SwiftRambles

Following in the tracks of dinosaurs and Incans - Sucre, Bolivia

Note: We are way behind on the blog!  No internet access for a long time and our recent quick travel schedule has made updating the blog difficult.  We hope to catch up soon but here's a nice unusually long post in the meantime...

After the hellish lovely time at Ginger's Paradise, we headed to Sucre to soak up some Bolivian culture. 

Actually by "headed" I mean we walked to the restaurant where we supposedly could catch a bus, found out that the bus is full (well, we were offered to ride in the middle of the aisle... for the 12 hour ride), discovered too late that we should have been waving down every bus that we saw in an attempt to get seats, and then headed back to Ginger's Paradise for one more night.  Oh, and by the way, this day was Tom's birthday!  So not making the same mistake the next day, we backtracked a couple of hours to Santa Cruz and took the bus from there... only to stop at the very same restaurant we had waited out the night before to pick up a couple of passengers.  Such is travel in Bolivia.  This doesn't even go to mention the 12 hour bouncy ride on unpaved roads, the extremely smelly guy sitting next to Tom in the middle of the aisle, and the fact that 99% of the bus was comprised of a teenage boy "delegation" who spent the night taking flash pictures of their shaving fight and having rap "battles".  We definitely felt like we arrived in Bolivia with these transportation hijinks.  At least Tom stopped one of the boys from peeing into a bottle in the seat next to us... we didn't want to set a precedent, right?

After arriving to Sucre though, we felt the travel woes were worth it as we viewed the whitewashed city high up in the foothills of the Andes.  At 9,000 feet, Sucre was a good introduction to the higher altitudes we'd be experiencing in Bolivia. 







Known as the cultural heart as well as the constitutional capital of Bolivia, we spent a pleasant few days exploring the city and doing typical touristy things, like visiting a textile museum to learn about the traditions of the various indigenous cultures of Bolivia and seeing some indigenous masks worn at festivals:

Ginger's Paradise? - Bermejo, Bolivia

As Tom mentioned in his last post, he convinced me to go and stay a few days at an organic farm a couple of hours outside of Santa Cruz.  The location was beautiful and the farm's website had a clever poem promising that we could milk a cow.  As I have always wanted to milk a cow, I was in!  The farm was called Ginger's Paradise and while it was beautiful, there are several reasons why I would not use "Paradise" as the moniker of the farm...

Reason #1 - There was no cow

Surviving the Death Train - Santa Cruz, Bolivia

From the Brazil border we caught a train known as the "Death Train" from Quijarro, Bolivia to Santa Cruz, Bolivia.  The history of the name has numerous theories from the train carrying yellow fever victims to murders occurring on the train.  Today the train is deemed safe to travel on, but we still had to decide between a 22 hour or 15 hour train ride.  We opted for the 15 hour overnight train, hoping that we could sleep and awaken in our destination.

As the train pulled away we realized that sleep might be difficult as the train jostled along the tracks.  Then a movie started, and I felt my ears start to bleed as the volume of the movie was excruciatingly loud.  As I tried to focus on what movie it was I realized I could not understand the dialogue as it was dubbed in Spanish (AND perplexingly had subtitles in Spanish).  The movie title showed on the screen and it was...Major Payne, a kids movie with Damon Wayans as a retired drill sergeant trying to manage kids at a private school.  I remember seeing this as a kid and not really digging it.  Bumping along the tracks, with the movie on full blast, I started to understand the name of the train...

The Rest of Argentina & Brazil At-A-Glance

Days spent (not including Patagonia): 25

Transportation taken: Planes = 1, Buses = 15, Taxis = 10, Boats = 1, Subway trains = 5

Number of places we stayed: 8

Final daily budget: $163 (ouch!)

Wildlife spotted:

- Capybaras

- Caimans

- Blue macaws

Welcome to the Swamp - Pantanal, Brazil

We left the cities of eastern Brazil to explore the remote Pantanal region in the west. The area is known for its accessibility to wildlife, which is easier to view in the open swampy areas than in the jungles of the Amazon.  Plus, it was on the way to Bolivia, our next stop. 

After a short flight (one of our few in South America!), we reached Campo Grande and signed on for a 3 day tour into the Pantanal.  Against our best instincts, we went with the cheapest option for the tour company (Ecological Expeditions).  After a cramped van and then a bumpy dirt road we reached our campsite late and were pointed to two hammocks.  We were promised the luxury of our own private tent!  So I argued for a tent and got one for us... thankfully we did as the next morning the hammock sleepers complained of freezing in the cold night air.  The guide book described the accommodations and food to be "orphanage levels¨ and unfortunately the guide book was right between the sleeping arrangements and mad rush for the slop at meal times.

Focus in Brazil - Sao Paulo and Rio De Janiero, Brazil

After a super long bus ride from Iguazu Falls to Sao Paulo, we were met by our friend Ricardo.  Luckily he was in between jobs because he had to wait at the bus terminal for three hours since our bus ran late.  His temporary unemployment also afforded him time to give us the best Brazilian experience we could have ever dreamed of.  He opened up his apartment for us to stay, developed an action packed itinerary, spoke Portuguese with the locals, and truly gave us a taste of what life is like in Brazil - nothing we could have experienced on our own. 

Sao Paulo is a HUGE cosmopolitan city that helped us confirm that we were definitely not in Patagonia any more.  The vibe and bustle of the city made it feel more city-like than Buenos Aires.  Ricardo, who lived in San Francisco for 7 years, knew exactly what we needed when he told us where the closest Starbucks was to his apartment.  Amber and I quickly made a beeline there and felt like we found Shangri-La:

Ricardo showed us some sights including an old bank tower with a view of the city. We have never seen so many high-rise buildings in one place before.