Iguazu Falls and week 1 in Rio

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Its been a couple of weeks now since my last update and i now have a few moments to let you know what ive been up to since then.

After leaving Cordoba I originally intended to stay in Iguazu for 5 nights in order to see the falls and have a few days lounging by the pool. This however turned into nearly a fortnight due to unforseen reasons, i.e. my card was eaten by an ATM machine. Fortunatly I had taken all the necessary steps to assure I wouldnt be forced to become the latest member of a Rio favella gang and all is fine. As a result however I had to stay in iguazu for a few extra nights under the assurance that I would be able to get my card back the day I was due to leave. True to Argentinian customer service standards this was not the case and I left for Rio minus one bankcard.

Asides from this small issue my time in Iguazu was brilliant. The falls were absolutly phenominal and we spent around 8 hours trekking first at the top of the waterfalls and then the through the lower section. Iguazu is around 5 times the size of Niagra Falls and is classified as one of the natural wonders of the world. We traveled through miles of untouched semi tropical forests before arriving at our destination and quickly got about exploring. We first went along the top of the smaller falls which at the time were still really impressive, this opened out into the St Martins falls which were bigger still and then we went to the daddy otherwise known as the aptly named devils throat. Here the water cascaded down from three sides of the river, so much water and spray came out that you couldnt see the bottom and even right at the top we still got soaked. Not as soaked however as the lower sector where we took a speed boat out directly under the falls, you couldnt see much, especially wearing contact lenses, but the shear force of the water coming down was amazing.

The next day me and two pals went on an adventure trek through the forests and out to the Parana River. After a 2 hour trek through the forest we came out at a huge vertical rockface which we climbed, at the top you could look out over the river and see over to Brazil, in the east and Paraguy to the west. Then we zip-lined, like on the eliminator in gladiators, through the forest canopy to the other side before absailing back down, which was scary. We then took a boat up the river to the three frontiers, were the Iguazu river and the Parana river meet and we sat in the middle in international waters looking into Paraguy Brazil and Argentina.

We spent a few days after that around the pool which was great, and played lots of Football with the locals and the staff, usually England vs Argentina, and Argentina generally won. I think i blame the dodgy pitch.

The lads then went onto Rio and I decided to stay to the end of the week. The weather was great at first and I spent my days reading by the pool and drinking Quilmes. (not too many) I met some really sound Irish guys and a few Americans and we went into town for a couple of nights. The day before i left we decided that we would take the bus to Paraguy, which was and experience. Just over the boarder is a city called Ciudad del Est and its quality for picking up tax free electrical goods and i thought it was about time i invested in some i-pod speakers for my room in the hostel. These were easy to find and about half price by English standards.

I left for Rio the following morning and the journey took around 22 hours arriving around 11 am the following day. After fighting my way through a million taxi drivers i got into a licenced cab and negotiated a pretty good price. I spent my first night in a hostel called Mellow Yellow which was ok, not so clean however and the lads had decided they were moving on to a hostel called the Ipanema Wave. This again was pretty rubbish and its been third time lucky, our new hostel that we moved into yesterday is really nice, clean and the location is awsome. They also run really good tours of the city. The first couple of days were pretty slow as there is not much to due in Rio as a tourist if it is raining. There is however a huge ex-pat community and pleanty of English and Irish bars to match. So we had a very uncultured initial few days watching the premiership games live on brazilian TV. No watford games though unfortunatly.

Yesterday we went down to Ipanema beach and spent the day sunbathing and chilling out in the sea, the sea is cold but really refreshing, and its hard work trying to keep upright in the current, the girls are really fit too.

We woke up early today (9am) to go on one of the tours ran by the hostel. It was really good. First we trekked up one of the mountains in Rio to reach a huge monolyth which had awsome views of the city. Then we went up to the Christ the Redeemer Statue that overlooks the whole of the city and there was a great view of the sugarloaf mountin, Ipanema, Copacabana and the Maracana national staduim. We stopped and had some lunch and then headed off to a suburb called Lapa, where all the cool kids hang out. We saw some famous steps, they were quite pretty but also featured in a recent rap video which seemed to be the main interest.

Still struggling with the photos, most computers are really slow and not equipt to deal with a USB. As soon as i find some where ill get them posted.


Take Care

Love Si.

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