Foz do Iguacu, Brazil

We crossed the border from Argentina to Brazil... here are step-by-step instructions on our day:

1. Miss the local bus to Brazil by 2 minutes; wait for 30 minutes for the next one
2. At immigration have the bus (accidentally?) leave you there; wait for the next one
3. Meet another English couple - they’ll help the time go faster (as you’ve noticed in our blogs, we’re like flies to a bug zapper when it comes to the English)
4. Have the bus drop you off at the wrong bus station, realize you do not speak Portuguese and have no Brazilian currency; find an ATM and wait 20 minutes for the guards to cash-out the ATMs
5. Take a taxi to the correct bus station; Miss the bus by 5 minutes and, ugh, the next one is not for 6 hours
6. Walk to the nearest restaurant and order chicken for lunch (and chill out because they have free WIFI)
7. Get bored and walk to the hotel across the street; order a bunch of beer (the English love this)
8. Walk back to the restaurant (because there’s only one) and order the steak because it’s now dinner time
9. Get on the bus to Sao Paolo and stop at customs security check, where your bus is randomly selected for a FULL search of over two hours (sniffing dogs, guards with machine guns, crying people -- full grown men getting hand-cuffed) and have over 20 bags confiscated from your bus!!  All the while, you understand NOTHING and want to scream, “is this normal in Brazil?!?”
10. Continue on the bus-ride with an armed guard sitting in the last row of the bus, pointing his gun at the passengers, especially those wanting to enter the toilet
11. Out of exhaustion, fall asleep to your Ipod with three mafia members sitting across the aisle (full length leather trench coats, black market cell phones and goods in carry on bags; they also talked annoyingly loud and brazenly argued with each other)
12. Arrive in Sao Paolo and take the metro to the only hostel in town --- there are 20 million people here and NO private hotel rooms, so you end up taking dorm beds (Ken in one, me in the other).  Although, fun fact: Ken is sharing a room with a guy named (literally) Tupac Shakur... we even confirmed his passport.

We barely made it to Sao Paolo, but after $100 sushi and being self-conscience around pretentious Prada-wearing fashionistas, we’re ready to move on... heading to Rio tomorrow.