Rejection and the Resulting Journey To Cusco, Peru

So, I left the community with the plans of going through Bolivia to get to southern Peru. I got to the border town of Brasileia the night after I left. I decided to go straight to Bolivia that night. Upon seeing my passport, the first thing the immigration official asked me was, "Visa?" Visa, what? I needed a visa? Apparently, starting at the beginning of that month, all citizens of the USA needed a visa in order to enter Bolivia. Well, thats great. I got rejected at the Bolivian border. The official told me that I could come back the next morning and get a visa, no problem. Ok, thats not so bad, I thought. I found myself a cheap hostel in Brasileia and hit the sack.
The next morning, I set out to get money from an ATM. My two cards were rejected by three different banks which happened to be the only three banks in the town. I used my last reia (about 50 cents) to buy myself a small snack and figured I would just have to get money in Bolivia. That meant I would have to walk to the border, and somehow get to the border town in Bolivia. I got my things together in the hostel, put on my rain jacket, and set out into the pouring rain to find the border. About an hour and a half later, after bad directions and broken flip flops, I arrived at the border. But then I was informed that I had to get a new exit stamp from the federal police in Brazil, because my exit stamp was yesterday. Half an hour later, I was back at the border, only to receive the very news I did not want to hear. I couldn´t get a visa. I did not have a passport photo, flight back to the states, or a hotel reservation. Great. I was rejected at the Bolivian border for the second time, flat broke, with no way of getting money.
Thankfully, God decided to show a little mercy in the form of great kindness by the border official. He did me a huge favor by taking me to a bank in the Bolivian town on the back of his tiny motorcycle and then back to the border. That guy really saved me, if he hadn´t done that I have no idea what I would have done. He also told me that, contrary to what I had previously thought, I could go directly into Peru from Brazil. I just had to get a bus to Assis, Brazil and then cross the border to Inapari, Peru.
Once in Inapari, I got a shared taxi to Puerto Maldonado. Right before arriving at about 1 AM, we had to cross a river via car ferry. This particular car ferry had a tiny motor and space for just one car. The man operating the ferry simply set up two planks of wood for the car to drive up onto the ferry. Getting on the ferry was easy and uneventfull, getting off was quite the opposit. Luckily, the other passengers and I got out of the car while we got on and off the ferry. When the driver backed onto the two planks of wood, on of the planks was pushed back and dropped, leaving the car on three wheels. It looked like it was about to fall off of the ferry. Luckily, after several minutes the driver was able to get the car back on it´s four wheels on the ferry before successfully backing down the two planks of wood.
The next day, I got on a bus that would take me directly to Cusco from Puerto Maldonado. Luckily, I got to the bus station right in time and got the last ticket available for the bus. This busride proved to be the worst one I have ever experienced. We left Puerto Maldonado at around 2 PM and arrived in Cusco around 7 AM the next morning. That is 17 hours, the first 14 of which were on one of the worst roads I´ve ever seen. To make things worse, we got a little rain making the road muddy. The bus was constantly rocking back and forth due to crater-like pot holes. We bottomed out numerous time on gravel, each time a horribly loud metal-on-rock sound was produced that could wake the dead. It certainly woke me up several times throughout the night. We also drifted around several turns and got stuck in several exceptionally muddy bits. It was scary. I got a terrible sleep, waking up at least once every hour. The next morning I felt horrible, due to the high altitude of Cusco, the infected cuts in my feet, and the soreness present throughtout my body. Regardless, I was there. I got there much faster than I thought I would have been able to, so, I guesse it was kindof a good thing I got rejected at the border.
I know I am way behind, and I will try to update again tomorrow.