Blog: Green Beer / Dancing Gringos

Well, somehow or another I survived long enough to celebrate my 23rd Birthday, which was a done with a drunken night of dancing in a series of what can only be described as “dive bars” (one of them could be described as the “Rock Bottom Cafe”, but that´s what it was actually called, and it wasn’t half bad). Our day started with the most infuriating day of trying to appease the Brazilian Visa requirements, only to find out that after a 2 hour lunch, the Embassy doesn’t even deal with visas, and that we´d have to come back the next day anyways. What seemed like the worst possible Birthday ever turned into one of the best, as we met 2 Canadian girls (Candice and Tiffany) who were also in the midst of trying to appease the lazy Brazilians. So upon finding out it was our birthday (yes, both of us), the girls decided that it was imperative that we begin drinking, and by 5pm we were sitting drinking beers on a patio. We went for dinner (total cost like 9 bucks for the 4 of us) and we found the nearest Discotheque, which couldn’t have been more awkward, being as it was laid out like a highschool prom, and there were 15 people filling the 200 capacity hall (and 7 or 8 of them were watching the movie Waterworld).

We found a nice table in the corner and decided that the Green Beer sounded interesting. Interesting yes, tasty no. We managed to finish that off, allong with another pitcher, and decided it was time to head on to the next place; Mongos. This place was packed, and well, lets just say its secondary name – “the rock bottom cafe” – summed it all up. So we gave up and headed to the last destination, a Kareoke/Discoteque/Chineese food restaurant to drink away the rest of our evening. We danced, we drank, and in the end, we walked home in the rain and happily passed out.

Yesterday, things worked out a bit better, and the Brazilian Embassy took our visa applications and they said they should be processed the next day at 10am, at which point we begin our 2 week journey from the top of the Andes down to Amazon Basin, and eventually onto the Amazon Rain Forest in riverboats towards the Atlantic Ocean, which means i will likely be out of touch. This is all assuming we survive the 3000m descent allong the “Worlds most dangerous road”, but being as we’ve made so many plans and gone through so many hardships just to get to Brazil, its just not possible.

Yesterday the Brazilian embassy accepted our visa applications, and said that they should be ready by today and they were! This means tomorrow tomorrow  morning we being our 2 week journey from the Top of the Andes (4600m) to the Atlantic Ocean along the Amazon River through the Amazon Rain Forest… of course assuming we survive the 3km drop in elevation along the “Worlds most dangerous road”. That adventure starts tomorrow.

PEACE!