Brazil. Wow, where to begin? Perhaps a good place would be all the hoops I had to jump through to get my visa. America gives Brazilians a hard time to get a visa, so of course Brazil reciprocates. It took no less than 4 trips to the Brazilian consulate here in Buenos Aires, a detailed route we would drive, a description of the car, the confirmation from the hotel, a special photo, a trip to the bank, and about 500 pesos. On the plus side, the visa is good for 5 years.
Before I go on, I'll mention that all the pictures are available in my Picasa gallery - the link is to the right.
We started on our trip at about 4am on Sunday, January 3rd from Buenos Aires. It was four of us in a 1990 Peugeot. Two of us could drive. We had a GPS, but apparently not all the roads in South America are properly mapped, because it got confused a couple times.
I've driven across the US, but this was a different beast. In the US, you hop on an interstate and you cruise for as long as you want. There's a nice rest stop every few dozen miles with a McDonalds or something. In Argentina, there are no interstates. The "highways" suddenly become city and town roads complete with stop lights and speed bumps. There are police checkpoints with slaloms of cones. You really need to be alert.
The drive was first and foremost long. We arrived at Iguacu (the Argentine side) at about 1am on Monday. That was the halfway point - reached after 21 hours. However, along the way, we did see some great sights. We passed kilometer after kilometer of pasture ground. Argentina has 2 cows for every 1 person.
We also had a small issue with the car. It operates on both gas and natural gas. The switch that changes between the two stopped working, so we stopped at a mechanic's house at about 7am sunday morning. He was suprisingly friendly and cheap. He got it going again. During this time, however, one of the girls made a call to a friend in Buenos Aires, mentioning the car issues. Unbeknownst to us, this news started traveling around BA (a la the "telephone game") and got several people concerned. More on this later.
We stayed at a hostel in Iguacu. The next day we hit the falls. Amazing. The pictures don't do it justice. On the Argentine side, you can get right up against the falls, and even on top of them. On the Brazilian side, I've heard the view is more panoramic, but less up-close-and-personal. In any case, if you ever visit Argentina, the falls are a must-see. Much better than Niagra.
The next day we hit the road again. Destination: Sao Paulo. But first we had to cross the border. We exited Argentina without a hitch. Then there is this neutral zone between the countries. At the other end is the Brazilian border. There was no line. Pablo drove through slowly, but nobody was directing traffic. He just kinda waved to the people as we drove through. Then we were in Brazil. It seemed too easy. Pablo said "uh... should we do something?" So after a few minutes in Brazil, he decided to go back to the border to get our passports stamped.
Everyone was really laid back. It seemed more like a happy hour than a border. We got our passports stamped and then asked if we needed to have the car checked. So we went to another office where the guy totally didn't care about the car. We offered our identification, but he didn't even look at it. Then he just left. So were we hanging out in his office, getting a drink of water. Then we left.
It was the first of many times that I noted the motto of Brazil should be "we don't care about anything."
Almost as soon as we crossed the border, we could see the change in landscape. Whereas Argentina is almost entirely flat (with the exception of the mountains to the west), Brazil is full gorgeous hills and mountains. Many times on the road I found myself wanting to capture the views we were seeing atop of the hills. We also passed a complete rainbow. It was incredible; we could see both ends as well as the entire arch. Beautiful.
After driving through the entire night, I found myself hitting Sao Paulo right in time for the morning rush hour. The rest of the crew awoke to find ourselves stuck in traffic. Its not an experience I would care to repeat. I was trying to get to the airport to drop of one of the girls, but the traffic was serious. Plus, I got something in one eye and was thus trying to negotiate the lanes with just my good eye. Eventually we did get here... at which point I threw the keys to Pablo so I could get some sleep.
I awoke to find ourselves in a very rough dirt road. I said "I must have missed something big." Apparently, the GPS got confused again and Pablo had spent an hour trying to get out of Sao Paulo. We ended up in a really bad area and Pablo took this dirt road to get out. Again, we eventually got out.
Now it was just highway to Rio. We arrived at about 4pm on Wednesday. When I checked my email, I had received emails from 3 different people asking if we were ok because they heard about our car problems. I told Pablo and he said "I didn't receive anything!"
My next post will describe our time there.
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