The train has reclining seats, a lounge like area, in transit movies and dinner and breakfast included - similar to the magic bus, but on tracks.
It is still a basic service and far from any train you are familiar with. 1) the tracks are as bumpy as a cattle grid. Up, down, left and right you are thrown. Think of being in a popcorn machine! 2) track changes are a manual process. The train stops, someone jumps out, pulls (heaves) on a leaver, changes the accompanying sign and hops back on again 3) getting the train moving and up to speed is the most interesting ... You hear the revs going up, then the clutch goes in and the driver changes gear - it must have been a truck engine mounted on the chassis. Whenever the required revs were hit, again the long winded gear change. Someone described the train as a bus mounted on a train. I'd say this was a train mounted on a bus! 4) movie time. A movie had just started when someone got up and went forward to speak to the driver. His assistant then stopped the movie and replaced it with another from the passenger. The movie was one that had just been released on the main movie circuit a week earlier, so obviously pirated. It still started with the warning to beware of illegal copies. Another passenger request and we English subtitles appeared.
Dinner was served and we chased the bouncing food around our plate and then when caught, tried to get it into out mouth! I gave up with the game and tackled the chicken and rice with my hands.
Mands went to try and go to the toilet before bed and came back in a huff as a family had set up camp in the toilet with their son who wasn't feeling well, then father then mother pre bed toilet rituals. We eventually figured you could jump from one coach to the other to use theirs.
All said it was quite enjoyable. Sunrise woke me at 4:30 as there weren't and curtains. Lush green vegetation on grasslands and forests of palm trees. Now we're getting close to the Pantanal.
When the train arrived at the station the paid for carry our bags for 5 meters off the train porters brought out bags out and we shared a taxi with a Swiss couple to the border. It's only 2 km there, but taxi is your only option.
Now we were at the Bolivian side border queue. We chatted to 2 Scottish/English couples. Hot as a hell and 2 hours to wait for the queue to progress. We saw enterprising sales of fresh cut fruit,
Street cart slush puppies and fresh orange juice. When inside the office we passed through seamlessly. When we were in the office, I jokingly said that was the short queue and Brazil side had the big queue. I'd be more right than any of us would have liked...
Our group now of 8 travellers walked around the corner to join a queue 5 times longer than what we'd just been in - must have been 1000 people. Gumph.
Almost immediately someone approached The English guy and said to give him our passports and he'd get them processed directly for us - no costs involved. Warning bells rand for all of us. A few questions and challenges later we would give it a go as long as 2 of us could go with him. After passing a few grumpy Bolivians our passports were in and paperwork and stamps done. Afterwards someone explained that they fast track tourists into Brazil who have money to spend and they put red tape up for Bolivians wanting to cross the boarder, often for work.
We'd not changed our Bolivian Bolivianos currency for Brazilian Reals as we expected to get better rates on Brazil as we'd done on other crossings. That was not to be here. Brazil side has no cash machines or anyone looking to exchange money. All 8 of us were stuck without and Reals. A Brazilian offered to help and said he'd pay for us bus tickets and we could pay him at the station. With little options available, we gratefully accepted and headed off with one cautious eye open. Turned out he was a tour operator and would take the 1 hour 2 local bus transfer time to try and sell us his tour or get us to change any existing bookings. We had ours all sorted, but the others ended up going on his tours (later finding out they would be oversold what they expected). He bought us ice cold waters and soon we were at our bus station.
At Corumba he handed us off to his friend, an old man, who would take us to exchange money. He asked us to wait around the corner while he got the best possible rate and then called me around. I looked through the security gate of a house on the corner with a large money fixer guy with a calculator. He wanted to know how much money I wanted to exchange and them told me the figure. I didn't have time to calculate this myself so took my time to calculate everything and double check - he got the huff with this and said fine, deal off (and there was no one else around to exchange). The old man smoothed things over and the deal was done. Back at the buss station and where the Mand's tour company operated from, he had given Mands the hard sell, but she held onto hot original booking where others would have taken a bite from then serpent's apple.
We had an hour to kill before our bus transfer to Miranda. More card games and a bite to eat. Similar to Peruvian empanada's are Brazilian Saltados, pastry filled with meat. It was fantastic and at a small bus terminal!?! They had a bakery in the back and we shared a few when each fresh batch arrived. Each time I ordered and paid I thanked the store in my best newly learnt Espanyol. Each time after a correction, I'd remember I should be speaking Portuguese! This was going to take a few days to get right.
Hello Brazil!
