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Published: February 10th 2007
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It was a gruelling 24 hour trip from Salta to reach Puerto Iguazu, with a brief stop in the town of Corrientes to change buses. Puerto Iguazu is in Argentina but lies only a stone´s throw from both Brazil and Paraguay. The town itself has nothing to speak of really, but it is the main base for reaching the Iguazu National Park, famous for its waterfalls.
I spent a full day at the Argentine side of the falls. The set-up there reminded me of Disney World, with trains ferrying the vast numbers of tourists around the various parts of the park. I took the train first to the most spectacular fall of them all - ´The Devil´s Throat´(or ´Garganta del Diablo´). There is a trail and platform which allows you to get right up to the tip, meaning that you almost get swallowed by the relentless and powerful spray being ejected up from the bottom of the ´throat´. The sheer strength and energy of the fall was remarkable. It was so wet on the platform that taking photos is rather precarious - many a digital camera must have died there.
The falls are situated in dense rainforest/jungle and this
means intense humidity. There is an impressive range of wildlife in the rainforest. Among the creatures that I spotted were an alligator, the racoon-like coati, lizards, as well as a variety of beautiful birds and butterflies. There are apparently also monkeys, pumas and snakes, but I didn´t come across any of those.
There are two main trails in the park - upper and lower - which get you right up close and personal to the falls. On the lower trail there is an opportunity to get on a jet boat for a different perspective of the falls, and I took this up. Once having been kitted up with a life jacket and a big waterproof bag to keep my stuff dry, I was whisked off on a ride along the river. I sat there hopelessly as I was taken to the foot of some huge waterfalls... I got absolutely drenched. So wet was I that I never properly dried up afterwards, making walking around pretty damn uncomfortable. At one point a girl gave me a quizzical look on sight of my wet shorts - you´d think that with all the water around she´d have worked it out, but from
her expression you´d have presumed we were in the desert. The jet boating actually gave me welcome refreshment from the almost unbearable humidity, and was the highlight of my day.
The next day I decided to visit the town of Foz de Iguazu over the border in Brazil, to see the falls from the Brazilian side. I had hardly any cash on me when I arrived but figured that there would be an ATM somewhere nearby. There wasn´t. I asked someone for directions to the nearest bank, and was told that there was one about 6 blocks away from the bus station. Having walked the 6 blocks, almost inevitably there was not a bank in sight. Then, all of a sudden, an almighty storm broke out. Great. There I was, stuck in the middle of this strange town with no money and no shelter. All my own fault of course, although arguably the question should be asked of the town planner as to why the bus station is situated so inconveniently away from everything. Thanks to the storm, I got soaked - again. It wasn´t too long before I found a taxi and I asked the driver to take
me to the nearest bank. Not speaking any Portuguese, even this proved to be something of an effort, but to my relief the driver did take me to a bank. My troubles were not over, though. None of the cash machines would accept any of my cards. I had no choice but to go back to the taxi and ask the driver to find me another bank. He duly obliged. The first 2 machines in the next bank also rejected my cards (I was getting a tad alarmed at this point!), but the third did allow me cash from my credit card (not ideal but in the circumstances I couldn´t be fussy). By the time I got back in the taxi the afternoon was fast disappearing and there was no sign of the storm abating. Deciding to cut my losses, I returned to the bus station and caught the next bus back to Argentina, without having seen the falls. And so concluded my first little Brazilian experience.
When I got back to Puerto Iguazu a strange thing happened. A girl started speaking to me in Hebrew. I am finding that more and more people are mistaking me for an
Israeli. This girl was so convinced that she didn´t even ask if I was Israeli before chattering away. This wouldn´t bother me normally, except that the Israelis aren´t exactly the most popular people on the backpacker circuit. They tend to stick together in large groups and can be very irritating. They tend to have very little tact, making loads of noise even when people are clearly trying to sleep. I am obviously generalising here - I have met some very nice Israelis too. Anyway, I´m guessing that the facial hair I have accumulated recently is the cause of the mistaken identity. I suppose I should have a shave soon.
I met up with Terence again while in Puerto Iguazu and we went to a quirky nightclub on the Saturday night called ´Cuba Libre´. Everybody in the club seemed really gloomy, as if they didn´t want to be there. Perhaps it was the shocking music being played, but we were struck by how un-Argentinian the place felt.
On Sunday I was determined to make it to the Brazilian side of the falls, once and for all. This time the trip went smoothly and it was well worth the effort.
Many people say that the Brazilian side is not worth going to, but I disagree. You are much more distanced and detached from the falls but this gives a better pespective of their enormous scale. I needed only about an hour and half there, with no Disney-esque trains being necessary this time.
After seeing the falls I headed back to Argentina to retrieve my belongings and then later returned across the border to get my bus to the Brazilian east coast. I had not needed to stop at the Brazilian border earlier (you only have to do so if you are staying in Brazil for more than 3 days), but now I had to get the stamp in my passport. It was a very strange border crossing indeed. It was completely open, leaving it up to people to decide whether or not they wanted to stop. There was hardly anybody official looking around, and getting my stamp proved to be quite an effort. Eventually I found an officer slumped in his chair watching TV and waved my passport at him, making it clear that I needed a stamp. Begrudgingly, he took my passport, quickly stamped it and handed it
back to me. And that was it. No inspection of my bags and no inspection of my yellow fever jab certificate, which I had read was an absolute necessity for entry into Brazil (perhaps this is the case at other border crossings, but certainly not at this one!).
The overnight bus (packed with Israelis, so I slept little!) from Foz de Iguazu brought me to Florianopolis, a city on the east coast of Brazil. The city is situated half on the mainland and half on the island of Santa Catarina. I am staying in the south of the island, in the small fishing village of Armacao. It is the most undeveloped part of the island, and I like it very much.
So, it is now time for me to sample the Brazilian beach life. Sounds like hard work, does it not?
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lisa
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this is great blog
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