizza joint that looked so yummy. We had then went to look it up online and it turns out that it is one of the best restaurants in town. But they are only open for dinner and didn't open until 8 pm.

After the bread place, we went back to the hotel to kille about 2 hours before dinner. So in that time, I was able to skype my parents for the first time in awhile and talk with them for over an hour. We were also able to check our mail and Facebook's and whatever else needed to be done. Then, it was pizza time.....in Brasil! Score!

When we got there, they had 3 different pages of pizza 's. We were so excited. This would be one of the best meals we will have on our trip, period. We ended up getting 2 medium pizza's with ingredients including, tomato, corn, peas, onion, tons of heart of palm, and others that I am forgetting. They were completely and utterly delicious, especially once they were washed down with a cold glass of Coke. Wait, since I'm in South America, I guess I should clarify....Coke Cola, not cocaine. After we were done eating, I tried to sneak inside to surprise Eric and Ali by paying for the meal. While I was skyping my parents, they told me to go out to dinner and put it on their card. Could my parents get any cooler? However, once I got in there, the card wasn't working. I'm pretty sure that it is because of recent activity on the card in a foreign country. But i'm not sure. So I had to go out and ask Eric to pay and that my parents would pay him back. They were super appreciative of the gesture and Eric didn't hesitate in being willing to pay for it. But when he went in to pay, there was an error with the card machine, and it didn't accept his card either. So then I got a little nervous because I didn't know if we had enough Reai to pay for the meal. But between Ali and Eric, they had enough. So the 2 people who wern't supposed to pay, ended up being the ones that paid! Oh well.

Now it is time to go back to the hotel, goof off a bit and get some sleep because we have to wake up at 6:00 am. The bus that is taking us back to Rurre is leaving at 8:00 and that is in Bolivia. So we needed to wake up, check out, cross the river, and get a taxi to the bus station all before 7:30 am. Yuck, early morning.

Satuday Jan. 26, 2013

This morning we had the alarm set for 6:00 am even though we went to bed around 3am. Eric and I were not quite ready to get out of bed and were wanting to do anything to avoid it. Ali on the other hand was ready to get out of bed and to get going. She hopped up and then tried to get us out of bed. But for some reason, Eric and I had a serious case of the giggles. Pour Ali, we were being completely obnoxious. She turned all the lights on in the room when our eyes were not ready in the slightest. Right after she did, I yelled out to Eric that the "light monster" was here and asked him to make it go away!

After about 30 minutes of our nonsense, we finally got up, packed all of our stuff, and started our walk back to the docks. We were really hoping that we would be able to cross over without any problems. To our relief, it could not have gone any smoother. We did not have to wait or even get check. We simply paid the fare, and then walked onto the boat. Upon arriving on the other side, things continued to go very smoothly. We were able to catch a taxi bike to the station and arrive at 7:15. Our goal was to make it to the bus station by 7:30 because thats when they said we should be there. However, beings how it's Bolivia, we figured that the bus, although was scheduled to leave at 8, wouldn't leave until about noon. However, we were extremely surprised to find that our bus came, loaded up, and was out of there by 8:00 sharp. I think this was the first time that I have seen anything happen on time in Bolivia.

The bus we were on was a little worse than the bus we were on coming up to Guayara. There was not quite as much leg room and we wern't sitting next to each other. We were all very close though. Eric and Ali sat next to each other, and I had the window seat right in front of them. It would be my luck though that I got one of the few broken seats on the entire bus. My chair had no support. So even if I wanted to sit up, it would fly back. This wasn't TOO terribly bad when I was awake, but when I was trying to sleep it was miserable. And because of the lack of sleep we had last night, and this being an all night trip, we were planing to sleep a lot. While trying to sleep, not only was I trying to deal with no foot space, a stranger beside me, rain dripping on me from various place in the roof, and a broken armrest the was stuck aimed slightly upward, but I constantly felt like I was trying to sleep on a trampoline with full grown men jumping on it. Because my seat had no support, every time we hit a bump (which was constant on the dirt road) my seat would bounce and bounce and bounce. Fortunately I only had to endure this for 22 hours.

The Bolivian guy beside me was clearly not too thrilled about sitting next to me when he first arrived. I tried to lighten to mood by trying to talk to him a little bit. He wasn't interested. But me being a McLennan, I don't give up that easy. So later on, I pulled out some Brazilian chocolate that I had bought and asked if he wanted some. He quickly said yes and took a piece. Then he said that it was really good and asked me if he could see the front and asked if I had boughten it from Brasil. I told him that I had and asked if he wanted more. He declined and said that he was ok and didn't need anymore. I knew he was just being nice, so I nudged him and said "come on friend, I know you want some more, go ahead, take it". He was very appreciative and accepted. I knew I was getting close.

A little while later I decided that it was time to try and make a little some talk again. This time, he was ready to engage me. We ended up talking for quite some time. Turns out that he is quite an impressive man. Apparently he is a mechanic for industrial machines and has worked in most countries in South America. He has 2 children, one of which is studying dentistry in La Paz. And get this, he was a professional Fronton player. Fronton is a game very similar to racquetball from what I gathered. He told me that he really liked both games but was better at Fronton. Turns out that for 12 years, he represented Beni in the Bolivia matches (Beni is an area of Bolivia, similar to saying he represented the West Coast). He was the champion in 2007 and got the silver medal 2 other years. To make things more interesting, his sister-in-laws husband is the director at the Adventist school that we visited in Guayara! He was familiar with Adventists, some of our beliefs, and our health message.

The last interesting thing that happened on this trip happened at one of our bathroom breaks at 2:00 am. I have debated whether or not to blog about this because.....well, you will see. But not wanting to forget about it, and me being innocent, I have decided to go ahead and blog about it (there is my disclaimer). While waiting for the bus to load back up, Ali and I where sitting on a bench waiting for Eric to finish using the bathroom. While waiting, someone tapped me on the shoulder. So I turned around to see a Bolivian guy sitting on the bench behind us, offering me a black drink. Not knowing what it was, I declined and told him thanks anyway. But he insisted. So I asked him what it was before I took it. He then told me that it was Coka Cola. Not being sure if I believed him or not, I looked over the edge of his bench and say a 2 liter bottle of Coke and 3 of his friends drinking it too. After I saw the bottle I figured it was safe and I took a big swig of it. But let me tell you, that was NOT Coke. That taste hit me like a ton of bricks and made me wince hard. I turned to the guy and said, "this is NOT Coke, what is this?!?!?" All he did was smile and slowly raise a bottle of vodka that they hid from me at first. Apparently they poured me a glass of vodka and topped it off with a touch of Coka Cola. Woah buddy that wasn't cool. But after about my 3rd glass I started getting used to it.....ok ok fine, I didn't really get anymore. I was able to give Ali my cup so she could dump it out without them seeing. So that was the most interesting part of the trip for me by far.


You stay civilized.....planet earth!!!!