there and (hopefully)back again: pantanal and border crossing

After another overnight bus, I arrived at quijarro, a random border town. Sad to leave Bolivia, I was even sadder to see a long line mounting before the border (just the beginning of said line above). I went to the back, and quickly came to realize that the border had not even opened yet. Fortunately, there were a group of fellow tourists behind me, Irish men who had just finished their studies, and we chatted until the line slowly, slowly, moved forward. And soon we were through. I had heard a horror story about this border prior to the crossing at my previous hostel, so I was slightly worried. However, the crossing from Bolivia to Brazil initially wasn't all that bad. Here is the border.(below)

It was the above sight that scared us. And really, what was scary was that this was merely the beginning of it; the line stretched and stretched, all around the station in a rectangle almost as big as a full size basket ball court. The scariest part however, was the fact that the line moved hardly at all, moving a sum of a meter in about half an hour. The irish men and I observed a group of tourists ahead of us getting out of line and soon after, getting their passports stamped and handed back in an orderly fashion. We were like, how do we do that too. A fat man who actually spoke decent english explained the set up, we had to pay 25 reales a piece, and our passports would be stamped similarly. Given the length of the line, we were inclined to say yes. I ended up behind a car, having given my passport to an official, paying the money. The man with our money drove off, and I had a sinking feeling that we had just been ripped off, minus passports and some money. Fortunately, that was not the case, and soon we got our passports back. Getting a taxi, we were more than ready to skidaddle (read:leave) and we did.

We went to a by the kilo all you can eat place, and I ate about a kilo of delicious food.

My atm card had a bit of an issue (the machines won't accept my money), but I had enough reales to make it, so I will try to resolve that problem later.

I found a hotel, bid adieu to my erstwhile friends, and tried to find a set up for the superbowl. It was a pretty discouraging game (For the 49ers fans at least) I heard some commotion at about half time, so I decided that might be a bit more interesting than the game. In short, they were.

These are some men, sporting some fairly impressive afros

just the hustle and bustle of a fairly busy street

But then it all started to get organized. Carnaval had started (a week earlier than I expected) Music, marching, dancing. It was all pretty cool/

This was a woman dancing. As the parade passed by, a crowd gathered behind them. In one of those, why not decisions, I decided to join them. At first we walked, but as the music played, many of the people started dancing. I did as well, just copying what the other guys were doing, and soon, I was dancing the Brazilian samba (or my approximation at least). One guy tried to stop us, but fortunately we had a matronly woman with us who pleaded successfully with him to let us continue. We danced a solid hour or two, and I even got back in time for the best part of the game.

Next on to the pantanal, the world's largest wetlands

We had some bumpy roads first

But when we got there, there was a dinner of piranhas.

We were then the people to fish for the piranhas, and I actually caught my first fish, although I will still contend that fishing is not my strongest skill.

Like I said, fishing is not my best skill

We saw a caiman, a small relative to the crocodile

And then we took a boat cruise of the pantanal

The water reflected the sky

And shown again

And soon it was the night of the second day. The major problems so far...mosquitos, and heat. So many bites. So many. It got to the point that we would wear full jeans