Brazil - Bonito to Paraty (eventually)

Our travels started as planned with a bus from Bonito to Campo Grande. Here we took a flight to São Paolo, the largest city in Brazil. Mands booked flights well in advance and got them at a similar price to bus routes. Cutting the travel time is always the best option.

Although we were only in São Paulo airport and bus terminal, it is impressive. This is where much of Brazil's money is. It's impossible to count the number of huge sky scrapers across the city, some even with helicopter landing pads - with a population of 19 million, those who can make use of helicopters where possible can. The vast majority who can't creep along in traffic.

We needed to get from the airport to the bus station. We didn't take a helicopter this time so joined the rush hour traffic for a slow tour of the city. Over an hour worth of transfer, but this gave us some time to read up about a little on what São Paulo had to offer - pretty much the best of everything for a large city.

At the bus station, we learnt we'd missed the last but to Paraty. Instead of spending the night near the bus station, Mands organised for a bus to the small beach town of the Flintstone sounding Ubatuba. We'd arrive at midnight, so booked accommodation from an Internet cafe. Big discount for the booking, looked good and close to the bus station - perfect. All booked, but the confirmation address and the website used for the booking (booking.com) had completely different locations mapped, with the latest address a few km's from the bus station. Arriving at a small beach town at that time and trying to get to the hotel was going to be interesting.

The bus transfer was 2 hours and noticed people asking the bus driver to stop alomg the route for them to get off, before the end of the journey. I spoke to the driver, mentioned where we were staying and a couple of minutes later, we stopped at the door of Hotel Navada! Great timing!

The reception man was on his back watching a movie on his laptop when we arrived. He seemed overly excited to check us in and show us our room. He proudly opened up the curtains of our room - we were on a side facing room that opened on an empty car park, so not too sure what the fuss was about.

My Portuguese is bad, super bad. I tried to explain the next morning that we want to catch the bus to town so we can go to Paraty. I could see a bus stop, but for whatever reason we were directed to the beach. We followed this anyway and the holiday houses made way to a picturesque beach with glassy water. Maybe he was showing off what his beach had to offer, but we were still going to head on to Paraty. We headed back to catch a local bus to town so we could take the final transfer.

We waited and waited and no busses came. Finally with nerves a little frayed, a bus arrived. It ended up that we were a good 20 minutes outside of the town!

The coast is something to behold. Mountain ranges run along the coastline, covered in lush green trees and plants. The sea extends as far as the eye can see with deep blue shining out. Many islands are off the main land. They protrude out of the ocean, some small others large enough for a few towns. We'd be staying one one, Ilha Grande, in a couple of days.

We didn't know what stop we were to get off and didn't know if we'd perhaps missed the stop as we'd been travelling a while. We asked a lady where we'd get the bus to Paraty and she was't sure, but news spread and soon there were 5 people on board trying to help. We'd red about Brazilians grouping together to make a plan, and now we'd got to see it first hand. After much discussion, a boy said he was going there so could help us.

Finally we were able to catch the final bus on our trip to Paraty, the scenic colourful town with cobble stone roads that modernisation forgot.

Brazil - Bonito

Coming from the ranch, we had higher expectations when arriving at our Bonito hostel. Our private room was not available, so we we put into a 6 sleeper bunk bed dorm room, at least just the 2 of us. Catarinos hostel.

Bonito is a small own catering for family holidays and crystal clear water activities. It's hot throughout the night and can't think I saw anyone in more than baggies and a t-shirt. There's only one main street lined with pop up evening street eats and drinks (similar to a caravan stand with plastic tables and chairs on the pavement), bars, restaurants, ice cream shops and tourist wares.

Trip advisor ranks Bonito Pastel as the top place to eat. It's a small more fast food type place selling pastel varieties. Pastels are rectangular deep fried pastry 5 cm by 10 cm with a filling inside. These are popular snacks all around Brazil. Mands had the local fish and I had the top rated caiman with gurava sauce. Can't say I tasted much caiman, but it was good.

We were lured into a ice cream shop on the way back, but the exotic fruit specialities did not compare with a regular chock mint.

Further problems at the hostel as the email booking for Rio De Prata snorkelling wasn't confirmed and has limited numbers per day. Anyway, sorted out with a bit of name dropping.

We had to take a private taxi an hour to get to Rio De Prata for the for the snorkelling, but a bit of money later and we where there. It started with a huge buffet lunch (probably to justify the price) and then we were kitted out in wetsuits, booties and we hired an underwater camera as that is where the action would be.

While insects attacked me and the sun burnt my wetsuit onto me, others in the group slowly entered the one at a time walkway like it was their first time in water. Finally in and while others were given how to snorkel lessons Mands and I were given the all clear competence approval to get started.

I could feel small fish biting on my legs. Mosquitos had left their mark with some nasty looking bites (I don't react we'll to midges or Mosquitos). The fish were eating the dead skin around the bites. Just like a fish pedicure I've seen advertised in the UK. Apparently these fish were of the same family.

When they said crystal clear, they weren't kidding. And fish, fish all around. Couldn't tell you what types with our Portuguese only guide, but many - see our photos and more impressive videos.
Our guide then pulled our heads from the depth to show us a caiman open jawed, 2 meters away. It wasn't too bothered with us, and I didn't really want to bother it, so we headed down river.

I've not snorkelled in a river before, but no swimming is needed, just float and throw out a fin to go left and right.

The rapid section was fun. The guide motioned that it would be a good place to take a video clip. I swam in front and Mands had the camera. Round the corner, I was sucked with the faster flowing water and bobbed around with the water deciding where it would throw me. Mands now with one hand soon gave up on the video recording and changed to survival mode!

Our snorkel was about 2 hours long and well worth it.

We collected our photo and video copies and waited for our now elusive taxi to pick us up. The video girl kept us entertained by showing us the 4/5 meter anaconda recorded where we'd been swimming in September 5 months earlier!

We decided to give one of the caravan street food. I ordered the biggest everything on it burger and Bhrama beer - it was great! Next to us was a regular bottle store selling the usual beers and spirits, what wasn't usual is they also had chairs and tables out on the pavement and you could then sit and enjoy on the cheap. London could do with some of these with a pint having hit £4 at our local.

We bumped into the Scottish/ English couple at our hostel who we'd crossed the border with. They then told us about the tour they were oversold by Mr nice - it was still good but the ranch name was different and that pool they had looked forward to didn't exist. There is no such thing as a free lunch, particularly if it's at a border.

Cheers Bonito and the Pantanal, beaches here we come.

Brazil - Trancoso

Trancoso was a last minute overnight stop after our flights were rearranged (yes, more flight changes!)
We flew into Porto Seguro in Bahia, around halfway between Rio de Janeiro and Salvador, heading for some much need relaxation and beach time!

On landing in Porto Seguro we took a very expensive (for the distance) cab ride down to the ferry dock in order to cross the river to Arraial d'Ajuda. From there we hopped aboard one of the minibuses heading to Trancoso which takes around an hour. The minibus driver very kindly phoned around to find out where our accommodation (Trancoso Tenis) was and then proceeded to drop us at the front door. I love Brazilians! Some of the friendliest and most helpful people you will meet.

We had splashed out on accommodation here having come from our room with no windows in Salvador and it being Valentines Day  and were happy to be shown to our extremely comfortable room with amazing big double bed and gorgeous private bathroom.

We wondered down to the beach and spent the afternoon relaxing on a beautiful white beach with turquoise water and waves! En route back we started investigating the bus to Caraiva the following day. We started to wonder if it actually existed after the tourist office wasn't sure if it was actually running. We decided to leave that problem for the next day.

Trancoso is beautiful at night. There is a grassy green square (more like a field) with a tiny white chapel at the top of the cliff before the beach. There are little restaurants scattered all around the field with open air seating arranged under the big trees which all have different colour lights hanging from them. Very pretty and very romantic.

We had a wonderful meal under one of the trees, only interrupted by the restaurant dog, a pug, which was not scared to come looking for food. You could hear her from a mile off sniffing away.

The next morning we continued our hunt for the bus to Caraiva, getting a different story from everyone. We were eventually directed to the shopping square where there was a shop/cafe called Philadelphia and there would be a timetable in the window, and you could get the bus from there. Off we set, reaching the square only to not find the cafe. A bit of asking around and we were directed to the cafe with no name, where there was no timetable visible. Again we asked about the bus to Caraiva. We were sent to the checkout man, who is apparently the walking talking human timetable and the only person in Trancoso who know the bus times to Caraiva. Luckily three a day were still running and we could make the midday one. (This was just post Carnaval and the end of the high season where bus service drops to one trip a day.)

After lazing around the pool for an hour we were back at the 'no name no timetable displayed' cafe Philadelphia to catch our midday bus. It arrived 45mins late but we were just so excited that the bus actually existed and we were finally on our way to Caraiva.

Brazil - Explore Pantanal and Mei Lua Ranch

We'd been given a few good experience traveller suggestions, hard sell tours and many Internet options, but in the end we stayed with Mandy's original choice for our time in the Pantanal.

Mirjam, a Swiss lady who married a Pantanal born and bred legend (more about him later), had been very helpful providing us information pre and post booking. Mirjam and Marcello ran a tour company called Explore Pantanal. It's been very successful, and with guests querying why they don't have their own accommodation, Mirjam decided to give it a go and develop a small offering on a ranch.

Mandy booked on Ranch Mandovi with them after reading the reviews available and picked up that is was a more personal touch experience. A week before arriving we found out that they have closed that ranch and replaced it with a new improved one. Mirjam said she'd honour our booking at the new Mei Lua Ranch.

We expected our bus from Corumba to Miranda to stop outside a restaurant before the bus station stop. We didn't expect the restaurant stop was for the driver to have a meal for half an hour or that the bus stop was an easy 200 meter walk away across the field opposite. Anyway we arrived with a taxi waiting to take us to the ranch.

It's only 10 minutes from the town so we were there in no time, winding along the clay road through fields with herds of white cows and bulls. We'd not seen this breed before with hanging skin from under their neck and virtually no hair. Not sure how they survived in the blistering sun, but they seemed happy enough. The ranches are impressive with grand entrances and the cattle troughs all covered in stands with orange tiled roofs.

We passed Mirjam on the way, flagging us down to say hi. We pulled up to the main house and Hector came to meet us, then show us to our room and around the ranch dotted with palm trees and hammocks. We'd been travelling for hours, so it didn't take long before we were in their large pool, floating our temperatures down on their pool noodles - these seem quite popular in Brazil.

With the sun setting we grabbed the camera and walked down to the small dam with wooden jetty and watched the sun slowly disappear and the resulting orange and pink sky frame the black silhouettes of the palm trees on the ridge. We snapped away with the camera and Mands then spotted fire flies darting around next to the jetty.

It was only the 2 of us staying at the ranch that night, but an American, Brandon, and Marcelino joined us for a great chicken stew dinner. Brandon is staying on the ranch for a few months to help with online marketing, a new video and website.

Marcelino is Mirjam's husband and Mr Pantanal. Long hair in a pony tail tied with a feather, khaki trousers and bare foot - always bare foot. He told us tour options and as we only had two nights, we wanted to cram in as much of the Pantanal experience as we could, so we changed or plans and decided on a half day 4x4 / walk half day boat tour - they are flexible like that.

Hector ran in saying that there was a snake outside, so Marcelino charged out, not wanting to miss the opportunity of our first show, see, taste, feel experience. It was a baby, but Mands still put up her don't bring that snake near me warning before he got too carried away. He explained that diamond head snakes are poisonous and this had a diamond head. it wasn't too happy about being handled so was biting Marcelino at every opportunity who would merely suck out the venom and spit it away. He kept saying it made him light headed and would joke to be stumbling around a bit. Tomorrow would be interesting with him if this was the start.

Our ranch breakfast was impressive with a full spread of fresh fruit from the ranch, baked cakes, fresh rolls, cheese, ham and the best avo we may ever have eaten. We gulped this treat down with fresh fruit juice and coffee and headed off with Marcelino and Mirjam's eats and drinks cooler box. Marcelino thought it would be a good video opportunity for Brandon and at last minute brought him with.

We had an hour transfer in the car to get to the river, where we'd transfer onto the 4x4. Along the way we saw macaws, toucans and rhea (large flightless birds similar to ostriches). The 4x4 was had an open top with benches and sun canopy. We headed down a gravel road with farms and bush on either side. When Marcelino spotted something we'd stop and go look. The first was for monkeys.

They were high in the trees and without warning, Marcelino started with his imitating whoooa whoooa calls and grunts. This whipped the monkeys up into a frenzied chorus and much jumping around. Wish we'd got it on camera.

The truck stopped for our bush walk, with Marcelino leading together with his waist belt and knife (all local men seem to carry one when in the bush) and still without shoes. He'd walk, call out to birds, listen to birds and plot his route. Man it was hot. There was quite a bit of suspense as we were in the land of pumas and jaguars. A few large rodent and bird sightings later and we found big cat tracks and he motioned not to stray too far. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the cat, but perhaps it saw us.

Onto the truck for a lunch of rolls, water and Guarana cold drinks. Guarana would turn out to be a favourite for Mands. We could see more monkeys and a troop of raccoons cross the track as we ate away.

The next stop was for capybara, learning males have a mud like spot on their snout and then caimans. More like caiman city. Stacks of these reptiles lying packed together in and out of the water. These were white caiman and dwarf caiman, largest probably two meters, but still sizeable enough to be on lookout for anything being too interested. So got some great photos really close to them, definitely the highlight of the tour.

Further along we found caiman and learnt that they would be present in every waterhole and along all river banks. Literally hundreds of thousands. Marcelino pointed out that capybaras and caimans are happy to lie next to each other and we found many such strange pairings. The caimans are very different in size, number and behaviour than the African crocodiles we're seen previously. African crocodiles wouldn't put up with any rodent, no matter what the size lying in dinner range!

Following our land tour, we returned to the main river and changed onto a small boat, probably only three meters with a ten horse power motor on the back. We cruised up the river with more bird and capybara sightings before stopping at a sand beach for a river swim. Marcelino said not to bother about the caimans, as they mainly come out at dusk, so we waded in keeping a look out for any protruding eyes.

Further upstream the water lilly like plants grew in numbers until they completely stretched across the breadth of the river. Marcelino wasn't deterred and launched the boat straight into them at speed, stopping the boat with a shudder. Suddenly a flash of reptile skin launched up, brushing the side of the boat and darted out of reach. I'm not sure who got the bigger fright, the two meter caiman or us at this meeting. I didn't think think that the caiman would lie on the lilies, so will keep more of an eye out now.

As the dragon flies started their rounds with the day ending, Marcelino baited the bamboo fishing rods' hooks with chocked pieces and tested the water for piranhas. 10 seconds later, the first catch. He pulled up the 20 cm mean eating machine and carefully took it off the hook. It waited with it's mouth open for anything to get hold of. Marcelino first put out his knife and you could hear the noise from it's furious razor sharp teeth chomping at the blade. Lilly stalks were made mince meat of. We'd use this piranah's flesh for further fishing, so one last show of the piranah's never stop attitude, was to cut it's head off and it continued biting away!

I had a go and caught my first pirana, and second, followed by Mands who looked like an old hand at this, probably from all her South African camping experience.

Marcelino replaced the hooks with a simple knot and tied up a chicken foot for Caiman fishing. Hmmm. We'd just had a caiman almost jump into the boat and now we were going to lure them in snapping again. The caimans would take turns swimming and then when close enough slowly open their mouth and bites down with a crack. The younger ones are more enthusiastic about this game, the older ones must have played this with The Pantanal Man over the years and wised up to it. I felt some mosquitos land on my leg and swotted them away furiously - Marcelino caught the commotion out the corner of his eye and jumped around in a panicked state thinking there was a caiman in the boat much to the laughter of the rest of us in the boat.

We started heading back and heard the calls of giant otters. This triggered Marcelino into his friendly come play otter responding calls to try and lure these shy creatures to the boat. Again, much commotion resulted from the otters screeching away in response. They did appear, but timidly would disappear whenever we were close. We followed them for a good half hour.

Back on terra firma for a sunsetting beer on the bridge before driving back to he ranch for dinner and chats to Mirjam and the crew.

The next morning was an earlier start and another good breakfast before meeting Alex at the stables for the start of our horse ride and my quest to see a giant ant-eater. Alex too had his knife and barefoot for the ride. We mounted and headed out catching up in his Pantanal adventures including the time he did have a caiman jump on board with him and 2 guests for a river cruise. These horses were great and obeyed like machines they had been trained so well.

The ride was cool with our earlier start and we walked through the still active cattle ranch sections. It wasn't long before we noticed the first cattle. It seemed that something had spooked them from the opposite side as they started running towards us from afar. We continued. So did they. We followed Alex to our left with the cattle still audible with their rumble. When next I looked around the cattle were right us and Mands seemly leading the herd like a cow girl. It turns out the cows are well trained and with the sight of people on horseback they figure that that's their queue to head off somewhere. Quite something when you don't know what they are up to.

We saw macaws, toucans, rheas and finally needing the end of a 2 hour ride, a giant ant eater, a meter and a half with it's bushy tail. When it got sight of us it didn't stay around, but great seeing it considering they are mostly nocturnal.

The rest of the day was spent lounging at the pool. I'd given Mirjam feedback on the ranch (the first weekend with full occupancy when a group from Germany arrived) and discussed what the good and could improve areas were. Just before leaving Mirjam offered for us to stay for 2 weeks to help as they further setup on the ranch and the Internet site. It would have been great, but with time being short we decided to continue as planned on our adventure.

Mirjam drove us to the fast taxi transfer arranged to get us to Bonito and told us of her battles to get Brazilian government and farmers working to protect the Pantanal. Majority of the land is now privately owned and and with high demand on cattle farming and the money involved, it's going to be quite a struggle. There are definitely success learnings from South Africa that could be applied. Mirjam and Marcelino are great people and run a fantastic ranch. I wrote a detailed ideas email for them during the transfer to Bonito and sent it through. They've got a good formula of personalised service, so eagerly await their developments.

Off now to the crystal clear waters for some snorkelling near Bonito.

Bolivia - Red Oriental train and boarder crossing to Brazil

We left the sweltering hot "bi-modal" bus/ train station on the 2 carriage Red Oriental train. It is a luxury train and faster than the more local train down to Quijarro, a short distance away from the border. It's majority travellers on the train with a few local holiday families.

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!

Bolivia - Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz was only a one night stop over before we could get onto the overnight train to the Bolivia Brazil border. It had been go go go before then so we were looking for a relaxed don't need to do anything time. Mandy, our always impressing travel arranger, found a place with a pool and 2 options for accommodation, regular room or tent. Tent sounded more interesting, so we went with that.

From the bus station, we caught a taxi to the train terminal to see if we could book the Red Oriental train for the next day, but the office was closed and would only open a few hours before the train would leave the next day.

We caught a taxi then to our accommodation spot, xxx, run by Tom / Thomas, he German owner. He explained that he rents the large house from the automobile association and has converted it into a guest house. In the large car port he has setup 3 modern convenience tents with beds, tv, DVD, fans and bedside lamps. A large pool with built in bar was the big draw card in the garden with a young guest house helper on the ready to pour a cervecas from the newly installed draft machine.

We lazed at the pool sipping on drafts and speaking to other guests from Chile and a volunteer who arrived the same day - she told us of a bed and food accommodation programme that exists where she works on projects for people for free in exchange for her living being provided.

We asked Thomas for food recommendations in the area and he said if we're interested there's a street parade happening that evening he'd recommend going through to. I thought this was like we'd seen in most towns in out travels and asked how log it went on for, expecting 15 minutes. About 3 hours was the answer. Turns out we'd hit the Carnival practice night. Carnival week is big in South America and this is a full blown trial event.

We went through and the roads were packed with families for the spectical. We found a spot on the main road for pizza and beer and the show began. Band and dance act after act came through. All shops seems to be selling beer, foam aeros spray cans and anything that lights up in the dark.

3 local guys started a conversation with Mandy and bought us beers. We had great broken English / Spanish conversations and every couple of minutes a "cheers" being one of the few English words that one guy knew. He was quite taken with Mands and when wanting to become Facebook friends, Mands cautiously decided to give him her name spelt incorrectly. We stayed until midnight until the parade finished and headed back to out tent as the lads went in search of the next party.

The carport tent sleep was comfortable with the fan, but would take some getting used to the main road traffic in the morning.

We had a great breakfast and further lounged at the pool and a quick Skype with Gazza and Trace. We headed off for lunch, but the directions I had heard took us no where near a lunch spot, so we made up our own way and found a popular local chicken roticary. A final catch up with Thomas and we made our way to the train station early to ensure we could get tickets.

An English speaking tour guide chatted to us in the queue. We've found Bolivians really friendly and always interested to know where we are going in their country.

With 3 hours until the over night train and a swelteringly hot day to make it through, we bought our 2 litre coke bottle and cups from the cafe and sat under the umbrella at their table, brought out the Galapagos card pack and settled down for many games of shithead.

Just before boarding the train, I bought our last BOL 1 packets of Chesitoz crisps and chew sweets and boarded. Also had to buy our final terminal tax (bus, plane, train terminals all make you pay tax individually, not included in your ticket price - no ticket no leave the terminal - these have been a constant pain to remember) Our large back packs couldn't fit on board, so I went to check them in - had to pay BOL 10 per bag for a baggage handlers fee to carry the bag from the desk, back to the train!

All aboard for a crazy train trip, gears and all...

Bolivia - Sucre

Arriving at dusk in Sucre we could see the city is more affluent than the rest of Bolivia. Houses, hotels, green parks and plazas. We hadn't been able to book anywhere, so picked a treat hotel, Grand Hotel, and got our taxi to drop us at the door. Luckily they had one room available. I chuckled as Mands asked whether it had a private bathroom before we accepted it. The room was large with decorative artwork and huge wimdows opening onto it's internal courtyard packed with plants and trees.

With only 1 night in Sucre we showered and headed out to explore. At the end of our block was a plaza, one of the nicest I've ever seen. Again trees and plants landscaped all around. We walked around the streets to the market and then returned to find a restaurant. Trattoria was a modern Italian and more restaurant with fantastic food.

Mands and I decided to make the most of Sucre and head out on an early morning walk before hotel breakfast and our taxi to the airport. It's good to be down from such high altitudes, so we both had a good spring in our step (still not as much spring as trying to keep up with Mom's morning power walks). The market was just opening and Mands remembered Albert's recommendation for the fruit juice section. We arrived there with every type of fruit I can think of and more displayed at each of the fruit juice ladies stands. We selected one, or rather she selected us, and we starred up at the list of fruit on the board in Spanish. Some more usual fruits we could work out, others no clue. We selected our combinations and for BOL 6 (£1.20) you had enough fruit juice blend for 2 large glasses.

As we were leaving I saw 3 shoe polishing boys about 8 years old, order a small fruit juice each and counted out their coins and paid. When they had their juice, I asked how much it cost and seeing another boy join then ordered another juice and paid for the others drinks. no sooner had I done that when another 2 appeared. Everyone got their morning juice and I hurriedly headed off before the rest of the city's shoe cleaners heard.

Back to the hotel and off to the airport with Mands and I saying, this will be one of the regrets on out trip, not having longer in Sucre.

At the check in desk, that wish would be granted. The flight time was brought forward 2 hours and no one notified us. The airline counter rep then had a go saying we didn't supply a Bolivian phone number so they couldn't contact us - Mands then jumped down her throat as they have our email and no one asked for a Bolivian number. After this sparring went on for a while, I took over so we would be able to fly at some point with this Airline again. We were eventually re-booked for the following day. More time in Sucre granted.

Same instructions to the taxi and we arrived a second time without a booking at the Grand Hotel and again took their only remaining room (a different one this time).

We did some Sucre city attractions research on Trip Advisor over another favourite Picque Macho lunch, plotted our route on a map and headed off.

First was the view from the monestary. Finding the well disguised entrance, we were allowed in, signed the guest book , paid our nominal entrance fee and were given the keys to the roof. Up to the little door and we had reign on the roof. We could get good views of the city, but with the rain starting up, we took a few photos in the bell towers and headed down.

Next was the room of masks. En route, there was an unexpected parade through the streets - we've half come to expect one of these each day now. in the mask room, We couldn't take any photos, but there's an exhibition of their festival masks in dark rooms with only the masks and dress light making them seemingly float. The room is an erie place and you half expect the masks and arms to reach out at you.

Earlier we'd seen a flier for a bar with samba dancing and if you arrive an hour before it kicks off, you can get a free lesson. Mands was up for this, so we raced back to get ready and back at the bar for the lesson.

Only the manager and a few friends were there, so no lesson, so we sipped heavy handed happy hour cocktails and before we knew it people arrived and the samba started. Everyone danced in couples and Ben would ask the women. No age barriers here with the older guys picking off the younger blood first. We were a good few cocktails down and had drunk on our dancing shoes. Time to shake a hoof!

We took to the dance floor like a duck to ice, creating our own fusion of samba like foot kicking together with spins and turns learnt in the best sokkie halls in South Africa. Even if no one else did, the Pisco Sours did say we were great dancers!

Again we checked out the next morning and taxied to the airport. This time we were able to check in fine. We waited at the small restaurant area to board and I got a tap on my shoulder. It was the taxi. I had forgotten to hand in the hotel key! How the hotel had notified our specific taxi and how he'd found me again, we have no idea, but BOL 30 (£7) later the keys were on their way. And so were we, off to our last stop in Bolivia, Santa Cruz.