refreshed and rearing to go

A couple of days in the city has done wonders to the energy levels. We shelled out an extra 20c or something similar for a nicer room than usual, with cable TV and air con. Ate good food, and just relaxed a bit. We take off today for Puerto Villarol where we hope to jump on a cargo boat down river for a few days. In preperation we purchased mossie nets, hammocks yesterday..which was a mission in itself.

What was not as big a mission as anticipated was getting my passport back from immigration. As predicted there were huge ques again, and everybody was stressed out. But to their credit the extension had been granted and after a bit of waiting around i had it. Yay!

Finding hammocks took ages. Evidently its a very Brazillian thing, so we finaly found a point on the map where such Brazilians hang out. A bit dubious we walked there from immmigration in blazing heat. The shopping experience with Brazilians was sooo different than that from Bolivians. Its been a very strange attitude from Bolivian shop keepers in general. As a rule of thumb they look genuinely pissed off that you are bothering the, and actualy buying something doesnt help one bit. Our Brazillian though was the most motivated salesman in the world. He made us try loads of different ones, weighed them for us when we said they had to be light, and discussed in great detail the dpros and coons of each. It was borderline hard-sell, but amusing at the same time.

There are some rather freaky folks who come in from out of town from time to time. Mennonites... think Hamish or Quakers in north america and you´re on the right track. Its only men we´ve seen.. all pasty white, wearing the exact same demin dungarees, check sirt and a cowboy hat. They look like freaks... but we are assured they are harmless...and ´very good agriculturists´

And who ever thought a ´fruit´drink could taste like fish? Yep, the ´Tamarindo´is a red juice which tastes like the run-off from oysters. Not good.

Saw a fire in a nearby hotel. The fire engine looked like it was straight out of the 1920´s which was kind of cool..

So with all this excitement... we are off to the river...