Ihla Grande, Iguassu, Paraguay, Misiones

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Hola chicos

After the last installment, we travelled from Rio to an island an hour and a half off the ´Costa Verde' of Brazil called Ihla Grande. It was an absolutely gorgeous island and just what we needed after the hecticness of Rio. Only a small village on the island is occupied and you can take day trips by hiking or by boat to the copious lakes and beaches dotted around the island. On the first day we went hiking to find a waterfall (which was never found to Bruce's extreme disappointment) and saw lots of different plants and animals including massive bamboos and monkeys. We then found a beach and were a bit outraged to find that there were another 2 people on it! Unfortunately the next day I had a really bad cold and felt really ill. I also had a temperature. The people at our poussada were lovely and took good care of me but I felt really down and homesick feeling ill and being so far from home. I just wanted to cuddle up in my bed at home with my hot water bottle and some lemon and honey. It was also quite worrying having a temperature because we were such a long way from a major city and I was a little bit worried about my kidney. Fortunately the next day my temperature disappeared and although not a 100 % I felt much better. Unfortunately Bruce then came down with the same cold (minus the temperature). It was so frustrating being on this island with all its beauty and activities and not being able to make the most of it as we were both confined to bed for quite a few days. Towards the end of the week we managed to get a boat to the beach that is supposed to be the most beautiful in Brazil, which was rather lovely. Bruce helped his recuperation by body surfing in the big Atlantic waves!

Unfortunately that weekend there was a music festival on the island. It got really claustrophobic because so many people came over especially for it and the music wasn't actually very good. Even worse was the fact that the only nightclub on the island where everyone descended after the festival had finished was opposite our poussada so we didn't get a lot of sleep that night! We decided to treat ourselves the following day, which was our last day on the island and of sun for quite a while by chartering a boat and skipper. It was absolutely idyllic. We were taken to different beaches and swam in the sea around the boat and saw lots of massive starfish. We also stopped at a remote restaurant for lunch.

Next stop was Buenos Aires. We had a bit of an epic journey as it took 10 hours to get from Ihla Grande to Sao Paulo by ferry and bus, which is only 200km then we had a flight from Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires. We then had the day in B.A. before leaving to travel to Iguassu Falls with the volunteering outfit we had signed up with. The bus journey from B.A. to Iguassu was about 20 hours. I was extremely nervous about being stuck on a bus for that long but I hadn't accounted for Argentinian buses! The seats were so comfortable and they practically reclined all the way back and we got really cosy blankets and proper pillows. Before dinner we had an aperitif of whisky and coke followed by a meal with red wine and then a glass of champagne to settle down to the film with. Not exactly National Express! We fell in to a nicely sozzled sleep until the following morning when we were greeted with coffee, croissants and orange juice.

Iguassu Falls were amazing and the pictures speak for themselves. The only downside was that Garnham's Law came into effect and although it is normally about 20 degrees in winter, when we were there it was more like 5. The previous weekend a friend had been there and they were in t-shirts but we were wrapped up in lots of layers. The worst thing was on the first day when we went on the viewing platform to see the 'Devil's Throat'and got absolutely drenched. There was nowhere to warm up and it took about an hour by bus to get home (because we were on the Brazilian side) in cold soaking wet clothes. The hostel was built for the really hot weather that they normally have so there was no heating there either and the showers were lukewarm. It took a long time to warm up. We did the Argentinian side another day and took a speedboat into the falls and across rapids, then a 4 x 4 through the jungle which was good, although again very cold.

The next day we went to Paraguay, which is on the border with Argentina and Brazil. We had to go through Brazil to get to it so in one day we were in Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. Very strange for us island dwellers! Paraguay was pretty crazy. We got motocycle taxis over the border, which were really good fun. They hand you over a helmet and you jump on the back and tell them where you want to go and they dart off weaving through the traffic. We were, however, slightly concerned when Bruce didn't arrive at our destination. His taxi driver hadn't heard the destination that we were going to properly so had taken him somewhere else. Fortunately Bruce had overheard the destination from someone else and they made it to us in the end. As you can see though, Bruce is making a habit out of disappearing and worrying me!!!

There isn't any tax on electronic goods in Paraguay so they sell them everywhere in Ciudad del Este because people hop over the border to buy them cheaply. For some reason there are lots of people on the street trying to sell you socks and knickers all the time which is slightly surreal. One of our group got quite frustrated and asked one of them whether he looked like he needed a pair of pink frilly knickers! Smuggling over the border to Brazil is practically sanctioned in Paraguay and we saw people everywhere ripping electronics out of their original boxes. It was explained to us that they are then wrapped in plastic and repackaged. At six o'clock every night the bridge between Paraguay and Brazil is closed and they throw these boxes in to the river. There are people in boats down below who then collect the packages from the river and take them to the Brazilian to distribute in South America. We walked back over the bridge at about 5.30 p.m. and there were lots of people there waiting with their boxes for the bridge to close and another lot down by the river ready to collect them. The police are on the bridge but turn a blind eye to this activity.

After Paraguay, we travelled down to the Missiones area of Argentina to do our volunteer work. We were helping out in the indigenous village of Peruti which is in the middle of the jungle. The Guarani people are extremely poor and have very basic houses and very few have electricity or running water. They used to have a well but that got contaminated so they have to get all their water from the stream. They used to survive by fishing and hunting, but since the Yacireta dam was built the river has slowed to be almost a trickle and deforestation has changed their habitat substantially and driven lots of animals away. Over 75% of the children there suffer from malnourishment to some extent and lots of them have pot bellies due to hunger. The soil there is bright red and the kids get absolutely filthy because they play in it all the time. There are lots of really skinny stray dogs running all over the place.

We helped by cooking them meals, fetching clean water from the stream and distributing donated clothes. They have very few clothes and as they wear donated clothes they are all ill fitting, usually too large and some have quite incongruous slogans such as 'life is good'or 'I don't need your attitude I have my own'written in English on them! As they were so dirty we spent a lot of time cleaning the kids. The red soil gets everywhere! We also did a lot of hair brushing and de lousing. The kids there are so tough. I was brushing their hair and it was so tangled I knew that I was hurting them even though I was trying not to but they just sat there quietly. I would have been screaming as a child! We also played a lot with them. They were so sweet and cuddly and love being swung round, although it was frustrating not being able to speak much Spanish to them. Bruce played lots of football with the boys, although I'm not sure he would say that he entirely defended our honour in the great Argentina v England rivalry!

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