The LAST Bus Ride

Oh Rio....I'm going to like you!!!

After the craziness of Carnaval, Larry and I found ourselves on another endless bus ride, this time headed to Rio de Janeiro. I don’t even know how many hours this bus ride was… 28 hours…..32 hours……….37 hours…who knows. I was really starting to feel like all of my time in South America was being spent on a bus. Somewhere on this endless ride, Larry and I started to discuss what we wanted to do next. Our original plan was to bus in to Peru to hike up to Machu Picchu. The thought of logging more bus hours heading to yet another overly populated tourist destination made me want to throw myself out the window of the bus and splat myself on the Brazilian highway. We thought about our finances and decided that flying wasn’t really an option. Until the instant people teleporter machine was invented, the bus was our only option.

I started to think about everything I had wanted to do on this trip. The two most important things for me were Antarctica and Carnaval. I had already done both of those. I also really wanted to lay on the famous beaches of Brazil, bike down the World’s Most Dangerous Road, see the Amazon Jungle and see the salt flats in Bolivia. I also wanted to see Machu Picchu. The more I thought about it, the more I decided that I wouldn’t be sad if I didn’t make it to Machu Picchu this time. Part of the reason I wanted to go was that it was such a big tourist attraction…I mean how could you go to South America and not go to the famed Machu Picchu, right? Well for the amount of things I had already crossed off my bucket list, I wasn’t going to be sad to have to come back to South America another time. Machu Picchu could wait. I could not survive another bus ride.

When I explained this to Larry, she was relieved, but as always, the supportive friend who wanted to make sure I was really ok with skipping Peru. I told her I would go on a murderous rampage if I had to endure another multi day bus journey.  We left it at that, but I knew we were not bussing it to Peru.

When we finally arrived in Rio, we got to our hostel only to find that they didn’t have enough beds for us. The hostel people were great, and we got a private room for the price of a dorm. We were more than grateful for the room, as the crowded buses and the crowds of Carnival had me nearly at my limit with crowds and people. In our little room, Larry and I searched flights and destinations until we came up with a plan. Randomly, on a whim, because it was cheap to get there, because it was tropical and because I hadn’t yet seen the Caribbean Sea,  we booked flights to Belize. We were going to spend a month on its picturesque turquoise water beaches, then head back to Canada. This was a plan I could jump on!

Copacabana Boardwalk

I was ecstatic and overwhelmed with relief…it was true, NO MORE BUSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!  A single thought had never made me so happy!!

NOT where we stayed...notice giant Christ at the top left

We had a week in Rio and were determined to fit in as much as we could before we departed South America. Early the next day we headed down to Copacabana Beach. The whole way there, I had Barry Manilow’s song lyrics in my head. “At the Copa….Copacabana…..they fell in love”. Little did I know that these words would nearly ring true in the very near future. I was missing a bunch of lyrics in the middle, but all I could think of all day everyday we were in Rio was “at the Copa…Copacabana…” It was a broken record in my head that Larry and I were constantly belting it out at random intervals.

At the Copa...Copacabana....

We lazed on the beach, ate fresh prawns from a man selling them on the beach and gazed at the Christ the Redeemer statue from afar.

YUM!!!!!

 When we had enough of the beach we hit the streets and window shopped our way to Ipanema beach. It was a lovely day, and already I was loving Rio! We had big plans for the week, including a football game, a tour of the favelas and more beach. Knowing I was not going to be suffering through another bus journey had lifted my spirits and I wanted to soak up all of Rio de Janeiro.

Copacabana Beach

Up next, a Brazilian football game, a ghetto tour and helping some boys find an ATM.

Join me as I TRAVEL MY LIFE AWAY!!!

No ATM???!!!!!!????? In a tourist town???!!!! Somebody should have told me……….

                                                The brochure sold it for me. Motorized canoe, swimming with endangered pink dolphins, searching for anacondas, cobras and crocodiles and fishing for piranhas. After Mount Potosi, I should know not to believe the brochures…but once again it sure was an adventure.


It started off with the plan to be a real backpacker, skip the 40 min flight and take the 19 hour local bus and save $80 bucks each way. A few hours into the bus ride I would have sold my soul to be on a flight. As my Dad always says, you get what you pay for, and I should have known that a 19 hour bus ride for $11 just didn’t add up.

Figuring out what bus we were supposed to be on was an ordeal in itself, and I will spare you the tiresome, not very exciting melodrama. All I will say is that Bolivia is a disorganized mess of hurry up and wait.

The bus looked like it had had its day before my parents were born. The inside was a mess of broken green seats covered in dirty, 1970’s green fabric. The entire bus smelled of armpits, urine and the third world. In times like this, sleep is my savoir. I can sleep anywhere and especially well in a moving vehicle. Poor Laurie cannot. We began by driving down a road that was similar to Death Road (check out the details of my experience here), narrow one lane dirt road with a sheer cliff face on one side, a mountain on the other, and at times it was partly washed away as it is rainy season. The bus was tearing down the road like it was a paved 4 lane freeway. As we would come up to a blind corner the driver would lay on the horn to signal our appearance out of nowhere. Quite a few times another horn would blare, vehicle unseen and we would slam on the brakes. What happens next is something like a game of chicken. The drivers stare each other down for a few seconds, until one decides to back up and let the other pass.

I woke up in the middle of the night, and the bus was stopped. Well not just stopped, broken down. We got out to see what was going on. It was not a good situation. Laurie and I watched as a few men worked under the bus. Hours went by. Of course none of the other passengers spoke even a word of English. My Spanish was not even close to good enough to have a conversation, had anyone even tried to speak to us. Instead, they stared. Not out of the corner of their eyes, and not when our heads turned the other way. They stared at us full on without even a hint of a smile. I did not feel welcome, or even safe. Outside in a Bolivian slum, at 3 am, unable to communicate and surrounded by locals who I am sure would have sold me for $20 to anyone who wanted a exasperated white girl.

Seven hours later, well into the light of day, we set on our way again. We were less than half way there and our tour was just about to start. We had already had enough of this adventure, and it hadn’t even began.
27 hours after the bus had left La Paz, we finally arrived in the jungle town of Rurrenabaque. But the fun had only just begun………………

We showed up at the tourist office to make sure we could do the tour the next day. No problem at all. Next, we needed to hit an ATM and withdraw some money. The jungle tour required us to pay an entrance fee at the park, and we didn’t have much cash at all. The tour office told us there was a bank on the next corner. Sure, there was a bank, but no ATM. No way to withdraw money. We pooled what we had, but only had enough for the bus to leave Rurrenabaque. No way we were going to go through that hell again!!! We only had one option…to beg for a refund on the tour and if we got a full refund, we could manage plane tickets back to La Paz. We would miss out on the jungle tour, but so far, this excursion was sheer hell. I was not sad at the possibility of missing the jungle, I was only sad at the thought of taking the bus back.

At the tour agency, the lady listened with sympathy. I am sure we were not the only backpackers who had been stranded due to the town’s lack of an ATM. When we were done begging for our money back, she smiled and picked up the phone. Speaking quickly in Spanish we had no idea who she was talking to or what she was saying. After a few minutes, she explained that she had called the manager down and had booked us plane tickets back after the jungle tour was over. We began to explain again, that we couldn’t go because we didn’t have any cash to pay the entrance fee into the park. She shhhhhhed us, and told us not to worry. Once the manager of the tour office arrived, she explained. The tour office was letting us go on the tour tomorrow, had booked our plane tickets back to La Paz, and handed us 400 Boliviano (about $60) for our accommodation, the entrance fee, and some dinner.

We were shocked!!! We did have to hand over our passports until we paid the company back - eeep! - but we were so surprised at how accommodating they were. So, we were getting the best of both worlds….we would be adventuring through the jungle AND we got to fly back!!! So we were off on our adventure in the Bolivian Amazon to hunt for crocs and anacondas, swim with pink dolphins and fish for piranhas. Oh, if we only knew what the jungle had in store for us!!!!

SIDE NOTE: Anyone looking to make some money, Rurrenabaque, Bolivia DESPERATELY needs an ATM. You could charge $20 or more for each withdrawal and make a killing!!!!

Join me as I TRAVEL MY LIFE AWAY!!!
Up next, my adventures in the jungle…oh the jungle!!!