A story of cocktails across the border.

“How did we end up there?” we were left pondering after a spontaneous night in Brazil. We were three young girls in South America and while at the triple frontier we wanted to add another stamp to our growing collection. It seemed only natural to nip over to Brazil to sample some authentic Caipirinhas.
The first hiccup came in crossing the border and failing to find the entry point for Brazil, with a language barrier to climb and the bus waiting, we failed to inform the relevant authorities of our arrival. Oops. Foz do Iguaçu wasn’t the most picturesque of towns so we scuttled into a nearby bar in search of the holy grail of cocktails, wary it wasn’t long until the last bus back. The second mishap quickly followed…where was the last bus back? An overly attentive local insisted on getting us to the bus stop, but as the lights in the street flickered amber to black, the chances of us finding this bus flickered likely to never. We could see the UK headlines and hurried into a nearby restaurant where both hope and electricity were restored.
The owners sat drinking, smoking and gambling and after a lot of gesticulating we realised that there was to be no return to Argentina that evening. With nothing else on the cards but a game of cards we joined our new friends at their table and tried to communicate through their 5 year old daughter, who had learnt some English at school.
Enter the hero, William, who had just returned from 4 years in America. ‘Meu amor!’ On hearing our predicament he invited us to his welcome home party and made a vague promise to get us back to the border. Over another Pilsener Williams’ plan was flawless. The night was a blur of traditional dancing, sausages and other local delicacies – Williams’s mothers’ passion fruit cocktail went down a storm! Family and friends welcomed us with open arms; we danced and experienced a true Brazilian party. While my priorities lay with learning to Samba, my two comrades had found a lift back to Argentina and at 2am we headed back.
However, the best things come in threes, bring forth the final hiccup. Upon trying to re-enter the country we came up against the flaw in the plan, border control wasn’t impressed about our entry to Brazil. There is a happy ending though and by some miracle we returned unscathed, to Argentina. I wouldn’t advocate getting into a Brazilians’ car under normal circumstances but this time it couldn’t have worked out better.