Parties and Iguazu

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Ok so loooads has happened since I last posted...

Party

We were invited to a party in Santa Barbara and so off we went... Only to find that the party was not on. Turns out that the party was the following night and Jorge had misunderstood the lady in the shop. Karina trusted his Guarani more than hers but she had originally understood it to be the following night. But yeah they knew of another party happenign somwhere nearby so we drove around until we found it. It was a 15 year olds birthday party. The ride there was amazing! The sky was really clear and we saw loads of stars. I got that shivery surreal feeling as I sat in the back of the truck with great people singing stupid songs. To be honest the party wasn't all that.. Well I'm sure I would ahve enjoyed it more if I wasn't so tired.. The music was ka-chaca and it got fairly repetitive and I wasn't in the mood to overcome that. But it was still whopper to go and be part of it. I loved seeing all the locals. Felt like I was in South America. It mostly doesn't feel like I am because I'm surrounded by Europeans..

Wedding

Then soon afterwards we were invited to a wedding in Santa Barbara too. Now that was really fun! I made sure this time to get a bit of a nap in beforehand and so I was well energised for it. It was so much fun!! There were way more people there! However, it was still a party in someones back garden. I think we caught a glimpse of who looked like a bride (i.e she had a fancy hairdo) but no real signal that it was a wedding. Was fairly strange in that sense. But yeah we all went to where everyone was dancing and got boogying. My 'comtemporary' dancing seemed to cause a bit of a stir among viewers and so a young lad (who was later renamed 'alien boy' by us) danced with me for a bit for what seemed like a dare from his friends. Then after some flailing with me he steeped away. Not too long after some other guy who was fairly well gone at this point danced with me. He did not step away however... He just keeeeept jumping!! Some amount of energy. After a good while I gave up. I couldn't keep up with him anymore.. I would have had to stop just after that anyway because Griselda told Karina that I had to tone it down because all the guys would want to dance with me then and it was simply unsafe. Yeah so the guys in Paraguay are faaaairly persistent (to put it politely). They just don't fuck off!! No matter how often you tell them to...... WWhich we all learned that night!! Overall it was a super night!!!

Batting

So a guy from Asuncion came to PLT for a few days to do some work with bats. He was pretty cool. Myself and Nick went with him on his last night to try and trap some bats. We put up a net in the lake and tried attracting them by making whippy noises with rope. But alas, no bats. So we sat on the beach for hours and had a great time!! We found what seemed to be a lump of goo in the water. However Julio was convinced it was a new species of jellyfish and Nick thought it was a grape. I was laughing to hard to form an opinion. We stared at a glow worm for quite some time also. The sky was fantastic that night too!!

Spider Oh oh myself, Inge and Scott were walking to the forest and we spotted a massive spider! It appeared dead and so I took out a sample pot to bring it back in. As Inge poked it in with a stick it twitched a bit. But in it went and when we took it back to the house Jonny told us it was probably a Brazilian wandering spider. Lovely!

Sand Dunes Attempt - Armadillo catch

We all set off one day in the jeep to go to the sand dunes outside of the reserve. It was a scorching day and we were all so excited. I managed to squirt suncream all over my shirt before we left. I'm an idiot! But I didn't get burned :-)

So the first way Karina took us didn't work because there was a lock on some gate on the way. So off we went another way that she wasn't so sure about. And then we came to a eucalyptus farm and the people there said that the dunes can't be accessed anymore because people don't live there anymore....or something... Such a pity!! But then on the way back she spotted an armadillo and screeched to a halt whilst shouting 'grab it' and out jumped the lads and they chased it thought the grassy cerrado. It was so funny to watch. Rich finally grabbed it and brought it to us to look at. Nick tried to touch it but it was not impressed and swiped at him.. No harm done though. We sang songs in the jeep the whole way there and back, one of which was 'Born in the USA' and only that line was repeated over and over because noone else knew anymore lyrics. That has now become a kind of theme tune for us. Love it!!

Iguazu

Iguazu!!! AMAZING!! It was ne of the most fun trips of my life! Ten of us went. We left PLT at about 2pm and waited around until midnight in Santa Rosa for the bus to Cuidad Del Este and then just for an hour or so there for a bus to Purto Iguazu. That involved eating quite a few empanadas in the empanada house..We went for some wanders but the weather wasn't the most desirable for wandering. When we got to Iguazu we were fairly tired and so we all had naps in the lovely hoste (pop hostel was the name) l located quite near the bus stop. Then we all went to a restaurant called Marias. The food was fantastic. The nezt day and the day after we went to the falls which are about a 20 min bus rie outside the town itself. They were outstanding!! We went to the San Martin Island and walked all the trails and went to a waterfall with a pool underneath that we got the dip in. There were amazing views of so so many falls, but being under that one was the best part for me I think. It just felt so whopper being underneath such a powerful thing. It was mad because the stream for this particular fall was fairly narrow and shallow but the force underneath it was incredible. Oh gravity!! Seriously though.... wow!!!! There were so many rainbows too! Loved it all! Definitely a place for everyone's bucket list I think.

Back in the town we had great fun too! I ate so much fantastci icecream!! :-) Something I had been seriously missing at PLT. But yeah we also went out to some clubs. The first night we went to Cuba Libre. That place was odd! Proper empty bar us and some screens with slutty dancing on them... Think they were there to make us feel like there were other people there. Eventually though other people did trickle in... It was great fun though! The lat night we went to some other place and Luke (this english guy we met at the falls) came with us. I had so much fun! The place was empty too but not as weird I think. I danced like a lunatic anyway! Great craic! And Luke was really cool. He had been travelling around so I got to hear some great stories. Some guy 'challenged' him to a dance off after he did some cool break dancey things. This lead to awkward movement from them bothe while people stood around waiting for soemthing to happen. Haha! I also met some other guy at the falls. I don't remember his name though (I couldn't even pronounce it so....) but yeah he lead to some futher awkwardness! So basically I told everyone I wanted to marry him because from a distance he looked hot. Then at the devils thoat we were talking, but it was very broken because my Spanish is practically non existent. However it was good to try! Then later I saw him again and there was some awkward 'holas' thrown around and attempted body language gestures. Then after we got back to the town he asked me what I was doing later and I said I didn't know.. Then Inge with her magnificent Spanish translation skills said that he should come by the hostel. Then later on in the night we all saw him on the street and most people walked away but Inge stopped and looked at me as if to say 'I'll translate' and then I stopped and the three of us stood in this super awkward embarrassing triangle and Inge started to move so I just said ciao and walked really quickly away towards everybody else.... Oh they all really did rip the piss out of me!! Hahahahahah!

Overall the trip was fantastic!! Even if we did want to rip each others heads off at times.... several times!! We all love each other underneath it all.. and nothing major happened in fairness! It was really sad saying goodbye to Inge and Kelsey. They reallllly grew on me! I miss em both!! But I do think we'll meet again.

There was a bit of drama at the border coming back into Paraguay. Dec, Gus, Rich and I tried to get stamps but apparently we had to get exit stamps for Paraguay and because we didn't have them we weren't allowed a re-entry one. So after lots of begging and telling them we didn't have money for a fine, we gave up. We were told we could just pay the fine next time we leave... But we don't wanna overstay our visa so tomorrow we're going to Asuncion to try to sort it out.

When the remaining 8 finally got to Santa Rosa, the last bus had left so we had to stay in the hotel. The next day it was spilling out of the heavens so no local buses were running to Laguna Blanca...another night! It was all good though! So eventually we got back and it felt really good to be back.

Horse riding

I went horse riding for the first time ever the other day! It was whopper!! So the horses here are a bit feral and so not really good for a first timer... So after Gus had gone on one of them for ages I hopped up (with great hesitancy) and went on him for a teeny while. He began to trot a bit at the start and I freaked out a bit but got him to stop after everyone screamed at me what to do... Hahha! So yeah Gus babysat me as I rode him for a few hundred meters. I decided I shouldn't go off on my own with him and I didn't wanna drag Gus around for much longer when she was already wrecked. Anyway, I had fun!!

Santa Barbara Fundraiser

Yesterday evening we went to Santa Barbara for a fundraiser. This involved soccer tournaments and bingo games. It was absolutley great craic! We bonded with locals :-) Some young girls (after touching us and running away several times) taught me some Spanish words. It was realy sweet!! I don't remember most of them though.... Ah well! I played soccer and had a blast! The bingo was super hard to follow... But in fairness the guy calling out numbers was not very clear....Needless to say we didn't win anything from that...

Ok so I'm all out of steam for this post. It has been good! I got loads in there I think....

Toodles for now :-)

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