Once we arrived, we made our way to Phoenix and were pleasantly surprised having expected this one to be the worst of the two. We were greeted by a scary cleaner who didn't really have a clue what was going on but nevertheless showed us to our room. SINGLE BEDS!! Never did I think this would be such a luxury having moaned about my single bed at home for the last however many years (Mum, this does not mean I have come to terms with Emma having the big bed, it's just better than bunk beds). We dumped our stuff and went to chill out by the pool where we discovered the hostel's pet dog Phoenix and their tortoise just casually milling around the pool. Both were so cute. By the pool we met a British guy called Shay who decided to come for a wander with us around the town. As it was Valentine's Day, we planned to cook a nice meal and celebrate being lonely hearts on tour. We bought a kilo of meat and rice and vegetables for the four of us and Shay's friend Alex and Adriana cooked up a feast. Oh my God it was so good. We sat by the pool with some beers, chatting about life, eating shed-loads and being mentally scarred by sorties of Shay's Cambodian all-over body scrub experiences. I'll spare you the details.
The next day, Becky and I were casually checking facebook by the pool when we noticed Tom and Jake were also in Buzios (they have taken to following us everywhere- ha). We both got over-excited and arranged for them to come over that night. We had a few drinks, played stupid games and a group of us headed in to town. We went to a few bars but it was gradually getting more and more expensive so Becky, Tom, Jake and I went to the shop, bought a bottle of vodka and drank it on the beach. Becky McCougarson was particularly merry, accentuated when she dropped the bottle of coke, opened it straight away, sprayed it all over herself then ran into the sea fully clothed in an attempt to rectify the situation. Can't say it worked really. Post-vodka we wandered in search of another bar. Tom and I left Becky to her cradle-snatching with Jake and made some new friends in the form of a 50+ couple. The husband was from Scotland and the wife was Brazilian ad they loved me. I was on champagne cocktails all night and didn't spend a penny. Tom wasn't having such a great time. I only became aware of this when Tom grasped my shoulder in panic because he was so drunk he was terrified he would drop his drink. Bless him! He's going to need to man-up before uni! After Blue Martini we headed to a club which had a really weird system. You had to wait outside until a black door opened and a bouncer let you in one at a time, searched you, then shepherded you to a desk. Here you had to give your details in exchange for a card to be used to buy all your drinks, then you had to queue to get out to check if you owed anything. An absolutely ridiculous system if you ask me. This is also apparently partly responsible for the tragic deaths of all the people in he nightclub in Brazil- the bouncers wouldn't let people leave in case they hadn't paid their bill. Anyway, the four of us rocked up in this weird club with a tree in the middle of it. The men in there were so strange! They'd come up to you, lift up their tops and just like gyrate heir hips at you. Literally the most bizarre thing ever. What about that is even he slightest bit attractive? Freaks they were. Particularly the guy who was trying to follow me home saying he loved me. It'ssSafe to say we legged it on to a bus and got home as he sun was rising. It's safe to say we've felt better than we did the next day.
On day four, we moved to Nomad hostel which was in the centre of town and right on the beach. The view was absolutely breathtaking and you could wander down some stairs to the beach from the sun terrace by the bar- pure bliss. We spent our days chilling on the beach and wandering through town. One afternoon Becky, Tom, Jake and I took a boat trip to the nearby islands. We got a cheap one which boasted free drinks for about a tenner so were pretty chuffed. However once we got on, we had no idea what the tour guide said and were supplied with warm glasses of knock off coke and water. Typical Brazilian fibs! The islands were beautiful though and we swam in the sea with sea turtles as Jake and Tom tried to out-tan each other (we beat them both).
We went out once more whilst in Buzios and ended up in a bar on the beach with a guy playing guitar. He had a book of his repertoire which was basically The Live Lounge playlist which was great fun. We all ended up pretty drunk and Becky and Jake went 'to look for Jake's lost money'. Tom and I got bored waiting to decided to sneak in to our room to nap until the cougar and her toy boy got back. This was such a genius plan at the time but then I passed out on my bed, Tom who was meant to be sleeping on he spare bed was found hugging the toilet by Becky so then everyone ended up staying the night. Everything was fine until we realised we had to sneak the boys out of our very strict hostel. Beck and I came up with this elaborate plan of distracting the receptionist with boring questions about how to get to Bolivia whilst the boys snuck out the beach way. We were so scared because we didn't want to be fined but Thank God it all went to plan.
After our week in Paradise, we began our 3 day trip across the Bolivian border. We left Buzios at 8am, got on an overnight bus to Campo Grande at 12.30pm which got us in at about 10am the next day. At this point Becky and I met two people that we didn't realise we would never be able to get rid of! Only joking, we met Rebecca and Sam, a couple from Nottingham University, loaded with Rebecca's insanely large suitcase, fondly known as Bill. We joined forces and from Campo Grande we headed to Corumba where Becky and I had already booked a hostel. As we got off the bus a man started calling Becky's name and hurried us into a tiny little office. He said the hostel was great (massive lie #1) and that we should book getting across the border with him because other companies screw you over (massive lie #2). The deal he offered wasn't much more than what we saw on the Internet, but Becky and I had no cash so he organised for a taxi to take us to an ATM. No joke, this was the scariest experience if our trip, this guy in a banger got us to the cash point... Just. To say his car was on its last legs was a serious understatement. It casually cut out whilst we crossed an intersection and I'm pretty sure the brakes didn't work. Anyway we got back, paid for our bus to Santa Cruz in Bolivia and headed to Hotel Salette with Sam and Rebecca in tow.
*WARNING* massive bitch coming up.
We got to Salette where they claimed they had no recollection of our booking even though our names were in the diary and they'd so kindly passed them on to Chopsy Von Salesman at the bus station. After a mix up with our rooms, Becky and I were given a room (cell) each and Becca and Sam had a double room. We braved the dribble of a shower got changed and headed out for all-you-can-eat pizza, which it turns out is all Corumba had going for it. We got back to the hotel, played cards in the kitchen area in front of an enormous picture of Jesus at the Last Supper, little did we know that this was somewhat symbolic of the hellish night we had ahead of us. We went to our rooms and gingerly tried to make ourselves at home. I think the guy's banger of a car felt safer. Next thing I hear Becky squeal as she discovered hair in her bed, blood on the wall and cockroaches everywhere. We grabbed all her stuff, put it in my room and went to reception to tell them we wanted to change rooms. The arse of a boy was so ignorant and laughed as we typed the issue to him on google translate . We asked to speak to his manager, so then he rang someone and said we could speak to the owner in he morning. We gave him the key to the other room to prove we were only sleeping in one and Becky an I shared one tiny single bed, terrified to sleep incase bugs crawled on us/an axe murderer came out of the cupboard. The whole place was creepy, I went to the bathroom the next morning and there was just this skinny, lurker-y guy in the corridor watching me. We got out of our room as soon as possible and braced ourselves to explain to the receptionist. Turns out the receptionist was only a cleaner, there's no manager, the hotel has no partnership with Hostelworld and even though he cleaner's agreed with us we had to pay or they would call the police. We were so angry and we are currently in the process of arsy e-mails to Hostelworld to get compensation.
We got a local bus to he order, queued for hours and eventually to cross to Bolivia. We had to hang around Quijarro (sp?) for a few hours before we got on the night bus to Santa Cruz. We had a mare as none of us had much money and there were no cashpoints. We eventually got on the bus and as Becca was saying how much it reminded her of Jeepers Creepers, crash, bang, wallop the bus broke down in the arse end of nowhere. It didn't delay us to much and we arrived in Santa Cruz earlier than expected and headed to Jodanga hostel where the lovely owner let us sleep in the tv room until our rooms were ready.
Mission FINALLY completed.
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