We left Bolivia from Santa Cruz, where we took the Orient night train to Corumba, Brazil. Since this border crossing has some problems with drug traffic, our backpacks were being checked by dogs. Luckily my Peruvian coca leaves remained undiscovered ;-)
We arrived at the Bolivian border around 8:30 am and we had to wait an hour before we could get our stamps to exit the country. And then we walked to Brazil and started queuing to get our stamp to enter.
Meanwhile the sun was shining without mercy and temperature started rising by the minute. We were lucky that there was a big roof providing shade. The queue we were in was maybe 120 meters long, an soon we had learned that crossing this border on a saturday is impossible....
Many Bolivians try to enter Brazil to work and need a visa, which means they are checked thoroughly by Brazilians customs. It means they need at least 30 mins per person to give a stamp. And there are only 2 policemen working in the office. We waited for an hour, moved 5 meters and then 1 hour quickly became two hours.
Suddenly a Brazilian guy appeared and asked our group if we had booked a trip with their travel agency. I told him we didn't but we were interested in visiting the Pantanal (a big wetland nature reserve) and wondered if he could provide us some information. From that moment he smelled money and told us he would try to get our stamps asap so we could join the 3 day tour that started at 1 pm.
I gathered all 4 passports and went to him to the office and saw for the first time the most lame police guys I would encounter throughout my trip. The guy started his explanations but the police refused to give us a stamp. He wanted to see an official document that showed we had booked a trip with this company. So the guy told us to wait 10 more minutes and then his boss would show up with the papers. We waited 1,5 hours longer (which equals 10 Brazilian minutes) for the fake tickets that provided us a way out of the queue. I was so happy we had our stamp, even if it meant we had to use some fraud. The queue was as long as before and all the other people in line were looking to us with envy.Meanwhile we had made contact with 2 dutch and one asian guy who were just in front of us while queuing. We wished them good luck with their stamp...
Next we took a taxi to the bus station of Corumba where the office of the travel agency was located. Before deciding to book an actual trip with them, we needed to find an ATM which took us another hour. After getting our money we received some information about the trip that sounded very solid so we signed up to start a 3 day trip next morning!
That evening we went out for dinner and while walking down the streets we came across the two dutch guys! They told us that around 4pm they were send away from the Brazilian customs because the computer system was down. So they had to return the next day to get their stamp! Once again I was so thankful we had taken that chance with the travel agency!
Next day started with rain. It hadn't rained for 2 months over there, and now it was raining cats and dogs! The agency had told us we were going to be picked up by jeep at 7am, but we had to wait another 1,5 hours to find out the jeep was broken down and the four of us had to get in a tiny car. The next two hours were in an ongoing rollercoaster where the driver broke all speed limits on the worst bumpy road ever.
When we finally arrived at our destination, all shaken up and Tine badly ill from the drive, the whole place looked very dim. The village consisted of few houses, one bar, a tiny shop and billions mosquitoes. Due to the rain we couldn’t do anything but to wait for better weather...
During the afternoon we had 30 min of no rain and we did a “boat safari” to spot birds and other animals. Then it started to rain again until it became dark...
Meanwhile, more backpackers started to arrive and the atmosphere was getting somber, because we all felt we being ripped off but there was no way to go, we were stuck in this place...
The next day we did another, longer boat safari but we didn't see other animals. We dropped by a farm to visit farmlands and a farmers family. It was astonishing in what poor conditions those people have to live...
For our afternoon session our guide wanted to do the piranha fishing, even though there weren't actual piranhas in the river (only caimans!). But the guide of the other group payed a visit to the local bar during lunch and came back totally drunk. Of course the group refused to go into a boat with a drunken guide, so our guide proposed to go for a hike with all the little groups together...
We started walking down a road, in the blistering heath, without any animals to spot. The only animal we got to see was an anaconda, on his cellphone....!!! After 45 minutes I decided this was getting absurd and I started walking back, which inspired the rest of the group too in doing the same. Walking down a road is not hiking! When we got back to the village the whole group of 20 persons hurried to the shop to buy icecream and water, cause we were dehydrated and suffering from the heath...
When we returned to basecamp we noticed 3 new participants...from Bangladesh! This was the most bizarre encounter of the trip! We were discussing how the hell they came here. Had they won a trip? Clearly they weren't backpackers because they carried one small bag for the 3 of them. And only one of them spoke 5 words of English!! They wanted to go the capital Brasilia, but we had no idea why they didn't catch a bus or a plane... I suggested they had come via a container ship and somehow got lost...
Also the two dutch and asian guys arrived! They told us they had waited another extra day to get their stamps. Can you imagine waiting two full days to enter a country? I hadn't expected this from Brazil!
Meanwhile our room was packed with 13 persons, even though the tour operator promised we only had to share a room with max 7 persons. They even put an extra mattress on the floor, so the room was really packed!! We only had one toilet, one shower and one sink, and sharing those facilities with 12 others isn't easy...
When everyone was getting in bed, because there isn't much to do beside getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, I covered myself with repellent and enjoyed some amazing star- and milky way gazing! My friends decided to join me, but soon we were interrupted by the drunken guide who told us the company was definitely “star quality”!
Later that night, when everyone was sleeping, he entered the room to tell us a jaguar was on the roof and we had to come and take a look! Sigh...I was so happy this was our last night here, even though we feared being stuck there due to the jeep that was broken down...
The next day we did a real hike where we spotted some nice animals (see below) and we travelled further to Bonito. Arriving in the recommended Hi Hostal was just like entering heaven, after all we had been through. The first days of Brazil had definitely been an experience, but not really a good one...
 Later that week, I was watching the news and saw many illegals from Bangladesh were being taken from several border crossings. So we found out what those 3 guys were doing there on our trip. Hiding and running from getting arrested. I wonder what happened to them...
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