Water everywhere!

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OK so the 22 hours turned into 25 trying to get from Rio to Foz. The most frustrating is that there are no road signs so the only sign you have that you might be close is that Iguacu starts to appear on lots of names of shops etc as you pass through the villages. We got to Foz in the early afternoon. We had by then figured out that the fastest way to get where we wanted to go to next was via Argentina.

Soooo slight problem as obviously the Brazilians have no idea as to the bus schedules in Argentina. The one bus company operating in Foz could offer us a ticket arriving at Concordia at 3 am in the morning and from what I could understand it really was a road side drop off. The only option we had was to cross the border to sort out our ticket for the next stage once we had seen the falls.


So here we are, hot and sweaty and very sun burnt with swollen ankles (side effect of heat and long coach journeys!) trying to cross the border in 39C. To do this we had to get a bus to the center of Foz, then to the Brazilian border, then to the Argentine border and then to Puerto Iguacu. Once there we got out tickets to Concordia and cheated by getting a taxi to the hostel we were staying at! All this time the only thing that kept us going was the knowledge that there was a pool at the hostel. So we got changed into out bikinis and got to the pool in time for it to piss down with rain.

Sometimes traveling is not glamorous.


We cheered ourselves up with a bottle of wine and chatted to some of the other travelers and got ourselves an early night so we could get to the falls at a decent hour.


And they were worth the hellish journey many times over. Even though I have been before it still blows your mind away. We also did the boat trip which takes you to the falls and then under the spray which is created from the force of the water. The spray is like having buckets of water being thrown at you! It is just fantastic and exactly what you need when it is boiling hot! We also treated ourselves to a drink at the Sheraton with a panoramic view of the falls and in the afternoon went to see the Gargantua du Diablo (The devil´s throat) which is the most fantastic of them all. Pictures just do not justify the spectacle of mother nature though I will try with the photos I have....


We had only given ourselves a day at the falls and had to catch the 5.45 to BA. This meant pegging it back to the hostel, quickly showering in our bikinis from the boat trip, shoving some clothes on and telling the taxi to go mas rapido so we could get to the bus terminal in time. We arrived sopping wet on this exclusive Argentine bus - we had paid 5 extra pesos (1.5 euros) to have a full bed which is essentially a business class seat when flying. The bus never actually stops except for refueling and changing drivers so you are fed on board as if you were flying and you even get your own pillow! They were not amused at our wet clothes but we smiled and pretended not to understand when they kept pointing at our wet patches.

At 6 am we were as promised dumped on the side of the road in Concordia on the border with Uruguay. There were 5 other fellow travelers (and we thought we were the only clever ones!) so between us we shared cabs to the center and then on a bus to Salto which is the border town in Uruguay.

Changing countries includes the usual entertainment of having to get some money to be able to move. Visa cards do not work till 10 am in Uruguay apparently. No visa, no cash = no bus ticket, no food, no water. The bank was very picky as to which card it would accept to get money out with etc as well as trying to figure out what exchange rate and how much things actually cost! Once done though we were on our way to the Terma Springs on the outskirts of Salto.

PS Mobile phone is not working and I will upload photos when I get to BA at end of the week... Thanks for the all the emails especially the ones with news from back home x x

Photos can be seen at http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/foodiefloozie/my_photos

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Comments

[anonymous]

Send you snow balls from Holland
Hello girls, I could have pasted here my long email on how life is Holland...but too many details for those people reading that I don't know, and who knows, if one day, this is populatedit could cost me too many troubles ;-) Here, we are still in the white snow, although today it has rained and so snows is disappering, hopefully we are moving towards spring...Well, I enjoyed reading your journal. I miss you. Think of you all the times, and think how much you must be happy out there. So you take care girl, I want you back to Paris !!! And for the hot news, it 's on private emails :o I love you, Corinne - Corinne