Don't cry for me

OK, OK. I know. Cheesy title. HAVE YOU BEEN TO ARGENTINA?

No? When you have, then you can judge me.  Otherwise, don't cry to me.

Heh.

***

Next morning, after a great sleep on another not-as-bad-as-you'd-think bunkbed mattress and an excellent breakfast we handed over our passports to a random man who would be driving us in his van to Argentina.  He would be the one to clear us through Argentinian customs. We would not actually have to get out of the van or speak to a border guard. In retrospect this seems a bit weird. At the time, ehh. Whatever.  We asked if we could get stamps in our passports and were told that they didn't usually stamp passports for day trippers.  Bummer.

We were at the Argentinian border in fairly short order.  Our dude went in and we waited outside the van, staring across the fences towards the country next door.  He returned, we crawled back into the van and our passports were returned to us.

Much to our joy, our passports had been stamped.  Our driver said he had a friend in customs that did him a favor.

I now suspect this was all a ploy to improve his tip at the end of the day. Which? Did I give him one? Oops.

We had the option of going to some shops, seeing the spot where three countries meet over a couple of rivers or heading straight to the Argentinian falls.  The couple that I cannot remember much about needed to catch a bus or something later in the afternoon, and none of us were really interested in shopping anyway, so we headed straight for the tri-border.

This is where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet at the confluence of 2 rivers, the Iguazu and Parana.

 There's a whitish smudge to the left of me in this picture - that's either Paraguay or Argentina. I think Paraguay but I would not swear to that in court.  Wait. I could erase this but my brain just kicked in - I was in Argentina, so that has to be Paraguay. Brazil is on the bank to my right that you cannot see. 

You can only look at a couple of rivers and 3 countries for so long, so we were shortly back in the van headed for the Argentinian park.

Our dude made plans for where/when he would meet us, he purchased our tickets for the park and the 6 of us set off.  I didn't expect that we'd stick together the way we did, but I really enjoyed the day. I daresay I made some new friends.

So Nick had said that the Argentinian side was very different from the experience on the Brazilian side of the falls, more intimate. I was skeptical. It's just falling water - pretty falling water, but still. Falling water. 

I was wrong.  It was a completely different experience to visit the falls on this side - that few hour trip a couple of weeks before really was insane.  I am sad Val didn't get to experience this - it was amazing.

You were literally amongst the falls in Argentina. 

There are rainbows.

You may will get wet.

There was another jet boat ride - and because I am crazy, I did it again.  It was a hot sunny day and I figured I'd dry out fairly quickly.

Plus, I got to see this:

Wild impatiens growing on the side of a sheer rock wall. Amazing.

We saw butterflies:

Lots of butterflies:

 

Many butterflies:

We rode a train. I recall eating some sort of Argentinian sandwich thing Airell bought.  It was a great day.

(Full disclosure: I wrote a whole lot more about Argentina and the falls but it got lost when my computer crapped its pants. Your loss? Haha! Your win!)

I will say that it absolutely killed me to be in Argentina and not be able to sing the song.  I'd sung when I was on the other side with Val.  In the 10 days or so between visits to Iguassu something had happened to my throat - my doctor later told me it was scar tissue causing the problem.  I could hit notes, but I could not stay on them.  

I always say everyone can sing - but not everyone can sing well.  I could have kept singing but I could hear how bad I sounded - and that just drove me nuts.

So I didn't sing.  Stupid cancer.

We left the park as it was closing (at least, all the people were leaving) and headed back to the hostel.  We made plans to go for dinner at a churrasco restaurant Nick had recommended with Jenny and Thomas - but first it was time for napping.  And marvelling over how intricately the laundry service had folded my underwear. 

I was not aware underwear could be folded like that.

We met up in the bar, where I successfully drank the bar dry of the ingredients for the favela special.  (Proud Canadian moment right there. Full disclosure: it was almost gone when I started). 

It was a long walk to the churrasco restaurant, but we were led by a friend of Nick's.  I'd already had churrasco in Brazil, and before that I'd stayed at a resort in the Dominican Republic with a Brazilian a la carte restaurant.  This place wasn't fancy, but damn, was it good.  I suppose any place where smiling waiters come up to your table offering slices of meat impaled on a sword would be good.  At least for entertainment value.  Over dinner we laid plans to visit Itaipu dam and the Brazilian side - we considered Paraguay but since we had a flight to catch at 4:30 pm we thought that mightn't be a good idea.

Next morning we loaded ourselves onto a public bus, bound for the main station for a bus that would take us out to the dam.  Jenny spoke decent portuguese, and that along with a student group filming a video, or perhaps doing a survey of tourists, got us onto the correct bus.  It was cool and windy day and I was suffering from the beginning of severe undersupply of thyroid hormone. At the time I couldn't figure out why I felt so crappy - I can't have been great company. In retrospect, good grief, how stupid am I?

(Don't answer that).

Itaipu dam is big and spans the Parana river between Brazil and Paraguay.  The power generated here is meant for Paraguay and Brazil, but is apparently mostly exported to Brazil.  There's a video they show before you start the bus tour that was not too far short of a cult indoctrination video. Brazil! Power! Ecology! Environment! Good! Excellent! Rah! Brazil! Brazil! Brazil!  

It's a bit like I imagine the world felt when they watched Canada beat the USA in the men's hockey in Vancouver nearly 4 years ago.  Awesome for us, for everyone else, ehh. Whatever. (Except perhaps the USA).

That's pretty much the long and the short of the video.  The bus tour was interesting - the guides said everything in 3 languages - portuguese, spanish and english.  I told the others my lame dam jokes about going to the hoover dam, taking the dam tour, riding the dam elevator, buying dam souvenirs, eating a dam hotdog, etc and that I hoped the guides would make the same joke.

I suppose that would be a bit too much to ask in 3 languages.  I still think it is funny.

Am all about the classy humour.

Look!  A dam picture or three:

Yeah yeah, enough dam pictures.  I like a good dam as much as the next person, but the person I couldn't stop thinking about while I was on the tour - my brother-in-law.  He makes his family visit every dam they drive near (I think he plans the routes based on dam tours they can take).  

I think he'd have been way more impressed by the dam than I was. And I was fairly impressed.  I took pictures of it that upond reflection, I realize I have never shown him. 

Tour over, we needed to get back to the hostel to grab our bags and head for the Brazilian park.  We stashed our bags in a locker at the visitors centre and hopped on a bus that would take us to the falls.

It's a 15 minute bus ride.  Not sure if I said that last time.  Anyway, you can ride the bus right up to the falls or get off and hike along the canyon.  Time before, we rode the bus.  This time, we walked.

I think I preferred the walking.  

I don't need to say much more about the falls. Been there, done that. Amazing. Incredible. Everyone should go see them, and more people need to hear about them.  

The most important thing? It was 3:30 (ish) when Airell and I decided we should go catch a bus back to the entrance. We said farewell to Jenny and Thomas (made plans and exchanged contact info to meet up in Rio the next weekend) and started walking quickly to the bus station.

We got on a bus that seemed to wait forever.  Then it stopped all the time.  Time? Was back to moving really, really fast. I think the bus maybe started moving to the park entrance at about 10 to 4.

We made a plan - Airell would hail a cab, I would collect the bags. Or similar.  Time? 

Was of the essence.  The airport was only a 5 minute drive away, but damn. It was already after 4 and our flight was supposed to leave at 430.

We got to the cab, and based on our experience in Curitiba, we knew the word for fast fast fast in portuguese.

Our driver?

Was fast.  He blew by a cop car and I thought, oh Lord, we're done for.

He got on his phone, called the cop, explained the situation and it was all good.

I swear I am not making that up.  

We tipped him well.

We ran into the airport, dashing for the Gol counter. There was a sign at the check-in. Our flight?

Was delayed.

Yay!

Also, dammit. We could have gotten the last clue for the geocache after all.

Wait. I mean, now there was time to relax. Or apply additional deodorant.  

We were booked with Gol to Curitiba, with a layover until our Tam flight to Rio de Janeiro.  I think switching airlines had something to do with Airell's Brazil airpass.   

Ahh, Rio. I was going back. It was Saturday night.  The last Saturday night I'd spent there had been at the stupidest show in the history of stupid shows.

This Saturday? 

So. Much. Better. Also?

It continued well into Sunday. 

But that will have to wait until next time.

Comments

[proshape rx]

I every time spent my half an hour to read this website's articles all the time along with a mug of coffee.