The Week In Review: A Challenge, por lo menos

What I've been doing for the last week:

Thursday: I was hanging out in Florianopolis with Laura and Guto, who treated me very well. We basically just went to the beach and walked around the tiny tourist town where their rented apartment is, because for most of the day it was too hot to do anything else. Oh, and I ate acai. I love acai!!!
Good: the beautiful, clean beaches with perfect, foamy water that wasn't too strong to play in. Having a few days do do basically nothing. Watching Maria Full of Grace and Life Is Beautiful, both really good and really sad but neither of them as devastating as I had expected them to be. Finding the health food store and buying bulk organic food that saved me for the next week! The granola-looking hippie lady that ran it was totally classic!
Bad: Getting bitten all night, every night by some kind of insane, tiny flying biting ants that were really excited about the fact that I was sleeping on the kitchen floor. That totally, totally sucked, actually. Mmmm, but I think that that was the only bad thing. Everything else was pretty effing great.

Friday: (3/7): Said my goodbyes and thank-yous to Laura and Guto and got on the bus to Foz do Iguacu, arriving early Saturday morning- I wrote a whole entry just about this, so see "Foz Do Iguacu" below.

Saturday: That night I got on another bus, this time headed for Asuncion, Paraguay, and after dealing with some total crap at the border where they charged me $30 for not having a visa (since when did you need a visa to go through Paraguay?! Since December, according to them), I eventually made it there around 11:30 pm. SInce I hadn't heard back from any of my couchsurfing attempts, I just walked across the street from the bus station and booked myself into the first cheap, sleazy hotel I saw. $8 US got me a tiny room and a hot shower with a shared bathroom, and I realized happily that dingy though it may be, it was the first actual bed I'd slept in since leaving Sao Paulo, so I was happy- though really, totally ready to leave Paraguay.

Sunday: I checked back out of my little room at 9:30am and put my things in the storage room at the bus terminal, after buying my ticket to Bolivia. I then spent the rest of the morning looking everywhere for an open internet cafe, since I actually had no concept of where in the city I was, where anything else was, or what I might actually do with myself for the day, since my bus wasn't due to leave until 7pm. Eventually I asked one of the guys working in a telephone call center and he told me to catch a certain bus to a certain market, and that they would probably have something there. Well, that bus never came, so eventually I just got on a different bus with the same market listed in the hand-written sign on the front, and after about 10 minutes we passed an open internet cafe on that road so I just got out there and spent a little time re-connecting with the outside world. Sometimes it is just really, really grounding to be able to sit at a computer and feel reassured that the world you know really is still there, you just aren't in it right now!
Paraguay in general was really intense, even though I was only there for one day. I couldn't understand what most people were saying to me, even though they were speaking Spanish, because they were speaking with this really slurred accent that basically leaves out distinct syllables and entire endings of most words. Even when I asked someone to repeat it but more slowly I couldn't really make it out, so that sucked. When I can't understand what someone is saying to me it makes me feel so anxious, like I'm sure they think I'm really slow or something, which in turn makes me paranoid that everyone dislikes me and/ or wants to rip me off for being an ignorant gringo that can't even speak spanish. I'm trying, I swear!!!
Another thing about Paraguay is the really obvious, crushing poverty that subsumes it. When we crossed the border from Brazil the difference was crystal clear. I know that Brazil has intense problems with homelessness and poverty too, but at least in the cities, Brazil tries to cordon those people and communities off, to hide them from frightened tourist eyes. But in Paraguay there is no such deception. There are families living in dirt lots with innumerable grubby kids running around, crying, with distended bellies and enormous, tragic eyes. There are children grasping fences and huffing from plastic bags while gesturing wildly at something invisible in front of them, and vendors hopping off and on buses, all night every night, desperately hawking biscuits and hot orange juice for the equivalent of about 10 cents, going back and forth, back and forth all night until they've earned enough to buy food for their families for the next day. For me, the middle class American, it is much easier to travel somewhere without the consequences of my own privilege staring at me, begging for change, making me uncomfortable. Maybe this is why so few tourists go to Paraguay.
That night I got on the bus for Bolivia, and as we pulled out of the station, an hour late, rain started to fall. I put in my headphones, reclined the seat of the ancient bus, and fell asleep.

Monday: The first thing that happened Monday was leaving Paraguay. Sometime around midnight, we pulled onto a long dirt road, made muddy by the rain, and stepped out into the humid night air to be allowed to leave Paraguay. We walked down a path and up to a rough wooden shack in the middle of a vast pasture, and waited in a line while chickens and dogs ran to and fro in the front yard. When it was finally my turn, the man behind the wooden table took my passport without a word, gave me a cursory glance, stamped the exit page and handed it back without ceremony. Eventually we got back on the bus and kept going.
Some hours later, we hit a similarly muddy and similarly remote area, wherein a small cluster of buildings signalled that we were now at the Bolivian immigration office. Again I stood in line, only this time there were money changers and a "cafe" on either side of me. This time, though, the men behind the desk were not silent. When it was my turn, they flipped through my passport, looking, vainly for- what? Once, twice, then, "no hay visa?". My heart sank. Fuck! I had even asked people if I needed a visa and everyone told me no! I said, "no, no necesito un visa, verdad?". The men rolled their eyes and exchanged irritated glances before telling me, "si, necesitas una visa o no puedes entrar. Es cien dolares." Ummm... excuse me?! One hundred dollars?! What did they think, that I'm completely stupid? Besides, I actually didn't HAVE a hundred dollars with me. What do they think, I just carry around that kind of money like an idiot rich tourist? I was mad. But then they pointed to the sign on the wall, and there, to my even greater annoyance and disbelief, was the proof: All U.S. Citizens have to pay $100 US to enter Bolivia, along with a whole other list of needed documents, including a credit card, yellow fever vaccination card (luckily I had done that before Brazil), ticket in and out, and some other stuff too. I was sooo annoyed! Not only was it 3am and I was totally out of it, but I didn't actually have the money they wanted and they were threatening that they weren't going to let me in at all. Then when they asked me why I even wanted to come to Bolivia and I told them I was here to volunteer on an animal sanctuary, they tried to give me even more crap saying that well, then, I was lying by saying I only needed a tourist visa since really I was trying to work here, which of course is completely ridiculous. Great. Eventually the bus driver stepped in and spoke with the guys, who were very blatantly enjoying my misery, and agreed to front me the cash until we got to Santa Cruz, using my passport and all my documents as collatoral, just to make sure. 16 hours later we were there, and he got his money and I got my passport, and I was all too happy to get off of that bus.
Once I arrived I called Carla, my couchsurfing host, and she eventually came to get me and rescue me from the attentions of every single "hippie /traveller/ freak/ weirdo" in the station. There aren't many people in South America who look "different", so anyone who does is kind of automatically part of this secret club, and sometimes I welcome the immediate solidarity. But other times it just stresses me out to have to talk to people, to explain where I'm from, and what I'm doing here, and talk about my tattoo and where I want to go next and what I'm doing for money etc etc. Especially having just disembarked from a 23-hour-long bus trip from hell.

Tuesday: I woke up in the office of Carla's house, and learned that Carla has gone out to run various errands, but would be back soon. So I put on some clothes & arranged my stuff as neatly as possible, and went downstairs to eat the rest of the bread and olive oil I had brought as some sort of breakfast. Sure enough, shortly thereafter Carla reappeared and said I could go into town with her and her friend if I wanted, so I jumped in the car and away we went. Carla had a bunch of other errands to run, so she suggested slew of parks and museums I could go check out and dropped me at the vegetarian restaurant , which was only a few blocks away from the central plaza in town. I ate a decent, though not terribly exciting, lunch of salad, soup, & some kind of rice thing with tvp, and then headed for the square. But I was still feeling really tired and low-energy, despite having gotten nearly 12 hours of sleep and having slept the majority of my time on the bus the day before. So I just sat on a bench next to a shoe shine man for a long while, watching the people around me, taking in the plaza (24th de Septiembre) and all it's attendant activity.
Eventually I decided to check my email, so I killed almost two hours doing that, and then I went for a walk to see some parks, and came across a japanese market that had really cheap tofu and miso and soy meat, so I bought a few things there too and continued on my way. I stopped in at a bakery and inquired about whether they had any sweets that were without dairy or eggs, and the woman motioned to a pile of adorable little donuts with white coconut icing. After verifying that they really were totally vegan, I bought two and went happily on my way, feeling like maybe things were okay after all. By then it was time to meet Carla, but when I called her she was busy so we agreed to meet two hours later in front of the cathedral. I killed a few more hours searching in vain for the art museum and drinking a frozen iced tea (delicious) in a cute cafe next to the cathedral, and went out to wait but she never showed. By now I was getting a little anxious and irritated cause I had a headache, so I called her and realized that we had misunderstood each other because she was at home helping her mom and wouldn't be able to come and get me anymore. So I asked her to email me directions by bus and once again embarked on an internet odyssey, this time feeling pretty out of it and over Santa Cruz in general... If you got an email from me that day, I apologize! I have never been good at hiding my feelings!
Anyway, eventually I got a cab home and it all worked out in the end. I took an ibuprofen and went to bed, and once again slept for a very long time.

Wednesday: Today Carla was really excited to actually take me out and show me around, cause she didn't have a million things she had to do. So we went and bought my ticket for Sucre, and asked around at various travel agencies for quotes on a ticket for her to go to Germany later this summer, since she's been offered a job as an au pair. Another element to the inequity of the world economy is the fact that folks here in South America, despite earning far less than those of us in North America, have to pay far more in real dollars to travel. For example, the absolute lowest price she has found on a round-trip ticket to Germany is somewhere around $1800 US. Now I know that it is a long way to go from here to there, but I can pretty much guarantee that if the ticket was round-trip ORIGINATING in Germany, it would be less. Less people here can afford to fly, so there is less service, and therefore less competition, and therefore- everything is actually MORE expensive than for those of us who already have the money to spend! The irony is astounding, and the cyclical nature of this system is disheartening, to say the least.
Anyway, we also went and hung out for a bit with Carla's friend Fatima who make us a lovely lunch, including a special batch of veggies without eggs just for me, and then the three of us took a long walk to the muddy, overflowing river nearby. After this Carla and I said goodbye to Fatima and went to the biggest open market in town, where Carla's mom works selling the sportswear that is made in the workshop attached to their house. We hung out there, wandering in and out of stalls, and Carla bought some clothes while I settled for a chocle (an ear of traditional corn, very different from the corn we have at home) and some papas fritas. Eventually we helped her mom carry stuff back to the car and close up the stall, and headed home. Later that night we went back out with some of Carla's girlfriends and sang along loudly to the guy with the guitar doing a pretty good job of covering just about every "alternative" hit from the nineties, the pinnacle of which was "Creep" by Radiohead, which he even played a second time for us. Much, much later, we found our way into a cab and eventually arrived in her neighborhood, by which time both of us had fallen asleep. I woke up easily but getting Carla awake again was a whole other challenge, but eventually I was able to jostle her into consciousness enough to prop her up while we picked our way back to her house through the muddy, rutted dirt roads.

Thursday: After going to bed sometime around 5:30, I was awakened by Rosio, the girl who does the cooking and cleaning at Carla's house, asking me if I'd seen Carla's cell phone. Unfortunately, I didn't have it, and apparently neither did she, which is a shame. I eventually crawled out of bed and managed to shower and get packed, since I had a 4 o'clock flight to Sucre. I know, I know- I really, really didn't want to fly anymore, but after so many days on the bus and with the roads being mostly impassable due to either flooding or blockades by striking workers, I really couldn't say no when I realized that a plane ticket was $50 and would save me 16- 24 hours of bus time. I promise, I will do something valuable to make up for the size of my environmental footprint this year- really!
Anyway, I got another cab to the airport and had a complete painless trip here to Sucre, where I arrived at 4:30 in the afternoon. I headed into town and realized that my Couchsurfing contact hadn't gotten my emails yet, so I waited a while, went and ate at the vegetarian restaurant (the best meal I've had in weeks- tofu asada with veggies and rice in some kind of traditional sauce), and eventually met up with the other girl I'd been planning to hang out with (also from CS), who conveniently enough, turns out to sort of be dating the guy that I was supposed to stay with! So she walked me to the house and we all ate some cabbage and potatoes and they went out while I, once again, went to bed. Hmmm, I'm detecting a theme here.

Today- Friday: Woke up late, feeling on the verge of getting sick, and am still a bit low energy wise, though my mood is 100% better than it was a few days ago. I guess this is what happens when I don't have access to a kitchen to cook for myself- I become totally malnourished. I haven't even been able to find beans here that don't already have meat in them, so I've been surviving on bread and oil and white rice and fried things for about a week now, along with some fruit here and there, and I am totally feeling it. Thank god now I have a kitchen though! I made a really exciting salad with mint-tahini dressing for lunch, and am going to eat some form of protein for dinner tonight, no matter what!!! I had a really nice time snooping around the main market this morning- I just really love the way markets are in Latin America. There are just so many colors and smells and sights and sounds and the vegetables are all so beautiful, and there are huge sacks of different grains and seeds and pastas, and it is cheaper than the grocery store, especially if you're good at bargaining (which I am not, but who cares. I'd rather pay a little more to buy from an indigenous farmer than buy some mass-produced agri-food from the local subdivision of Wal-Mart). So that was fun. Now I'm going to go try to find a new set of headphones, since the ones I have now only work in one ear and the sound in that ear is pretty crap.

If you're still reading this- thanks for caring, though maybe you have too much time on your hands! If not, don't worry- I understand. I'm writing this blog as much to not forget my experiences as to keep everyone up-to-date, since my memory is so very regrettably bad. As always, I hope you are all doing great and that this finds you healthy and happy! Big hugs, Me.