Blog

After almost 7 months of travelling in Latin America, my Spanish has gotten pretty good. It's been a long time since I stepped off the plane in Mexico City (seems like a lifetime ago!), and I found myself all alone in a foreign country, and unable to speak or to understand a word of what anyone said. Ever since, I've been getting more and more comfortable with Spanish, and the language barrier has become so small as to be easily stepped over. But today, for my first day in Brazil, I received a rude shock: I'm back to square one! "Eu não falo o português" (lit: "I don't speak Portuguese"), and it's a problem. Despite what people have told me, Portuguese sounds nothing like Spanish (although reading it is easy enough), and talking to Brazilians in Spanish has very limited results.

This Dutch-speaking Belgian couple are on a really cool adventure: they're touring the continent in a converted Danish ex-army truck! They're staying at Paudimar, here in Foz, where they have space to park the big boy. I was given a tour inside their (dont-f$%#-with-me) home for the year, and it's lovely on the inside. I went to the Itaipu dam with them today, and tomorrow they're crossing into Paraguay to continue their expedition.

Paudimar is the Brazilian sister to the Hostel Inn on the Argentinean side. While it's not as big or as fancy as its famous sister, it's also part of the HI network, and it's also a nice place to stay. They're a bit far out of town, but their spacious out-of-the-way location gives them room for an enormous garden, a set of hammocks, a nice swimming pool, and camping space. They also have a tour agency on-site, for all your booking needs.

It's a whole different ball game from virtually everywhere else on this continent, is Argentina. So European in many ways, so Latin in others. Such proud, life-loving, first-world people — and such a pitifully crap economy and government. So many luxuries that the rest of the continent can only dream of, and at prices that Westerners can only drool at. Where else can you find a steak bigger than some African countries, juicier than a fresh tropical mango, and ready-to-eat at a time when most of the world is asleep? Or a bottle of red wine tastier than champagne, and as cheap as a chocolate bar back home? Or an endless supply of really beautiful people, able to dance like nothing you've ever seen, and frequenting night venues where "night" means "late night early morning"? I really do love this country. Even the Spanish here, incomprehensible as it is, still sounds beautiful. My only regret, really, is that I have to leave.

It was a pretty big day today — visiting Iguazu Falls (Argentina side) and all — but I couldn't rest quite yet. First, I had to leave Argentina, and cross into Brazil for the evening. This turned out to be a lot easier than I'd feared, mainly because I chose to take an easy mode of transport: taxi! After a bit of bargaining, I managed to negotiate a ride straight from the Hostel Inn, on the Argentina side, to Hostel Paudimar, on the Brazil side. And all for just 40 pesos (US$13 or so) — not too much more expensive than navigating numerous bus lines, and certainly a lot less hassle.

The last and the most spectacular thing that we saw today, on the Argentinean side of Iguazu Falls, was the Garganta del Diablo (lit: "Devil's Throat"), the biggest waterfall in the national park, and an absolutely, unbelievably, mind-blowingly massive stream of water. Do yourself a favour, and save this baby for the end of the day: it doesn't get much better than this. You could stand and stare at it for hours. We did. And the catwalk takes you right to the edge of it, where you have a simply phenomenal view of the thing cascading down all around and below you. Enjoy the photos below.

Following the awesome speedboat ride, most of the day today at Iguazu Falls was spent wandering around the catwalks, and taking in the up-close views of the many minor falls that make up the national park. The six of us saw falls big and small, fat and thin, long and short. Plus, plenty of cool animals, and a great little train ride across the park. The catwalk system is very extensive, and quite impressive: you can walk right up to the edge of many of the falls, over numerous bits of water. Photos and video below.

The sweetest thing that we did today, at the spectacular Iguazu Falls, was go on a speedboat ride up the river. We started a few k's downstream, and then powered up the water at ridiculous speeds, before we came close to some of the waterfalls. Then, it was time to get very wet, because the boat drove almost diretly beneath some of the falls! I tell you what: that certainly woke me up for the day :P. Great little adventure, and the drivers are utterly nuts. Fortunately, they also give you dry-bags to put your camera and other personal items in, so nothing gets damaged (but your clothes still get soaked). Photos and videos below.

This morning I woke up at 8am, in order to make my 9am tour to the Argentinean side of Iguazu Falls, one of the biggest waterfalls in the world. After last night's adventure, however, this early start was not very fun. I really should have gone to bed early last night — it was so stupid of me to have gone out pubbing all night! Anyway, I somehow managed to drag myself out of bed, to check out of the Hostel Inn (since I'm going to Brazil tonight), and to wolf down some breakfast, before falling into my seat on the bus. And it was lucky that I did manage all that: because I definitely wouldn't have wanted to miss the breathtaking sights that I saw today. Iguazu Falls are bloody amazing.

This evening at the Hostel Inn, I stuffed myself silly on the delicious all-you-can-eat BBQ dinner, I slurped away on the giant bucket of serve-yourself capirinha (after all, this is almost Brazil here), plus I enjoyed the great Tango show that they put on after the meal. Since I booked a tour to the falls for 9am tomorrow, that should have been all I did for the night. But I was silly enough to convince myself that I was being told the truth, when an Irish guy suggested that we go into town for "a few quick drinks". Hah: Irish — drinks — "a few" — "quick" — who was I kidding?! Anyway, I can't say it wasn't fun, staying out at the pubs of Puerto Iguazú until 4am; but as for tomorrow morning — that was Not Very Fun At All™.