Iguazú

Iguazu falls

A great travel day normally comes after a shitty one. This rule was absoutely true in our way to Argentina. It is dificult to say when that day started technically. Thursday, 6:30 pm, we get into the bus which will take us from Sao Paulo to Iguazu. We will be there very fast, just 14 hours. Friday, 8:30am, we arrive in Foz de Iguazu, brazilian city in the border with easy access to the famous waterfalls. Already in the arrival this stop looks promising, we met two australians and one croatian in the bus and we quicky connect. We look for a place to stay together and we find this nice hostel - camping very close to the falls. It is the typical back-packers place with swimming pool, soccer field, table tennis and all that stuff. It looks like a nice choice but we wouldnt have too much time to enjoy it. Five minutes after the arrival we are in our way to the waterfalls. The lack of time was actually our only problem in Iguazu since we had decided that we would take a plane to Buenos Aires next day, from the first argentinian city after the border: Puerto Iguazu. The reason is that David is on holidays and with a deadline to come back to Madrid so another 20 hours in a bus is not a great idea. Therefore, we didnt waste time and went straight to the brazilian side of the very famous Iguazu waterfalls.

I guess you expect what I am going to say now… the Iguazu waterfalls are the greatest natural thing I have never seen. Just amazing, the Iguazu river comes down in 275 cascades up to 80 meters heigth. In the brazilian side you walk along the river, facing the sequence of waterfalls until you reach the most impressive point: the Devil’s throat, this is a sort of natural square with water falling in three of the sides and a platform that gets you in the middle on the forth side. There is where you really feel the power of all that water coming down all around you. You get wet and surprised by the permanent raimbow created down there. Just a pity there are thousands of other tourists sharing the experience in that small platform. You even have to queue for the good picture. In any case, the path there is impressive and very wel organized, with plenty of services, a 5 stars hotel and a bunch of souvenir shops and all this typical tourist stuff.

To complete the experience we decided to book to boat trip that gets you closer to the falls. Not as close to the Devil’s Throat as I would like but, instead, the boat goes right under three smaller waterfalls, called “The Three Musketeers” just to give everybody a cold shower. At this poing we were already starting to realize that it was going to be difficult to visit the argentinian side due to our time restriction. So we concluded that, after having done the boat thing, we were more or less done with the place. Some people told us afterwards that it was a big mistake, some others that we had seen the important part. Our impression was that there wasnt much else to see from the other side. Actually, the boat I was talking about gets into the argentinian side. Anyway, that was the decision, good or bad. The argentinian side was left for the next visit.

Let me tell you a “funny” story about Iguazú I read in Lonely Planet. Around 30 years ago you could hire an even more extreme experience of the waterfalls, you would board a rustic canoa tha some guy would sail to the edge of the Devil’s Throat. We would keep the canoa there while the tourist would take pictures. Some day the guy was not up to the challenge and a bunch of germans got a much closer look of the water than they would have liked. Since then this kind of trips were forbidden.

Brazilian - paraguayan - argentinian odisey

Anyway, the Iguazu falls were a great experience with good weather and nice company. The australians happened to be very nice guys even though they decided to stay in the hostel and left us the heavy responsability of partying in Foz de Iguazu. Well, in the last minute there was this very fat american fellow that joined us and spent the whole taxi trip speaking about brazilian hookers. He dissapeard very fast inside the club and nobody missed him. It was a great night only spoiled by our usual lenguage barrier. Great place: live music, good drinks and a surprisingly higher percentage of women. No big suprise we stayed there till it closed down.

With the first lights of the new day we came back to the hostel, slept an hour and 7am we were already up. This rush was because of my interest in visiting Paraguay (Iguazy is a triple border Brazil - Argentina - Paraguay), not just because of getting another stamp in the passport but because I had been said that electronic items were cheaper there and I wanted to get a notebook that would allow me to write my blog in those endless buses journeys. We didnt really have too much time case at 2pm we had to be in Argentina to get the plane to Buenos Aires. So we made it to Paraguay very fast, doing all the border stuff, and we walked around all those commercial centers with all our luggage with us just to find out that they had Spanish prices. Ciudad del Este, the paraguayan city I am speaking about is a chaos of people trying to sell you stuff, at least in the area close to the border. The funny thing is that you get into one of this commercial buildings and it looks like the Corte Inglés; salesman in suits and AC, what a contrast…

The paraguayan expedition was a total failure and we were very late for our plane. We negociated a price for a taxi all the way to Argentina but, right after crossing the border to Brazil, the driver says he changed his mind and he is going to leave us there. The truth is that he looked suspicious from the beginning; he spent all the trip speaking a different language (later on we would find out it was an indian language called guarani) with other drivers, like trying to pass them the job of getting us to Argentina.

So we found ourselves in stuck in the brazilian - paraguayan border, pretty far away from our destination and not really knowing how to get there. To make things more complicated we found out that, in an action that could easily belong to the “Paco, master of disaster” section, we hadnt taken into account that Argentinian time is one hour later than brazilian. Now we were really fucked. We had quite a hard time, thinking the Aerolineas plane was going to leave without us. Anyway, we managed to reach the argentinian border by bus and this very friendly border office allowed us to skip the very long queue when we told her about our problem. An equallly friendly taxi driver accepted to take us to Puerto Iguazu airport, 30 km away, for a bunch of brazilian reals and euros. We had made it, we were flying to Buenos Aires!

Bye, bye Brazil

So, afer this adventure in which we crossed three borders in the same day, we made it to Argentina. Brazil was over and maybe it is a good moment to get some conclussions about the experience in a country that I cant say I fall in love with it but I liked it very much. With an amazing natural environment and very friendly people the place surely deserves more than the month an a half I spent there. Millions of spots were left undone: the North coast, the Amazonia, the Pantanal… I leave with the feeling I didnt really get involved in the place, that I missed some more interaction with the locals.

The truth is that I got to know more spanish and argentinians than brazilians.Well, nothing to do about it now, thats the way it was. Anyhow, I had a lot of fun and I also discovred I enjoy this lonely way of travelling. If only for that, Brazil was unforgoteable. I loved the beaches, the juices, the landscape… I didnt like the beer, the lack of security in some places, the extreme poverty you see in others. Rio was amazing, Sao Paulo dissapointing. Morro de Sao Paulo was great, Salvador de Bahia dangerous. It’s been a bit of everything, since the exhausting beginning in Chapada Diamantina to the relax in Morro and the extasis in Rio.

Now is time for Argentina, a country that, even before I stepped on it, gets me very good fellings. New flag for the blog header, new category for the posts. So nice you came “boludo”!

Paco, master of disaster

• Well, I am not so sure about whether this should come here but since I dont have too much material for this section lately there we go. When boarding the boat I was talking about before, you are giving some bags to put your “delicated” stuff away from the water. Just for this time I am clever enough to remember about my watch that, on contrary to what it says, is NOT water proof. Paco 1 - disaster 0. However, when I get out the boat I forget the wach in the bag. Paco 1 - disaster 1. A few minutes later, just before getting into the jeep which is going to take us back to the park, I realize what it happened so I come back, waited for the boat and recovered my watch. ¿Paco 2 - disaster 1¿. You decide…
• I my rush exist of the Iguazu hostel, and been fucking drunk as I still was, I forget quite a few clothes, including my best shirt

More Info

Tags: Iguazú, Waterfal