Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls

Monday 8 February
Puerto Iguazu, Argentina – Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil.

So having been woken up early by an Israeli who thought it would be a good idea to blow his nose in the bathroom sink with the door open for all the dorm to hear, I decide to make use of my time and head back to the waterfalls again to finish off the parts of the Argentinean side that I didn’t do the previous day.

It’s more cloudy today and a fraction cooler. I finish off the lower circuit that I didn’t do last time. On my way to the exit we come across a whole tribe of monkeys who are making their way across the main path. I get some good photos and also a bit of video of one of them. We also see them eating papayas from the trees, throwing the skins on the ground.

I also get some more extensive pictures of the Coatis who are totally unafraid of humans, coming right up to them in the hope of some food. Even though I don’t think they’re meant to be fed. And there was a large lizard. Yes, lizard. Mr. Lizard.

I get back to the hostel and pack quickly as there is a bus shortly leaving for Foz do Iguaçu on the Brazilian side. Just as I get to the bus station I see the bus leaving from its stop. I maniacally fling myself out in front of it (well not quite, but you know what I mean). Then a few things happen in quick succession. Firstly the bus driver luckily notices me and signals that he’ll pick me up round the corner. Secondly, someone points out that I’ve dropped something. It turns out to be one of my bottles of sun tan lotion that I kept in a compartment at the bottom of my bag. I notice that the zip’s come open and of the three bottles that were in there, all of them had fallen out and I now only had the last one which I just picked up. Finally some official from the bus station reprimanded me in Spanish for walking outside the pedestrian zone when I waved to the bus driver. “Yeah, whatever,” I thought to myself as I ignored her and headed for the bus.

Back on the bus, panting, hot, and bemoaning the loss of the sun tan lotion, it was only a short time before we reached the border. We went through Argentinean passport control and then drove down the road to Brazil. There we left with our bags and did the forms and stamps thing. Then we had to wait another 40 minutes for the next bus to come along, which was a bit of a bore.

But that wasn’t the worst aspect. There were a lot of clouds around, and it was windy. I scanned the weather with my yachtsman’s experience and I didn’t think much of it. There was plenty of rain around and it seemed only a matter of time before some of it reached us. And it took only a couple of minutes before I was proved right.

I saw the rain first coming over the customs buildings and then quickly towards us. We sheltered under a tree but it wasn’t enough. Luckily there were two Canadian people in the same situation as me and one of them spoke good enough Spanish to get by in Portuguese, and he quickly ordered us a taxi.

It was just as well as by now the rain was torrential and as we drove into town it came down so hard and so fast, you could barely see twenty metres. There were rivers running down the streets washing plenty of rubbish with it.

We arrived at my hostel and despite there only being about three metres between the taxi and the hostel door, I still managed to get soaked to the skin.

I sorted myself out spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and surfing the web. By evening time the rain had stopped and I ventured out for a cash machine and food. Money was no problem but all the restaurants nearby were cheap and cheerful. I picked a pizza place that had a lot of people in it – though once inside I found out that that was mainly because there was some birthday party on.

There was an amusing and confusing process of trying to work out how to order. They didn’t seem to want to give me a menu and in the end they found a waiter who spoke a bit of English. It turned out that it was a kind of table buffet service where they brought round pizzas which you could choose to have a piece of, and then you paid for the number of pieces that you had at the end.

I wasn’t that hungry so only had a few, but after all the hassles of the last few days the thing I was most interested in was the beer. There was a special offer on a beer called Chop which, being cold, light and refreshing, was ideal. I had two.

Back at the hostel the bar was busy and there were plenty more beers and of course caparinhias. Well, when in Brazil... A good few drinks and a good chat with some English girls and some Aussie guys and all was well with the world once again.