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Published: July 13th 2015
The bus journey from Sao Paulo to Iguazu was crazy long, 15 and a half hours in total. It was a nighttime journey so the idea was you wouldn't lose a day, just sleep on the bus and start fresh upon arrival. Unfortunately, I'm not one to fall asleep on public transport so I was up all night. And so was a rather annoying British traveller who yapped on about anything and everything. You know the kind, the optimistic tourist with travel guides and a bum bag who wants to talk to everyone about pointless sh!t and have the last word. There were a couple of stops on the way so that helped. One of them was this buffet food court which even had a healthy area of fruits and salads ... you paid by weight and fruit is light
smile emoticon In the morning we arrived in Iguazu and for the first time, despite my being organized, I was lost and confused. I was told that somebody from my hostel would be at the bus station to pick me up and they weren't. I eventually found out which local bus I needed to catch to
my destination and hopped on. This journey was rough and I was getting thrown around ... so was my bag with my macbook in it, that wasn't ideal. A few seats from me I saw someone else and immediately I could tell she was a traveller ... you get a sense of these things after a while. This was confirmed as we both got off the bus at the same time and then I found out she was looking for the same hostel. We ended up stopping at McDonald's on the way .... my 1st (and last) time during my entire 3 month trip.
The hostel had a great vibe and the staff were super friendly. They had a large outdoor kitchen area by a swimming pool and weight-training area where people hung out until the early hours. I would be cooking many delights during my 2-day stay here.
After the long journey I just wanted to rest up so I went to the bedroom and climbed up to the top bunk. Straight away a group of people came in chatting away so the rest plan was out. I overheard a few of them saying they wanted to
go to Paraguay. I introduced myself and said "I want to go to Paraguay too" hoping they would say "Come with us" ... they did and I wasn't made to feel like a loner.
To get to Paraguay you have to take a specific bus and your passport. The journey took 45 mins to get through the traffic-congested border. There were no border control police here as it would have been impossible to handle the amount of visitors. The town of Iguazu was silent and you knew you were in Brazil ... across the border in the blink of an eye you felt like you'd teleported to India. It was a completely different world, crazy traffic with no laws, mayhem on the streets, so many people, stalls ... everyone shoving products in your face trying to sell you things. This town is well known by travellers for cheap electronics and everywhere you went you had fake iphones, computers, gps, etc. I loved this place ... there is something about mayhem and filth that attracts me. Not the dirtiness of towns like Sao Paulo, but true asian-third-world-stylee filth, I felt this joyful feeling before when I was in Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia with rats running around China Town.
In the streets people were obsessed with selling you socks. The Spanish word is "Meias" and every few meters I'd have Meias shoved in my face, "meias meias, compra meias ... it cheap for you, buy 3 get 1, red ones, blue ones, it cheap for you". After a while I got fed up and started to explain business logic to them ... I explained that it's scorching hot and nobody in their right mind will want to wear socks, they should sell paper fans or ice-cold drinks.
After a couple of hours we decided it was time to eat. This city was confusing when it came to buying things. In some stores the prices were in US dollars, in others Brazilian real, in others Paraguaian guarani. If you didn't have the currency the particular shop used, they'd pull out a calculator and convert it for you ... at a terrible exchange rate meaning you'd pay double compared to if you had the correct currency in the first place.
Iguazu is on the border of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. Many travellers stop off here on the way to Argentina and
they come to Paraguay to extract US dollars from ATMs. In Argentina you can get an amazing peso rate for the dollar on the black market. If you happen to visit Argentina, definitely take USD with you.
On the bus journey back the Australian guy in our group was panicking because he didn't have his passport and thought he would be in trouble. We kept making jokes about how he could swim across the channel and we'll meet him on the other side if he survives, but he was definitely not in the fun mood for it. Once again there was no border control and we got through without checks. This didn't stop us telling his friends back at the hostel that he'd been taken in by Paraguaian officials and they're going to deport him back to Australia. Nobody cared, they were more interested in making plans to see the waterfalls.
That night I was chilling in the communcal area by the kitchen/pool/gym and it was somebody's birthday. On the right someone lit a birthday cake and then travelled all the way through the outdoor wind into the kitchen hoping birthday boy wouldn't see the cake and that
the candles would stay lit .... they didn't. This didn't make sense to me so afterwards when I saw the group I said hello and wished one of them a happy birthday (I chose the wrong person) then I said to the one bringing the cake in that her logic was flawed ... why didn't she bring the cake into the kitchen and light it under a table where the candles would stay lit and birthday boy wouldn't have seen the flames a mile off. These people were drunk by now so she took offense to it and told me there was no need to tell her off and to point out her mistakes. I quickly backed away but her friend was saying things to me trying to be cool. It's funny how much fake confidence people get when drinking and in a large group. When I saw this individual an hour later all alone, that cockiness was non-existent ... just silent as a mouse, lack of confidence, lack of social skills.
The next morning a large group of us got together and went to the waterfalls, Iguazu falls. There are 2 sides you can view this wonder from,
Brazilian and Argentinian. I was to witness both sides as I was told the experience is very different. As with many attractions in that part of the world, foreigners have to pay twice as much as locals. It didn't bother me since this was one of those places that have to be visited in a lifetime. I have no words for the giganticness and awesomeness of these waterfalls ... literally hundreds and hundreds of waterfalls all going on for miles, with water flowing at approx 450'000 cubic feet per second. It's hard to write in words what this place is about ... it has to be visited.
Within the attraction area there were signs about some weird looking aadvark-monkey creatures that steal peoples food and belongings and that they shouldn't be fed. We saw them every now and again eating tuna baguettes, cheese pasties, crisp bags, etc ... when they latch on they don't let go. One of the guys in the group bought some lunch and as soon as he paid for it, one of these creatures appeared and snatched it out of his hand ... poor guy, he remained hungry for the rest of the day.
I was definitely satisfied with my 2 days here and was looking forward to heading out to the Puerto Iguazu town in Argentina for a couple of nights. The hostel on that side is the sister hostel to the one on the Brazilian side so making a reservation was easy, the reception peeps just send text messages saying "hey, we got another 2 Americans popping over for you now" ..... kind of like in the movie Hostel but without the bad things happening.
The bus to the Argentinian border was a short journey, 15 mins I think ... however the process to get through customs was terrible. Sometimes on my travels I get angry with people and this was one of those times. There was a lack of communication and indication of what needed to be done. All I know is that I was on a bus load of people and the driver looked at me and said in Portuguese that he thinks I'm a foreigner. When I confirmed I was, he said I had to get out at border control and stamp my passport. Off we went and at border control he stopped and told me to get
out. I did ... and everyone else on the bus got off and followed me. The driver jumped out and told the others to go back in, explaining that I was a special case being an outsider. The others looked at me like I didn't belong and went back inside. The bus left and I was walking around this deserted place trying to find where to stamp my passport. Eventually I walked into what looked like a derelict garage and there was a customs official waiting. I filled out forms, stamped my passport and headed back out to wait for the next bus ... a long wait. Eventually I got on and thought all was well, but then 5 minutes later the driver stopped and told me to get out. I told him I've gone through border control and he said that was the Brazilian side, now it's the Argentinian side. I wasn't happy but I followed along. Things were more disorganized here as 1 official told me to go to another area and they told me to go back to the 1st one. After telling them I was pissed off with them, in the end I ignored them all,
didn't bother putting my bag through the scanning machine, found a way through behind the guards and got to the next bus stop undetected. When the bus came I had to buy yet another ticket despite having paid for the full journey at the beginning, but this time I knew I was through. I explained where I needed to go in Spanish and the driver was helpful.
On a side note, many years ago I used to speak Spanish quite well. However, once I moved to Portugal and learnt Portuguese, my Spanish suffered considerably to the point of not being able to have conversations. Miami is full of Spanish speakers and I wasn't able to communicate there. In Brazil however, my Spanish skills started returning ... I spoke quite a bit in Parati too. Interchanging between English, Portuguese and Spanish became natural by this point.
Once again, I fell in love with the little village of Puerto Iguazu in Argentina ... so many lovely places in the world all different in their own ways. I made my way to the Bamboo hostel and was pleased to find out the girl at reception was yet another stunning Argentinian ...
(a pattern was beginning to emerge that made me want to explore Argentina more). I spent most of my time there working on my computer at reception and chatting to her about random things, practicing my Portuguese and Spanish and improving her English as she spoke all 3 lingos as well.
That night she was replaced by Jimmy, an Aussie dude who was such a cool cat. This guy knew about cocktails and drinks ... he was explaining a lot of things to me, things that I wouldn't even do being a non-drinker. I was just spending my time in this town mingling and chatting away ... it was a super-friendly vibe.
The next morning I went to Iguazu but this time by myself. This side was different in that you couldn't see the magnitude of the falls but you were taken up close to a lot of them ... it was more like a day out in the park with a waterfall here and there. There was a magical spot here called Devil's Throat which is where all the waterfalls throw their water into ... it's a massive circular whirlpool that reminds you of the powerful force
of nature. I didn't spend too much time here, maybe 2 hours and I was done.
When I got back into town I went for a walk to find somewhere for nice food. Along the way the streets got progressively darker and something didn't feel right about my surroundings. All of a sudden I approached a little forest and decided to walk around rather than through it. I kept hearing whispers and wanted to leave as quickly as possible. Suddenly this whisper got louder and somebody said to look to the left ... as I did there was a shadow of a person behind a tree that was telling me to come closer. I think he wanted to sell drugs but not sure ... I just carried on walking fast, but then the streetlamps started switching off 1 by 1 behind me as I passed them ... just like in a horror movie. I kept my cool and took it 1 step at a time, singing "Gloria Gaynor, I Will Survive" ... and made it back to the center where people were aplenty. I ate some tasty local fish and all was forgotten.
The next morning I had to catch a flight back to Rio from the Brazilian side of Iguazu so first I needed to go through border control again. Another mission and I only just made it to the airport on time. I felt great leaving as I'd found peace in this place. I had 1 more week to go before my journey came to an end. However will the Etchy Boy Adventures continue? ...
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