Puerto Iguazu Falls

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

From the sky, Iguazu looked very green and marshy.  Forrests of trees and water everywhere.  Got only a very small glimpse of the falls below.  Felt them when I got off the plane.  It was very humid and hot.

I thought I was so smart having just a carry on which should have allowed me to get to the hostel and over the border to Steph quickly.  I had the choice of taking a taxi for like 25 pesos or a bus (van) for 8 pesos.  Took the cheap option.  Ended up having to wait for all the luggage checkers to come out before it left.  So much for quick.

The drive to the hostel was nice.  El Guembe hostel is in a semi-residential semi-business area.  www.

elguembehostelhouse.com.ar This made for a nice walk through neighborhoods with chickens and horses running around when the hostel said that I had been walked to their other hostel 3 blocks away.  The nice thing is that this new hostel was just 2 blocks from the bus station which I will need to use very often.

As usual for me, it appears that there is only 1 other person in my room.  Never saw them though.  I´ll explain why soon...

ILLEGAL BORDER CROSSING

After dropping my bag, I went to the bus station armed with the map and note Ramina at the hostel gave me in her broken Spanglish.  The terminal crew gave me different directions.  The bus driver gave me yet different directions.  Should I stay or should I go?  What the heck.

..lets go!

The bus drivers I encountered in these travels were all very helpful.  They would tell me when to get off, point or walk me to the next stop, give me written notes to hand the next bus driver explaining my destination, and tell me when it was not a good neighborhood to get off in.  My love for transportation specialist continues.

The first bus dropped me off in the middle of nowhere.  The driver gave me a note and pointed for me to stand across the street.  This worked.  The next driver seemed to understand where I needed to go.  He dropped me off again in the middle of nowhere too though.  I grow a little concerned because I was told it was a 2 bus trip, not three.   But I waited where he pointed for about 30 minutes.

  No buses.  Just horse drawn carts.  Then it starts to rain.  Two cars passed by me asking where I was going and if I needed a ride.  Am I going to be forced to hitchhike?  Jump on the back of a horse cart?  Then I look up and notice a billboard with the name of Steph´s hostel on it and an arrow.  There is no indication of how many kilometers it is down the road...as if I could do the conversion into miles anyway!  But, it is raining so what do I have to lose? All the while I am in comunication with Steph who is standing ready at the hostel computer asking the staff if I turn right at the chicken in the road or what.  I walk and walk and walk down these back roads and eventually make it to the hostel with the longest unpronouncable name. .. Alberque da Juventude Paudimar hostel.  The word that looks like juvenile in the name is appropriate.  The place was filled with 14 year old kids jumping around in the pool.

The staff knew right away that the sopping wet tourista was Steph´s friend.  They directed me to the poolside bar where she was holding for a me a cold Heinekin.  Yes, I like this girl already!  Steph and I have been communicating via the internet for about 6-9 months and following each others blogs.  We filled in the blanks on what didn´t make it to the blogs over a few more drinks.  Soon we had a few other travellers join us and travellers tales were being shared.  Patrick (aka Richard Gere) from Holland has been following a similar path to us.

  Luis (from Florinopolis where the most beautiful people in the world live I am told, by him!) has been travelling for the last 9 years.  He has visited and worked odd jobs in 35 countries during that time.  He was with his friend Ranel who travels alot for his medical equipment sales job and is from Costa Rica.  The guys informed me around 9:30pm that the buses stopped running back to Argentina at 7:30ish and that they had heard stories of people getting thrown in jail for staying longer than the day pass to the Falls.  Taxis cost 50 pesos to get back.  Uh oh!  And soon after that, 4 armed police show up and cruise the hostel bar and end up sitting down for dinner.  Yikes!  What do I do?  They talked me out of plopping down at their table to ask hypothetical questions.

I ended up staying the night at the Brazil hostel and figured I will deal with the jail time issue with tears later.  The manager at this hostel called the girl at mine to let them know that I wasn´t coming home for the evening.  How cute it that?  Do you think they would have waited up for me?  Unfortunately, only a top bunk was available.  I haven´t quite mastered the ladder that doubles as a guard rail.  I wacked the girl below me with it while she slept.  Making friends quickly!  It was kinda a payback though.  When I got up at 6:30am to use the restroom down the hall, she locked me out of the room.  So, I tried to sleep in a chair in the lobby until Steph got up.

  It has been a day of comedy.

We went to the Brazillian side of the falls (which you will see a snipet on below) in the morning.  Figured I should see at least that side before going to jail.  My goal was to leave by 11:30am to make it back for a repelling activity scheduled on the Argentine side by 2pm.  I made it back at 4:30pm.  What happened now?

More very helpful bus drivers tried to take care of me.  They all had different directions though.  I ended up taking 5 different busses this time going through some of the same stops a few times.  I started to get concerned when my funds dwindled down to the equivelant of $3 USD and I still hadn´t made it to the border.   In the end I made it home with about 15 cents left.

  

What happened at the border?  The border agent asked me where my paper was.  What paper?  The paper they gave you when you entered Brazil.  They didn´t give me a paper.  He points to a sign that says that if you lose this paper you will have to pay $165 to replace it.  I wonder what he will think when I hand him my 15 cents and ask for a lay away plan.  I tell him that they never gave me a paper yesterday.  Then the yelling starts.  ¨I don´t speak English.  You need an interpreter.¨ He slams down my passport and moves onto the other people in line.   I stand there pathetically wondering where to hire an interpreter.  A woman jumps out of line to help.  Her English is about as good as my Spanish so she is worth the 15 cents I can pay her.

  Eventually angry agent picks up my passport and starts thumbing through it and finds the stamp they gave me at the airport 2 weeks ago and then waves me off.  Whew!

Why on earth is every waterfall at some border?  Niagra...Canada and US.  Vic Falls...Zimbabwe and Zambia.  Iguazu...Brasil and Argentina. They sure make it difficult for tourists to see the whole thing. 

Although I missed the repelling,  I was so happy to be back at home in Argentina to take a shower and get some clean clothes out of my bag that was chained to my bunk 24 hours ago.  I heard that the wet repelling wasn´t really at the Falls anyway.

FOZ DO IGUAZU

This is what the Brazillian side of the Falls is called.

  The Argentine side is Puerto Iguazu.  Important to know when you book flights, tours, and TAKE BUSES around here!  The entrance fee is 20 Reai (about $10 USD.)  Everyone said that all you need is about an hour here.  The best side is Argentina.  Well, you need an hour to wait in line to buy a ticket and take the bus to the walking point.  Then another hour to walk and pose for picture after picture. 

The Falls were nice.  Saw a few rainbows.  Got a little spray.  I will let the the pictures do the talking when I can post them.  Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe still takes the prize for me.  But, tomorrow is the Argentine side.  We plan to take a boat that will take us right under the pouring water.

 

WOO HOO PUERTO IGUAZU ROCKS!

What a wonderful day!  I take back that lack of enthusiasm I had for these Falls.  The Argentine side was amazing!  The time changed an hour earlier, the money changed from reais to pesos, the language changes from Portuguese to Castellano Spanish, and the Falls changed from ho hum to spectacular.  Vic Falls is second place to this.  But, let me back up. 

My roommate at the hostel was an older Israeli man with a name I did not recognize and can not remember.  That is okay as he had never heard of the name Kelly before and resorted to calling me ¨Hey American!¨  He had a Laos shirt on and I mentioned that it was one of my favorite places.

  Soon I was given the book the wrote on the place to read.  I wonder if he realizes that it was printed upside down and backwards...and in squiggly characters that aren´t really letters!  Anyway, the pictures brought back memories.  He proceeded to give me explicit directions on how to tour the Argentine side of the Falls without having to pay the $100 + $40 peso Great Adventure fee.   Awesome!  I even know where to go to skinny dip.  He also gave me his ticket which is supposed to allow me half price the second day into the national park.  That is if you can prove you have the same passport number as you had the day before.  Oops!  I had to pay the full 40 peso price.  I did have to sleep with one eye open as he was fiddling around in the room most of the night.   At one point I heard him on my side of the room.  I peaked and he was walking around in his scivies doing who knows what.  When he heard me rustle he tried to start a conversation again about the power being out.  Go to sleep then!  Woke up to find several large size cockroaches dead around the room.  He did tell me that he was in the military.  Maybe he was killing coachroaches all night.  The nice thing about this hostel is the air conditioning.  It is needed in this climate.  This is something that the juvenile hostel did not have. 

I shared a taxi for 5 pesos each with a cool couple from Spain and a local dude who said I had such good pronunciation of Spanish that he was confused if I was from the US or some other Spanish speaking country.

  Yes!  Tell that to the gente de Buenos Aires!  Pero I ditched them to meet up with Steph and her posse de the hostel on the Brasilian side.  And what a great group it was.  Gui and Leron were a French couple celebrating their 20 year partnership.   The coolest French guys I have met.  Sarah (the girl I whacked in the head yesterday and hoped would not run into again) came along with her other early 20s English friend, Amanda.  Ray is a 36 year old guy from Malaysia who had helped me to determine that I must get myself to Cuba. He had great stories of living with locals with only the bare essentials and salsa dancing the nights away.  Maria is a 28 year old from Ireland.  I idolize her travel plan. ..nothing.  She literally left the falls with us with no plan at all.  We dropped her at the bus station and she was just going to walk in and see where they had buses going to in the middle of the night.   She was ready to leave but did not know where to go.  I guess when you have 6 months to travel, it is easier to wing it like that.

So, the Iguazu Falls rock even though we were hiking around them in the pouring rain!  One of the funny sites was seeing all the tourists walking around single file in their matching white conehead pancho rain coats purchased in the gift store.   We also got to see other wildlife like monkeys, beautiful tucans, and coatis (anteater type looking animals.)  We took a train up part of the way and hiked from there over bridges.

  Very slippery bridges.  Why do they make them with metal?  Poor Sarah ripped off a toenail slipping on the path.   Wouldn´t you know that my camera decided to turn itself on in my bag the night before therefore the battery was drained.  I will have to download Steph´s photos for my visual memories of a spectacular site.  There were 2 very high points.  The first was standing over Devils Throat.  The waterfall was powerful.  The mist soaked us.  Warm air lifted off the rocks.   Birds were flying around in the mist.  It was a beautiful site...in fact, the most magnificent site I have ever seen.

The next amazing experience cost us 50 pesos.  We all jumped in a boat and rode straight into the waterfall.

  These guys were masterful boatsmen to be able to drive us smack into the downpour and back out without crashing into rocks.  My South American bathing suit was inaugurated.  We were soaked.  It was so fun! 

On the way out, we had a Havana cookie break.  These are very popular cookies filled with dulce de leche and covered in chocolate or powdered sugar.  I kept passing these stores in Buenos Aires.  I thought they were cigar shops.  These cookies are yummy!

I hitched a ride home in their van.  They dropped me at my hostel before heading back to their side of the border.  Ramina my favorite hostel hostess made sure I ended up having a room to myself which was good because I needed to hang all my soaked clothes out to dry for the night.

  Had a nice glass of vino tinto and an egg & green olive pizza on my last night in Iguazu.  This and the Maracana stadium futbol game are the highlights so far. 

Tomorrow I will meet up one last time with Andrew in BsAs and introduce him to Steph as we converge to live  the InterContinental life for one night.  Caio caio. 

THE JOURNEY BACK TO BsAs

Got up early, but there was nothing to do in the rain before my 1pm flight.  Instead of killing 3 hours in the hostel, I wanted to head to the airport early to try to get on an earlier flight.  But, the earliest 8 peso van was at 11am so I waited.  While watching the local news I learned that my Aerolineas pilots were on strike today and there was a cocaine bust at the airport in BsAs.

  So, I was in for major delays at the airport.  Great!  I wonder if I will get there in time for my flight tomorrow to Santiago????

Whew!  Made it with some time to hang out in my fancy room at the InterContinental Hotel which was free due to my Priority Club Rewards points.  www.ihg.com  We were only 2.5 hours delayed.  At least I had the Spanish newlyweds (Noeli and Carlos from the hostel) to translate for me some more.  I had no problem again getting through security with my hiking boots on and more liquids than are allowed.  Nice.  I have also found that for my last 2 flights here that the gate you go out of isn´t the gate that is posted on the screen.

  It is the one next door.  You don´t find this out until you have waited in the wrong line though.  Thank goodness they served us a snack... ham flavored crackers.  What other flavor would they have here?! 

ONE NIGHT IN BUENOS AIRES

After Steph finished her Tango lesson, we headed to Palermo for a nice dinner.  Andrew was to meet us, but as usual, directions and communication is tough without a working phone. So, he had dinner with couchsurfers probably a few blocks from us before he had to head off to the airport for one last visit to Rio.

Funny enough, we decided to have dinner at a Mexican restaurant on El Salvador Street in Argentina.  My first Mexican since leaving home.  Sounded good to me.

  And, the tacos were good and although a Pacifico might have been more appropriate the Temparillo wine was our choice.  We did what the locals do and took our time sipping and chatting until midnight.  Then we did what the locals don`t do...we got silly.  There was this big ceramic fish on the ledge between our table and a local couple on a date.  We decided it would be funny to spin its face around so that it was staring at them eat.  Thank goodness they had a sense of humor and did the same back to us.  We could not let it stop there though.  We started removing masks, puppets, flags, etc. from the wall decor and put on a little show for them over the ledge.  All the while, the restaurant staff was acting as if they did not see us doing this.   A tactic used to not encourage misbehaving children.

I thought my flight was to take off for Santiago at 6am, but it was actually 6pm.  So, I got an extra day in BsAs to enjoy the IC facilities.  And a nice bath and cozy bed was needed as I could feel my 3rd cold in 5 weeks coming back.  I thought I had finally licked it 2 days ago, but the symptoms are back.  Maybe I am allergic to Buenos Aires.  The air is very dusty.  Had a nice breakfast at Harmony cafe which included a big OJ for the cold and my first egg for breakast here.  Of course, ham came with the egg.

Steph and I parted ways after breakfast.  I left her with an assignment until we meet in Mendoza in a few days.

.. take 10 photos of various mullets and rattails.  They need to be in black & white or sepia to add to the artistic value of the montage.   Yes, I know.  We are a bad influence on each other and the reason why people don`t like western tourists.