Iguazu

18 September 2009

We arrived to Puerto Iguazu yesterday evening. We had incredible turbulence on the plane from Buenos Aires to Puerto Iguazu, to the point where Ilana was feeling a little under the weather when we got here. I’ve experiences more turbulence on airplane here in South America than I have anywhere else, and for some reason it does not really phase me at all. I am very thankful for the fact that I’ve flown all my life and am comfortable enough to stomach it.

It looks like a totally different country here. We went from a very urban environment, where el campo was still pretty urban with the massive McDonald’s and kioscos on every corner. I guess La Matanza isn’t really el campo, but it is in comparison to BA. But Puerto Iguazu is a town of maybe 30,000, in the middle of the rainforest. We left a chilly, windy BA full of urbanites for this hot and humid little paradise, and I couldn’t be any happier about it. We walked out of the airport and were greeted by several different species of butterflies, just chillin’ among the people, and a little Argentine girl who couldn’t stop saying “Mama, mama, las mariposas, las mariposas!” (the butterflies).

The hostel is pretty good too, although the pressure in the shower sucks. But the shower is very roomy and very refreshing in light of my tiny shower at my homestay. I can actually shave my legs without bumping my head on the sink and soap dish! Otherwise, I have great wifi, an ensuite bathroom I’m sharing with my friends and 2 others, and a tropical backdrop that made this morning’s rain incredibly bearable.

Last night, the desk attendant at the hostel recommended we go to this place called Hitos Las Fronteras, a lookout point where you can view both Paraguay and Brasil, which lie just across the Rio Iguazu. Although we arrived just AFTER sunset, the view was absolutely breathtaking. See the pictures. It really is awesome, and totally whet my appetite to see the falls even more. Afterwards, we went to this restaurant called Pizza Color, where we were serenaded by the smooth sounds of our “cruise ship” entertainers, singing and playing elevator music favorites while we dined outside on the patio. We also met a very preggers pup at the end of our dinner, which we fed food from the empty tables around us. We’re eaters, and we shared salads and a pizza, so of course we had nothing to offer from our table to her and her babies inside. We had a fabulous time with our new mama pup, who we named Che. The waitstaff was pretty upset with us though. Oops.

Today, I woke up (probably many times) to the sound of heavy, heavy rain on the tin roof of our hostel in Iguazu. I’m pretty sure there were some kind of fruit trees above us, as every once in a while, we’d hear loud thuds on the roof along with the rain. It’s awesome to sit in the rainforest and just watch the rain, but when all the activities in town involve the outdoors, it’s a bit of a buzzkill when it rains all day long (today’s forecast). I can’t wait to make it to the park and Iguazu Falls tomorrow!

While watching the rain, I’ve tried to journal/blog some, but at some point I NEEDED food (since we slept in and missed breakfast), so we set out down the road for this cute little restaurant down the way. It turns out that our friend Che lives at the hostel, and she followed us all the way to the restaurant, at which point she was shooed away. We were very upset by this…we gotta feed Che and her babies! We had these massive milanesa (fried veal) sandwiches and were stuffed.

We followed up lunch with a tour of this place called Aripuca, which is this weird place out in the woods, and almost every structure there is made from the trunks of these massive trees. I believe that the trees were sick, and that’s why they were hollowed out and used for building, but I’m not completely sure. The verbal explanation was in Spanish, and all other notation in the tree museum was about God and his plan for these trees and how we all need to live in harmony or something. We climbed up into the rafters of this tree building, which we were not supposed to do, but everyone else was doing it and we were dying to get up there. But see the pictures, they’re pretty cool. We also got some yerba mate flavored ice cream, which was pretty interesting. (Yerba Mate is this type of tea that is incredibly common in Argentina).

Afterwards, we wandered down the highway looking for this monkey and toucan reserve. We found it, but apparently there are no monkeys, and were a bit more than we wanted to spend a day before going to the park, so we ended up at another hostel down the road. This hostel was also affiliated with ours, and had a swimming pool, so we used their activities desk to try and figure out something else to do before settling down around their pool and drinking Quilmes, the main beer here (and it’s really not great at all). We did a whole lot of people watching, and ended up taking pictures of a caterpillar. It was pretty, I liked it, and the girls made fun of me. Very naturey.

Who knows what the night will hold...all I know is that I'm dirty, in the middle of the rainforest, can see 3 countries from this point, and am perfectly content.