So after a 20 hour bus ride across the cattle grazing land of North East Argentina I made it to Brazil and the famous Iguassu falls which I remember wanting to visit since having it as a desktop background at university! After 3 months apart it was lovely to see Kirsty again who had booked us an awesome room in a hostel with pool and the most friendly helpful staff I have ever come across. We had four days to kill to wait for Ernie to catch up with us.
The first day we went to the Brazilian side of the falls which gave a stunning overall view of the falls. The handrails were also littered with beautiful butterflies who landed on the handrails to feast on the sweat of many western tourists! Most impressive was the Gargantua del Diablo (Devils throat) where the noise and sheer volume of water take your breath away. The second day I got another stamp in my passport as I crossed back into Argentina and visited that side of the falls which took you on top of the falls for a close up view of all the different separate cascades. We had torrential rain this day and having been able to count on one hand all the rainy days of the trip so far this was actually quite welcome.We also saw coatis which I guess were quite attractive animals but having become accustomed to so many tourists were now just scavengers and could get quite aggressive. I kept my distance, (just in case they had rabies!).
That night the hostel were doing a traditional Brazilian BBQ with a great spread of salad, sausage, chicken and of course beef with some ground manioc (root from the jungle) to dip the meat in. This combined with many lime caprinhas and summer beers made for an awesome evening!
Our third day was another downpour interrupted by having to move hostel. It was a Brazilian bank holiday so reluctantly we left the awesome bambu hostel and moved round the corner to the inferior supernova hostel. We spent this day at a fantastic bird park seeing many macaws, flamingoes and the beautiful toucan. Colours were amazing. Unfortunately perhaps due to the rain the birds were all pretty subdued and just sat under their shelters looking glum. The biggest disappointment was something I had majorly bigged up. I was so excited about seeing the mighty Anaconda but when I got to its enclosure I saw something more resembling a coiled up garden hose, I was so distraught it was tiny! Perhaps I was expecting to witness the snake swallowing whole a small deer, never mind.
The next day I found very interesting. We visited one of the largest hydro electrical projects in the world, the Itaipu dam. Built on the Parana river the dam is one of the modern wonders of the world but attracted a lot of criticism when it was built. The company are doing a good job of persuading the tourists of all the good work they do to promote sustainable development. For example they have built a spawning channel so as not to interrupt with breeding patterns and also a wildlife corridor so as not to interrupt the migration of wildlife. They also claim it provides Paraguay with 80% of their energy and Brazil with 20%. Bizarrely the local town Foz de Iguazu got no energy from the town. The video we were shown was very propaganderish (is that a word?), I would like to know the other side of the story.
That night we crossed the border again back into Argentina (passport getting rather full now!) to meet up with the others. We were staying in a very plush campsite with a pool and bordering onto the junlge so the night was filled with the sounds of wonderful wildlife. It was here that I finally cracked and bought myself a football. It was worth it, that night on the local footbal pitch some Argentinian college students staying in the same camp came and we had an awesome game with my team winning 15-9 and not a hand of god in sight! After two weeks of carting all my gear round with me it was awesome to be re united with the big red truck. Kirsty and I settled in and were soon ready to get to our next climbing destination.
For photos see below
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150390875373780&set=a.10150371029028780.357348.501123779&type=1#!/media/set/?set=a.10150371029028780.357348.501123779&type=3
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