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