Unbelievably beautiful Bonito and Bolivia's Samaipata

I woke up at 4.20 in a bus from Cascavel to Dourados and was pretty sure we had missed our stop. But for my relief, we did arrive in Dourados (only) 1h 45 min late and hurried to find our continuing tickets to a bus to Bonito at 6.00. Unluckily for us, it was Sunday and no such bus existed. The next bus would leave at 15.00. Also, the time had changed, be it because of summer time or time zone difference, our 9 hour wait for the bus changed to a 10 hour wait. Fun!

Without a map or a clue of the city, we left for a walk towards something that could be a city center. Nothing was open of course but finally after a couple of hours a cafe opened and served us some highly welcomed breakfast. Deadtired we took a nap in a park and then went to waste time at a mall that had also finally opened. Weird thing happened in the supermarket of that mall. A lady came chatting to us something about how expensive this shop was and how the other one was a lot better. I asked her about some bananas, when she got all excited, grabbed a banana and snapped it open to offer us a taste. Uhm?! Probably not something one is supposed to do? We looked around us somewhat confused, embarrased and red-cheeked, tried the banana and thanked the lady and then vanished as quickly as possible from the crime scene. At the counter the lady found us and stormed off again to fetch something. Tired and hysterical we ran away to the mall to hide in a chocolate shop until we thought the coast was clear. Bonne chance, right... she found us again while we were enjoying some froyo and tried to give us a bag full of bananas! "I boughed this for you!" We thanked and no thanked gratefully and then she left, without a word. I'm still quite confused about this incident.

After the torturous waiting (and after the whole trip) we made it Bonito. It was late when we arrived so we got straight down to business: accommodation, booking a snorkeling tour for the next day and then dinner from a little local BBQ grill by the street, with plastic chairs and only one item on the menu. Perfect, just like in Asia!

On one of them long busrides

Our hostel Sao Jorge had a good breakfast and a great location but otherwise we didn't like it. The staff was unfriendly or actually, more just apathetic and it felt like they were only after money and commissions. We tried to asked a million times for information about continuing to Bolivia but since they didn't sell this trip, they weren't interested in helping us. And also with booking a snorkeling tour they failed to inform us about a cheaper transportation and suddenly the organized taxi was uncancellable etc. All kinds of small things that ended up with us being super annoyed. And then they dare to advertise themselves as being helpful and wanting to be fair for travellers and so forth. Right.

We decided to go to Rio da Prata on a snorkeling tour out of all the many many options. It was more expensive but the one "must-see" one so why not. The first part of the tour was walking in the jungle with the wetsuit on for an hour. It wasn't exactly ideal but then we came to the river and my god have I ever seen such a place!!! I've been to multiple snorkeling trips and scubadiving places, great ones too but this was truly unique! I hardly ever anymore get the feeling of awe amazement: places, waterfalls, mountains, lakes tend to start resembling one another but this time it was different. We entered the crystal clear river with a 30 meter visibility IN THE MIDDLE OF THE JUNGLE!? The jungle rivers I've seen before have not been too inviting, with mud and dirt and creatures I'm quite sure I'm better of without meeting. This clear blue water created an eyepleasing contrast with the vivid green leaves and trees and hanging branches of the jungle above and around.

The water was full of fish - one bigger than the other! Big, black pacu fish were eyeballing us with their huge platelike peepers while the massive dourados were staying still, looking comically angry and a bit like they might just attack you at any point. The stream was slowly taking us forward and we were just floating and watching the underwater life. Every now and then I lifted my head up and checked out the jungle and its birds and monkeys and butterflies. We snorkeled for some hours and in the end, despite the views, I was happy to get out, I was getting really cold.

Humming bird

Sheep with bird passengers

The following three pictures are NOT mine, they are borrowed from google;







End of the trip

Mariposa



In the evening we enjoyed a BBQ at the hostel with some supernice people like an Italian girl called Barbara. We cooked together some vegetarian friendly options next to all the meat and chatted about, well, our travels like always. Next day we still decided to change the hostel, for the last night, although we met some nice people at Sao Jorge. We had visited a hostel called Catarino's where we felt immediately more home. They organised us a ride for the next day to Miranda (to get to Bolivia eventually) and bragged that they served the best breakfast in town...we had to try it out.

BBQ

We rented bikes with Barbara and two hilarious Mallorcan boys from Sao Jorge to go to Balneario Municipal - a public pool, natural one by another clear river! We cycled in the heat to this pretty and fish rich river and hopped straight into its cool water. We spent the sunny day enjoying the company, the fresh water, restaurant's offerings and the surrounding wildlife! Two wild macaws were flying around the area and I was happy to see them, never had I seen wild ones before. The fish were entertaining too, they were jumping high from the water to catch fruits that some tourist were feeding them. We also spotted more monkeys.

Balneario Municipal

Inka and Barbara

Macaws

Excellent company

More fish

Higher!

In the evening we had a date with Barbara to go to a great icecream place! Self-service icecream shop with at least 20 different flavours and toppings: you take whatever you want and pay by weight. Excellent but dangerous ;) Later we had some beers with everyone from the days bikeride.

Catarino's breakfast was indeed superb and it was easy to continue to Miranda with the minivan. From there we hopped in a bus to Corumba where we took a bus to the border to cross to Bolivia. No problems whatsoever with the crossing, only the heavy rain made it a bit unpleasant. We made it to Quijarro on the Bolivian side and wow how things changed: everything was suddenly 10 times cheaper, dirtier, stranger and more exciting! The indigenous heritage of the folk was obvious not only from their beautiful colorfilled clothes but also the hair and the features of the faces. We bought tickets to a fancypantsy nightbus, had some lunch and then slept all the way to Santa Cruz.

Bordercrossing

Finally in Bolivia

We were in SC way too early in the morning, and only after sunrise we dared to get lost in the city with the decorated small buses= micros. In the end, after some more buses we got to where we wanted: to a small town of Samaipata (next to a village where Che Guevara was killed) in the middle of the mountains at 1650 meters. After travelling some 28 hours with maybe 8 different vehicles, we decided to have a break. We did absolutely nothing but sleep, eat, walk and enjoy in this tranquilo village. And we loved every moment of it!

Samaipata in pictures:

Dogs on the roof?

Mango plus pine at Samaipata's Posada del Sol

Jardin

Breakfast

Market place. All of those veggies and fruits, nam!

And more

Odd plants on the electric wires

Curitiba climbs and the mighty Iguassu Falls

The ride to Curitiba was long and boring and of course took even longer than expected. Since it was already dark, we took a taxi to the hostel I had checked out beforehand but the taxi driver had quite some difficulties finding the place. As the sceptic travellers we are, we immediately expected a typical taxi scam with us ending up paying loads for just waiting and driving around. But yet again the Brazilians proved us wrong: the driver asked for less than the meter showed in the end!

With the help of some more friendly people from Madero restaurant (which holds the title of "best burger in the world"...) we actually found our strange hostel. The hostel was an odd mixture of these gloomy and clinical HI hostels with no character whatsoever and at the same time it was more of a hotel. We were separated in different gender specific dorms with 3-storey bunkbeds. I was glad not having to stay in the highest bed. The location of the hostel was fantastic though, in the historical center and more importantly: near a climbing gym!

View from the hostel in Curitiba

Chris tried this "best burger in the world" for dinner and was convinced! With a great dinner and a hearty breakfast next morning, we were filled with energy to walk around the center and checking out its parks. Accidentally we stumbled into a zoo-kind-of bird park, public, free and open for everyone, filled with cages full of exotic birds. And plenty of prostitutes too (though no, they were not in cages, nor free I presume). Odd place.

Scary big bird

After the cheapest sushibuffet ever it was finally time for climbing! Curitiba's climbing hall Campo Base was in the center and it was truly a very decent place with a lot of bouldering and high walls. First time entrance was free of charge, well why not! Only problem was that there really weren't many marked routes and deciphering the codes to find some was somewhat tricky. We came to a conclusion afterwards that we were pretty damn lucky back home to have such amazing bouldering halls with quality problems to climb (Thank you very much Boulderkeskus people for example, it's a pleasure!). Surfing and lack of climbing had made our skins so annoyingly soft that we didn't last too long on the wall but yet again I vowed to train even harder when I get home. Super psyched, super motivated!

Bouldering

and rope stuff

We had a great dinner of Arabic food before our night bus to Foz do Iguassu. Foz is the town on the Brazilian side of the fall but they also extend on the Argentinean side. Paraguay is right there too, sharing the second biggest dam, the Itaipu dam, in the world with Brazil. We based ourselves in Foz for two nights in a hostel called the Green House.

Rain, rain, rain on the way and the whole morning. Our hostel's beautiful pool and yard would've been a lot more inviting without the rain but the when the rain stopped, it was time to try our luck (and hope it doesn't continue raining) and head for the falls on the Brazilian side! Easily reached by a local bus and just one pricey entrance fee to pay, the falls were a nice and fast destination to organize by oneself. On the Brazilian side one gets to see the falls from a bit further away, but it's a cool overview to the whole area. From the last point, one gets to go all the way on top of the falls and get really wet by the blowing water. Impressive sight indeed: hundreds of big and small waterfalls crashing down in a lush forest. The masses of water and the thunderous power of the water is insane.

Another kind of entertainment was provided by some raccoon like creatures with long noses snooping around everywhere on the walking paths. These animals acted exactly like the monkeys in Bali, jumping on people and stealing food, not caring much about the hordes of picture snapping tourists. We came back hungry and after some early dinner we were pretty much done.

Next: a million pictures from the Brazilian side water falls

Paradise bird



Happy falls fans



Raccoon fellows





















It was Friday and it also happened to be my birthday. Chris had prepared a nice breakfast for me and even some candles were lit on a little (gluten-free!) brownie, cute :) We had also booked a full-day tour to the Argentinean side of the falls for that day. Only a little bit more expensive than going by oneself and a lot less hassle with the four different buses and border crossings and whatnot, we decided to be lazy. To be honest, the guide of ours really sucked and the company tried to make us pay extra for some boat tickets etc. so maybe we did make a wrong choice. Anycase, that day we got to see the falls a lot closer - even a bit too close for my taste.

We walked around and above the falls we had seen from afar the day before. We got to see the water flowing down over the high edge of the falls and crashing down far below. There was a boat ride too to go right under the falls. I wasn't too excited but since the whole group went, so did we. Peer pressure.

And a million pics from the Argentinean side:





This big fast zodiac boat took us right under the waterfall - I mean so that we were completely soaked, more than we would've been under a (pressure lacking and nerve-wracking showers here in South America. There was so much water that it was difficult to breathe. And of course we had on the boat an excited older Argentinean man cheering for more and more! First time was enough, third time way too much. I was glad to have some dry clothes to change into afterwards.

Yep, YOLO

Getting soaked



The last views on the trip were great! We took a short "train" ride to the Devil's Throat which from further away looked like a big whole in a lake: we walked on a constructed path on top of the falls without seeing the edge of when suddenly we could just see the water disappearing into a nothingness. When we got closer we saw the falls and a beautiful rainbow inside it. Superb!

The Devil's throat







Happy Chrisu

Guinea pigs!

I was dead tired after the trip - must've been the heat and the air. But since it was my birthday, we were obliged to go out for a dinner. Not having a clue about the city or its offerings, we didn't have any plans or ideas where to go. I remembered that this "best burger in the world" also had a restaurant in Foz, so we headed there.

We found the place from a massive shopping mall - with a cinema! So quick dinner it was and then a random Hollywood war movie with some famous actors but not a very mind-blowing storyline. Still, it was great, I enjoyed it.

We had been counting the menacingly lessening days of our travels and decided to take a short cut. As much as I wanted to see more of Paraguay, I had to admit that it would take longer than we had time for: with the little infrastructure for tourism, the truly spectacular sights would take a lot of organizing to see and get to and since the cities didn't have much appeal to us, Asuncion was also out of the question. BUT Paraguay had something for us, nearby and easily accessible: the most famous of its sights aka the Itaipu dam and a crazy shopping city of Ciudad del Este.

We took a morning swim in the great pool of our hostel and left to cross the border to Ciudad del Este. This insane shopping paradise had everything one can imagine and more. The rich Argentineans and Brazilenos come there to buy duty free things, cheap electronics, perfumes, clothes and whatnot. Massive shopping malls and outside street vendor labyrinths with constant flows of masses of people, hassle, noise, traffic and crammed spaces made it my worst nightmare and pickpocket paradise. I get so stressed out in these places, trying to hold on to my stuff while trying not to step on people, stumble on stalls, get hit by cars or scooters and then I'm still somehow supposed to look around for something to buy!? No way, Jose. I did have a mission though, since the inevitable had finally happened and I had dropped the lens cover of my camera into the Iguassu falls. Stupid Sony and its retarded product design with lens covers that are not attached to anything, argh. But even this shopping heaven (hell) didn't have what I needed (I revise myself: they actually do not sell EVERYTHING in Ciudad del Este after all). We checked about a million Sony stalls but no luck.

Our pool

View from the border crossing bridge

Ciudad del Este, Paraguay

Exhausted after a couple of hours we returned to the border, crossed the bridge over a beautiful massive river between Brazil and Paraguay and somehow missed the Brazilian immigration!? What now!? We turned back and had to truly search for it...no one really cared if we left or entered the country. But we did, and so would probably the next border officials that would stamp us out of the country again. After finally getting the stamps, we had lunch and took another bus to the dam.

We were a bit short on time - for our bus to Dourados would leave soonish - but since we came all the way, we still joined a 1,5 hour tour (the shortest option) to see the dam. I fell asleep during the 20 min introduction video (in Portugese and Spanish, only). Gladly the tour itself was more interesting: we rode over to the dam with an open double-decker and had a couple of stops with nice views over the dam. Like the falls, this was pretty impressive too!

Happy Itaipu fans (?)









We rushed back to catch our ride and ended up in a night bus to Cascavel where we would change to a bus to Dourados where we would be around 4 am and from where there was a bus to continue to Bonito at 6 am. Sounded exhausting but the reality was even worse. More about that on the next post then.