Animal Kingdom!!

---

Hola amigos!

Well what another great day we´ve had! Better start off where I left off last time I spose....

Well we went for that steak dinner after last night. And we were NOT disappointed. First we had some empanadas pollo (chicken and some veggies in a pastry shell) freakin´delicious! Then came the steaks. Jacqueline had some kind of mushroom sauce, and I went for black pepper sauce. Out came two sirloin-tenderloin type steaks, cooked RARE, with delicious sauce. Best steak ever. And yes I think I say that each time I have a steak but it just keeps getting better and better!! Except mine was covered in whole peppercorns and each time I ate one I thought my mouth was going to burn off. But man do they know how to do beef around here. There was no side dish besides some rolls but there was more that enough steak. Loves it I do.

We managed to figure out how to use the public buses around here too. Not hard to tell that they like to gouge the tourists though. Our hostel is about halfway from town to the falls, and go to into down costs 70 centavos (about 25 cents canadian) but to go into the falls is 3.50 pesos (1.25C). Not too bad. And to get into the park is over 10 bucks Can but for people from argentina its a third of that and people who live in this province get in for free! Oh well I woul dhave paid a hundred dollars because man those falls were something. Not to mention the wildlife.

Yesterday we did the lower trail and boat ride which was so awesome we thought we could never top it. So then today we went to do the upper trail. Instead of taking the cutesy little tourist train up to the walkway we decided to walk the 3km through the jungle. Best idea EVER! First we saw all kinds of butterflies and birdies flying around. Then we heard this low bird call which Jacq thought was a toucan. That girl knows her birds because I looked up in a big tree and there, larger than live was Toucan Sam himself. We started jumping up and down like freaks (Thank God no one was around) and shouting because we were so excited. Follow your nose! haha So needless to say that was a highlight for sure.

Not to be outdone by some silly birds, the mammals struck back up at the end of the path near the train station. We heard some people talking excitedly and there was a pack of these raccoon-type animals we think are called Coatis. They were lookin for food in the garbage buckets and they were all over the place until the train came and scared them away. All the while there was this one spot just outside the food stand there that was mad with butterflies. And I mean mad, they were everywhere. They were pitching on our bags, on us, all over the place. There were even really cool ones whose wings had designs like eyeballs. For those of you who know our love of zoos and animals this was exciting.

And we hadn´t even gotten to the waterfalls yet! So we walked out a 1km catwalk across the river towards Gargantua el Diablo (Devil´s Throat) aka the biggest bestest waterfall. As we started getting closer we could feel spray but couldn´t see anything. It just looked like a nice babbling river which was very wide and shallow. Then we could see the edge and the roar got super loud. At the end of the catwalk the edge of the falls began and went around a kind of ring not unlike the horseshoe on the Canadian side of Niagara. But man what a view. I could have reached out and touched the water almost. The spray was soaking us but it was probably one of the most impressive things I have ever seen. We walked partways back down the catwalk and had to go back again because it was so awesome. We have a million pictures of course but dammit I can´t find a computer with the right port, except this computer has one but says it doesn´t have the right driver so I still can´t get any pictures online. No worries, it will happen soon!

So we finally managed to pry ourselves away from the waterfall and made our way back out the catwalk. We stopped to look at a couple of birds while I was eating a granola bar. So what do I think is the best idea? Throw pieces of food to get some good pics of the birds. Great idea, until about 15 of the little friggers start flying all around like mad, making all kinds of noise and even trying to flutter in front of me and steal the food from my hands... we managed to snap a few pics and make a quick escape.

So just when we think we have seen all the wildlife we can handle, we see all kinds of people stopped peering over the edge of the walkway over the river. We look down and there are hundreds of little silvery, reddish fish swimming in the river. When you spit they think it´s food and they all go cracked and start jumping and swimming everywhere. So of course we had to spit a few times. Very cool. There were also some big catfish and others we couldn´t identify. Very nice.

Are you sick of hearing about these animals yet? Well too bad because there´s more! On the next bit of river there were yet more people staring out over the edge. What this time? Alligator! (or maybe croc - I have no idea what the difference is) It just looked like a baby one, only a few feet long, just lying out sunning himself on some rocks. Very cool.

Well I think that´s about it for the animals... except I guess for the cats and dog we met at our hostel. A nice little black cat we named Mitzy who jumped up in my lap and promptly fell asleep. A nice golden doggie with only 3 legs who Mitzy did not appreciate as much as we did... and another cat we named Tabitha who did nothing but cry for food. I didn´t like her too much.

So after wasting some time at the hostel on the way back into town we caught the bus again downtown and here we are wasting our lives away on the internet. Our bus to Salta leaves at 930. 26 hours on the bus. Should be fun.

Well I think that´s quite enough for today. No update tomorrow since we´ll be bussing it the whole day. Smell y´all on Saturday!

---