Brazilian Iguazu with Awesome Friends
(Many photos in this entry were stolen from my friend Thea’s Camera, so don’t give me all the credit)
Date of Entry: December 11th 2015
Date of Writing; December 16th 2015
Today is an exciting day and I wake up early to head to the Puerto Iguazu Bus station to meet my friends Thea, Llilians and Nico who you readers first met in Santa Cruz and Samaipata Bolivia. We’ve kept in touch and now we’re meeting up towards the end of there trip. There bus is due in at 7:10 but it’s 845 before it shows up. No matter, I’ve got my computer so I get some writing done.
Once they get here we all greet each other with happy hugs before heading back to Hostel Park Iguazu to check in and leave our bags. They make use of some internet to organize life back in Europe after a 24 + hour bus ride, and then, given the late arrival we decide to head to the Brazilian side of the falls, where we’ll need less time.
It’s cloudy and gloomy as we head to the bus station, not that it matters as we’re all very happy to see each other and as we approach the station end up taking a taxi instead, having negotiated a price of 200 ARS just 75 cents more per person than a bus and much much faster.
We stop off at both borders getting stamped out of Argentina and into brazil before continuing on to the falls. I buy the tickets with Real’s left over from my last visit and soon enough the four of us are boarding the open air double decker bus towards the actual park. We’re all chattering away sharing stories from the last few months of travel separately and catching up with each other, so to me at least the bus ride passes fast enough. Of course we are missing one from the group of Bolivia, in the form of Sara who has returned to Canada and we all miss her throughout these next few days. At any rate soon enough we’re piling out of the bus, me enjoying the look of awe in all my friends eyes as we reach the first viewpoint of the falls, which by now feel like old friends to me.
Eventually we head down the path together, hoping for the small patches of blue sky in the distance will keep growing. As we keep going we are gifted even more impressive views of some of the falls hidden from the Argentinean side, heading down on to little look outs together, Thea and I acting as the photographers of the group.
As we continue down we spot a few iguana’s but I’m very surprised to not come across any Coati’s which I have promised would be plentiful to my friends. Oh well the waterfalls are the saving grace and make it impossible to be disappointed, and the sky is cooperating more and more blue sky peeking through the clouds as we reach one of the best photo spots on the entire Brazilian trail.
Here Thea and I spend a little more time chatting and taking photos while Llilians and Nico head out onto the boardwalk in the photos seen above. We eventually move to catch up to them running out through the madness of the spray, Thea going faster than me, somehow still under the illusion she might manage to stay mostly dry throughout the visit. At Iguazu, Not happening.
This time around, even though I have my good camera it’s safely tucked away and only my go pro is being used out here after what happened last time.
I’m thrilled to find my friends appreciate this place as much as I do and their amazed looks are almost as much fun as the falls themselves. Together the six of us head out to the final viewing platform and I am amazed all over again at the incredible beauty of this place as we take lots of photos and selfies to capture the long time shared out there in the swirling mists of the most impressive waterfall I’ve ever seen.
I’m glad we spend so much time there out in the madness, but eventually when Thea and I look around we realize Nico and Llilians are nowhere to be seen, and eventually head back towards the gift shop and small restaurant as well as the elevator which will take us up past the falls. to the bus to take us out of the park. We find them both there and stop at a railing looking down at a group of school children going mad in one of the heaviest sprays of the fall. Can you imagine coming here on a school trip? I’d have lost my mind. After watching them for a few seconds I decide to impose on my friends and ask Nico to snap some pictures while I go down there and enter the fray, the winds whipping water off the falls and everywhere.
As I look up at the group I see Nico and Llilians but am thrilled to see Thea come down to join me in the madness, redeeming herself after being too sick to go swimming back in Samaipata and getting well and truly drenched in Iguazu’s mad sprays with me, both of us excited by the raw energy of the falls.
Eventually we dash out of the madness and hurry back up to our other two friends, who choose not to get quite that wet as we board the free elevator and head up to the panoramic look out.
Somehow we never bothered to go out and look from the top, despite remarking that the well windowed elevator has to be the best view from any elevator ever, this is because all the coati’s that were missing from the path, are found up top, scampering around and generally making mischief. We hurry towards some of the bigger groups of babies to snap some photos Thea getting way too caught up in the moment.
I say this not because of any real tragedy, but because I like to be mean. I have been carrying the food we brought for lunch all day and it has been safe all day, but just before getting on the elevator Thea insisted she take a turn, and lo and behold as we stand there taking pictures of these little scamps, not 10 minutes after she has taken the bag, she is quickly surrounded and a particularly brave Coati tears through the plastic bag ripping out as many contents as it can. There is a mad frenzy and they escape with 2 packs of cheese, a package of ham and yes even the only package of Salami. How could you Thea? Hang your head in shame! (just kidding 🙂 ). In reality coati’s get food off of tourists everyday, even those being careful, they are expert tacticians when it comes to robbing gringo’s of their lunches and i’ve begun to suspect they may be employed by the parks many restaurants to up the sales. Luckily we still have a substantial amount of food left for a fairly nice picnic lunch together, supplemented with a few french fries from the food court. Oh and to excuse Thea how could you not be distracted by these little babies?
Eventually we board the bus back to the park entrance and wander across to the Parque Das Aves which I’ve heard good things about. That said from the entrance we can see it’s not really a natural bird park and all of the birds are in cages (large ones but still) so as a group we decide not to enter and instead head back to Puerto Iguazu. (To be fair I do not know if Parque Das Aves is an ethical rescue operation or just another zoo and I do plan to find out before possibly visiting in the future.)
We wander back to the Iguazu entrance but find that taxi’s are more expensive this time around 300 after hard bargaining instead of 200 ARS. (22 USD instead of about 15 USD) so we post up and wait for a bus (40 ARS each) which arrives after just a few minutes and whizzes us back to Argentina, thankfully stopping at both borders.
Together we head back to Hostel Park Iguazu to take a brief rest and play a few games of water contest, the pool game we invented back in Santa Cruz. Thea’s referring has only grown more biased but somehow I still manage to beat Llilians handily, an accomplishment considering she won the gold medal back in Santa Cruz.
Eventually though we give this up and head to a few supermarkets so that I can gather the ingredients for an Indian dinner. I love travelling with people because it gives me reason to actually bother cooking somewhat complex meals and despite a last minute scare with two sweet cream the butter chicken comes out tasty enough and we all enjoy the hearty meal before moving to some games of ping pong and fooseball before heading to bed. All in all just a perfect reunion day for the four of us, minus the absence of Sara, and tomorrow is even more exciting because we’ll be heading to the Argentinean side of the falls, and maybe even embarking on a boat to go under them!
