The past couple of weeks have definitely been busy. As school work has picked up (it's getting hard to convince myself that abroad work is minimal...) and midterm season arrives I still managed to squeeze in a trip (one of the most amazing ones to date) to Puerto Iguazu in Northern Argentina about 17 hours from Buenos Aires by bus. Here we were able to explore the quaint town of Misiones, visit Tres Fronteras where we stood in front of three different countries and visit one of the natural wonders of the world- Iguazu Falls!
One of the many rainbows of the day...
Thursday evening we met up with a group from Expanish (the organization with whom we took our Spanish courses with) and our tour guide Leti. The 15 or so of us boarded a 'Via Bariloche' bus for what promised to be a riveting 17 hour ride. It seems that over the course of this trip we have been building our 'bus ride stamina' if you will so after a 24 leg to Salta and some other trips thrown in for good measure this was a piece of cake.
Before I delve deeper into the jungly details of the trip I must first digress (somewhat) briefly about the bus. I can say with confidence that out of the various bus lines we have traveled since being here, Via Bariloche takes the cake. Although anything was better than the blanketless 24 hour Flecha Bus ride, this bus went above and beyond offering pre-dinner drinks, 2 meal services, pillows and blankets, an 80s music video mashup, shade pull down promptly at 11 and complimentary night caps. So with a combination of cheap wine and wild and spontaneous tunes from the likes of Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston we were all lulled to sleep for a large portion of the trip....
Tres Fronteras- Standing in Argentina, Brazil to the Right, Paraguay to the upper left
We arrived in a sunny (and humid) Misiones on Friday mid morning with enough time to throw our bags in the hostel...we were in a 9 person all female room with one shower....do the math that wasn't going to work well...and then head out to walk around Puerto Iguazu and visit Tres Misiones. Located just a short distance from the "Stop Hostel" was Plaza St. Martin which featured an exhibit of sorts created by local artisans spotlighting the town's history and culture. Just a few blocks past this display we reached the waterfront and Tres Fronteras (3 Fronts). Standing on a patio of sorts close to the water's edge we looked out onto the Parahna River and the two other countries that lay a stone's throw away from us. To our right was Brazil and to our left was Paraguay. Although Brazil was probably a mere 5 minute swim from the Argentine shore the steep entrance fee into the country deterred us Americans from visiting but nonetheless it was a pretty neat thing.
"Wildlife"....
Saturday morning began nice and early as we met up with our Iguazu Forest tour guide, lathered on sun screen (which later proved not to be sufficient enough for the albino) and bug spray and packed into our van to head to the falls. Iguazu Falls is actually in a national park of sorts that features much more than the expansive sets of waterfalls but lots of vegetation, some creatures and even an island with a beach tourists can visit by boat. Luckily we were graced with a sunny day (other Expanish groups hadn't been so lucky) but this meant that it was already quite toasty as of 9 am when our tour began. For the next 10 or so hours we explored the falls from most every angle there was to offer. We saw a few lizards and iguanas, took a boat to "La Isla de San Martin" (the island in the middle of it all) where we tested our cardiovascular endurance hiking up hefty set of steps to see some more falls, and participated in the Nautical Adventure. Before going any further I must touch briefly on this "Adventura nautical" which involved 25 or so tourists, the watefalls and a whole lot of wetness. Unsuspecting to me and a few other tourists the boat actually drove us underneath a couple of the falls and although it resembled a mild form of waterboarding the experience of being showered by one of the 7 natural wonders of the world was pretty cool. We finally ended the day by taking a train over to the 'grand finale'- La Garganta del Diablo (the Devil's Throat). The eery calmness of the 1 km path leading up to this fall was strongly contrasted by the powerful, swirling fall that was all enveloped in a huge rainbow...a pretty nice ending to the day.
After heading 'home' to the hostel and nursing the beginnings of what promised to be some painful sunburns we headed to a hostel next door for an asado. Coincidentally it appeared to be senior citizens hostel weekend and although we dodged the average age by at least 50 years we didn't let that stop us from enjoying ourselves...although I'm not sure they appreciated our enthusiasm.
One of the waterfalls in Iguazu
On Sunday before departing I was able to head out on a quick run on a route around Tres Fronteras and a port to take in the amazing scenery one last time. As the humidity level rose and the rain clouds moved in, I huffed it up the last hilly turn feeling tired and crisped but still so amazed to explore yet another vastly different region of Argentina!
Besos y Abrazos!
Per
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