Advertisement
Day 225 - Friday 2 May
As I've seen pretty much everything there is to see on the Argentinian side of the border Im going to cross over to the brazilian side. According to the Lonely Planet its a lot more lively.
Its only a 30 minute bus ride from Puerto Iguazu on the Argentianian side to Foz de Iguacu on the Brazilain side and by lunchtime I'd arrived. I dropped my bags off at the hostel and went out to get lunch and have a look around the town centre. To be honest its just like any other poor run down town you see all over the world, and I found it rather dull and boring.
Apart from seeing the falls from the Brazilian side of the river (something i've now decided not to see), the only other tourist attraction here is the Itaipu dam. The worlds largest hydroelectrical power plant, and apparently one of the 7 modern day wonders of the world. I was all set to go and visit it when it clouded over and looked like it was about to rain. After yesterdays I've decided to leave it until tomorrow.
As i'm not
seeing the dam now and i've already explored the town there wasn't much to do for the rest of the afternoon except watch a bit of tv and do some research about Brazil on the internet.
Im supposed to be staying in the busy bar area of town (according to the planet), but I can't really see many bars so I asked the hostel staff where they were. They didn't seem to think there were many and as it's the May bank holiday weekend here as well the buses are all full so I can't leave town until sunday night. With not much to do and the hostel being pretty empty I ended up a bit bored watching tv for the rest of the night.
Day 226 - Saturday 3 May
I´d been sharing a room with a French girl last night, and over breakfast we decided to head off to the dam together. Shes called Karine and is a journalist for a French newspaper in BA. As shes from Nice she also has that sexy French accent.
The guide books tell you that a tour of the dam is free, but on arrival we discovered
that its not free but actually costs 13 reais (about £4). As we were there now we were hardly going to turn round and head back to town so paid up. Bloody cheek!
I´d expected there to be only about half a dozen people on the tour as they run it 5 times a day, so was amazed to discover about 200 people waiting for it. I don´t really know why its so popular as I thought it was a little dissapnting . We didn´t get to go inside, instead we only got a bus ride along the top and stopped at a couple of viewpoints. To me it was just a big wall of concrete but I must admit I spent most of the time talking to Karine rather than taking the dam in.
As I hadn´t been to inpressed with Foz last night and this side of the border is twice as expensive as the Argentinian side I´d booked myself back into my old hostel in Argentina. This has given me a bit of a dillema as I reckon I´ve got a bit of a chance with Karine, and with tonight being a saturday i´ve got
the perfect excuse to get her drunk. Amazingy when I suggested she should come with me she readilly agreed. It looks like all is going well or so I thought.
We crossed back into Argentina mid afternoon. As we were at the bus station, Karine went to book her bus ticket back to BA on sunday as shes got to go back to work on monday morning. Unfortuantely as its the holiday weekend a lot of other Argentinians have also got to get back to BA and all the buses are full. So rather than spend the night with me she had to ake a bus to some town 4 hours away in the hope she can get a bus from there. Done over once again. Shes going to Bolivia for a weeks holiday in July and wants to meet up then but I can´t see myself still being in Bolivia in July.
On my own again I thought about going out. I should really as its a saturday night and my last night in Argentina, but as everyone I meet warns me Brazil is so expensive and I´ll spend a fortune there I thought id be sensible and save some money. They´ll be plenty of chances to party once I reach Rio.
Day 227 - Sunday 4 May
I toyed with the idea of popping over to Paraguay for a few hours as i´m already at the border. However a few people in my hostel who´ve done it say theirs not much to do at the first town over the border so I didn´t bother.
Its been cold the past few days but its warming up a bit today so instead I lounged in the hammock by the pool reading and occasionally using the internet.
Early evening I crossed over the border back into Brazilan and waited for my bus to leave town. Once onboard I was in the middle of a good sleep when at half two in the morning the police boarded the bus and did an id check. There were two of them and 1 was stood around bored whilst his mate checked everyones id. He must have noticed I was foreign as he came over to me and asked for my passport even though his mate has already checked it. When he saw I was British he wanted to see all my hand luggage and spent the next twenty minutes going through it like a fine toothcomb. I persume he was looking for drugs and wanted a bribe if he found anyway but hes picked the wrong person. Eventually he said "enjoy your holiday". Wanker!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.056s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 13; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0352s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb