The edge of the Earth

South America » Argentina » Misiones » Iguazú National Park
October 1st 2006

Published: October 4th 2006

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Cassels

more falls

yep thats more falls

It has always amazed me that people in times long since past believed in a flat earth. What happens at the edge? Is the edge an endless cliff of jagged and forboding stone and rocks? Perhaps a stream trickles over the edge, or an ocean cascades off into the darkness, joining the unknown realms, and endless mystery of space?
Fortunatley some smart guy, some time ago thought it through, and figured out that the earth was infact round (I think he was greek, or english.)...(maybe his name was Alfred Antonopolis)...

...anyway, why do I visit such an abstract topic? The reason is that this week I visited a town at the northern most tip of Argentina, A place called Puerto Iguazu. A town less known then the cataratas that border it. (Cataratas are waterfalls), but I find that the title waterfalls does do justice to the phenomenom that I saw, and perhaps a foreign word atleast offers an element of mystery.

Las Cataratas de Iguazu are the most spectacular things I have ever seen. So comprehensively so that It seems everything I have seen before them was simply practice, preparing me for that one moment. A moment that I

falls

and me

stretched out over 5 hours, all the time simply looking at falling water and thinking ´nice falling water, perhaps this is another location worthy of an apple roughy or feijoa frenzy, and a rag-tag band of extreme geoligists´.

AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
They swallowed my soul,
plunging torrents, release me,
into leaping mist, circling birds,
hang on currents of thunder,
and stretch to reach the edge of the world above.

In truth it is something that the most articulate word-smith could not reach with words, and my amateur (tho indicative of natural talent) screen-size photos do no justice to 360 degree spectacle. It really is
not easy to imagine, and equally difficult to comprehend, when confronted with such fantabullousness.

Otherwise Puerto Iguazu was very nice. 35 degrees, humid, heaps of stray dogs (one particularly cute cocker-spaniel), kids asking for money, some weird animals, and Tracey had a touch of food poisining for a day.

I am headed on a 27 hour series of bus trips now to Salta, where I hope to find what I´m looking for. What am I looking for?
I don´t know.
I will when I find it.

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Andrew Cassels

Cassels

"What do we leave behind when we cross each frontier? Each moment seems to split in two; melancholy for what was left behind and the excitement of entering a new land." (diarios de las motocicletas) My story is one of adventure. A story of two like minded people embarking on a journey into a land whose oldest memories still mark her surface. I am on the verge of realising my dream of touring South America, and throughout this diary that dream shall come to fruition. My travelling partner is my girlfriend, Tracey, whom over the last few years has begun to share my dream, and in the month... full info