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Curumba Curumba Curumba! well the place was lovely, the weather stupidly hot, and the hostel, well i have a lot to say about the hostel!
it was another hosteling international hostel we´ve stayed in three now so we thought this one would be as lovely and as helpful as the last...wrong! firstly they trie to charge us R$25 each for a dorm room with shared bathroom, so we laughed and faught it down to 17 each, the place was lovely the building clean and bright, the staff as miserable as sin.
We decided to go to bolivia from Curumba so needed tickets for the death train, so we agreed to buy them through the hostel as it was a much easier option (at this point i will say if you do want death train tickets DO do it through the hostel...and get Daniel to use the calculator to work it out, he will get it wrong you will get cheap tickets, in our case 50% normal price!!). Originally we were told the first class train took 10 hours and left at 1.30pm the next day, and that our tickets would be with us at 2 that afternoon...2pm came Daniel and our tickets did not (it turns out he had to come back to the hostel for more money but we didn´t know that at the time) and we waited and waited and nothing. So we tried to ask the énglish speaking´receptionist who couldnt speak english what was going on, and of course she had no idea.
We gave up for the night and went out for lunch, another disaster! we went to an all you can eat self service shindig sat down at 5´50pm and had some food, they then took away all of the trays etc, so of course we get excited thinking that we will get fresh...but nothing we found out it ends at 6pm, so we hand R$10 (instead of R$25) and storm out! But a blessing in disguise as we then had room for ice cream from an ice cream parlor which i went crazy in and had a scoop of EVERYTHING!
the next morning our tickets, we were informed, would be there at 9am, so we went and rushed about buying snacks and water and getting our brazil exit stamp and rushing back for 11 so we woiuld have time to rush to the bolivian border and get our entry stamp before catcing the train! And we get back and our tickets are there, hum,... our trains at 4.30pm, so more time to waste. we then try to fnd out what time we should get a taxi to the border to give us time, and surprise, surprise no one knows, so we decided on 3pm.
and then we spend ages trying to get the miserable woman on reception to phone us a taxi, so she does and it gets to 3´00 and we´re concerend about where our taxi is so ask and shes like now?? and then phones a taxi, i swear she was just winding us up!
So in the taxi and relaxed...........before realising we had left our swimming stuff on the line! Dom is now down to one pair of trousers!

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