03 Jan

So last morning/day in Punta before we head to our next destination - Florianopolis Brazil!!! A quick pack and we said farewell to Ryan as he got onto the Buquebus back to BA to meet up with the others (he stayed behind just to have a dinner date with Beanie) and we almost had a heart attack as we turned up back to 1949 Hostel to collect our clean laundry, only to find it had not yet appeared. Luckily it was quickly remedied by a phone call and Riki's face visibly relaxed! We then got our obligatory photo by the giant hand in the sand on Playa Brava and then ended up in the internet cafe killing time until our bus trip.

Our last afternoon consisted of catching up with the must-do´s in Punta. This included getting a photo or two with the ´hand in the sand´, eating Beanie´s last Freddo icecream and Churros…Now for those of you unfamiliar with churros they are deeepfried bits of dough filled with custard, chocolate and B´s fave dulce de leche. Naturally we tried all and naturally paid for it for the remainder of the afternoon as we waited for our washing and our bus out of Punta del Este , Uruguay to Florianopolis(´Floripa´), Brazil.
The laundry service/hostel conveniently marked our bag with a whiteboard marker and consequently the bag got lost, remained unwashed and nameless. We got our stuff back and waddled to the bus station…packs on backs and foodbabies onboard.
IN no way surprising our bus was late and after various hours waiting and reading we started the first of many ´random places to play beach bats challenge´. The bus drivers were a tough crowd and the passengers a rather uncheery lot even despite the wind´s attempts to lift our skirts mid-game- apparently sex doesn´t sell in sport. We boarded the bus smug, full and satisfied with our ´puta´I mean Punta week- just kidding!!!
Dinner was initiated with peanuts, doughey sticks, chips. Followed by eggey-cheese quiche, a sausage roll, a bread roll, ham and cheese sandwiches, a bread and buterpudding meets flan (´congealed egg creation´) and an old slice with jam!!!! Before I come down to harshly on the overdosing of carbs, sugar and use of egg and cheese there were vegetables and here I refer to the mashed potato which was the hot dish….mashed potato and CRUMBED meat( can´t be safe to specify- Uruguay have goat as a traditional dish!!) schnitzel. And noooooooooooooooooooooooooo we didn't eat all of it, in fact we hardly ate any just sat there staring at it horrified. I mean Jamie Oliver thought school lunches were an issue!! The meal was enough to conjure oasis like visions of lettuce and asparagus frolicking!!! As we neared Chuy we neared Brazil and customs and immigration.
When I visited Brazil earlier in the year with my mom, we got a fine upon leaving as we had lost the SEPARATE i.e NOT ATTACHED piece of paper they call a visa. There is a reason the rest of the world attaches it to your passport!!! Anyway, aware of this I went out of my way to eliminate problems with crossing the border. In the end getting a friend in Brazil to pay the fine at the Brazil bank as that is the only way to resolve the situation and of course the embassy in Buenos Aires doesn't have a branch at the embassy…FAR TOOOOO LOGICAL. At this point I would like point out I spent four different and frustrating days at the embassy trying to ELIMINATE any problems whatsoever….the Señor helping me informed me that ´technically´ all would be fine. So after passing through customs-where the power went out in the middle of the checking and me and B about to pop some champagne celebrating our entrance into BR. I came to know what ´technically´South America meant.

Technically left me kicked off the bus at the border, waving goodbye to Beanie, again facing the federal police of Brazil who excusing my rant are the biggest and meanest, rudest, motherless , insensitive, self-importantizing creatures ever. No , I didn´t have proof of paying the fine and of course all the codes both fine and passport and computers have NO relation to one another. ANYONE? So there I was a backpack, my rejected passport a pack of cookies, the dust of the bus crossing into Brazil and me in Chuy at midnight.
After tossing up catching a bus back to a bigger city or rather just A city I caught a taxi and thought I would find a computer in order to get my friend to send me the receipt.
People if I called this place a hole, I would be giving this place grandeur…Thankfully I found an internet café, phones however no. The taxi driver was also kind enough to point out some accommodation. So after frantically trying to make contact with my friend and no luck…the only option was finding a roof for my head Thankfully I had a toothbrush with me other than that….earplugs. So the ´hotel´ for that's what they dared call it gave me the second last room. Two single beds, different and well past their use by date sheets, a fan-without a plug and a bedlamp-without a bulb and mosquito's. No bathroom…no no that I would have to share…not only with the rest of the guests but mosquitoes. I finally ended up closing my eyes and only by the grace of god for I had no watch and I was certain the mosquitoes were going to carry me off in my sleep and awoke without too many casualties. So between splashing myself with cold water and soap, swatting at the well-settled community of mosquitoes( having decided to avoid the shower after turning on the light and seeing something scuttle across the floor. )
So 7am I set out to get some money out, find the bus station( again overstatement as I know barnyards that are bigger and more functional). Nothing opens here till at least 8.30, so I loitered, ate my cookies and read my book. There are no buses to my exact destination which means I will have to take two…YIPPY!!I am laughing all the same…I think in the scale of 1-10 of places I would least like to live this place scores a 15, o ok maybe a 14 the fact that they speak Spanish makes it a bit better but I cant begin to do justice to the situation nor location!!!

Nadine´s version of the event. So once Riki disappeared into the dust of the Uruguayan border I spent the next 15hours of my life trying to sleep and learn portuguese from the Lonely Planet. These were interrupted by the bus hostess offering toffees for breakfast in the morning and then dulce de leche biscuits. Real healthy! And when I asked for a tea, naturally it came loaded with sugar and I had to request another one for fear of contracting diabetes out of one bus trip.
Arrival in Flori less one Riki Small Smith and plus her backpack I doubled up and muled it to the next bus station where I had to catch 2 crowded buses with two massive packs on..one on front, one on back. I got some weird looks...sort of pity, plus what the??!!!
Consequently when I arrived at Praia Armaçao I was exhausted and needed to nap before doing anything else. However the hostel had different ideas as no fresh sheets were available so I ended up going for a 3hr walk along the beach to discover the area and then enjoyed a mango juice (amazing) and a worry about where in Brazil Riki is!!!!???? Where is she??

So after printing the damned receipt and especially journeying out to the border to make sure that was all they required....would like to point out it was but a mere code...not even a barcode...i was given the clear and so headed back into my beloved Chuy to await my bus to Porto Alegre .Naturally when we got to the border they hardly even blinked in the direction of my receipt...the last time i felt so ripped off was after having turned 18 and no-one wanting to see proof that i was old enough to buy alcohol. So yay atleast i was allowed entrance to Brazil....Beanieless and bubbly-less a far cry from my inicial imaginings.After a 10 hour bus trip through torrential rain infact at times it felt more like we were boating along the road at times we made it to our destination. A portuguese speaking destination...so let me set everyuone straight...although they are neighbouring countries and share a lot of similarities they are in fact SEPERATE languages and thanks to different rhythyms and pronunciation very lost one me. SO usually i speak forth in Spanish and they more or less understand me and then reply and i understand nothing. Thank goodness i found a friend in an Uruguayan kid who helped me get not only a ticket but my first dinner in Brazil. A all you can eat setup upstairs in the bus station. So yes, just 24hours later wearing the same clothes and a whole new person i boarded a bus in the direction of Flori and my beloved Bean.