tres fronteras
my already overflowing passport took a battering yesterday; exit stamp from argentina, two entries and an exit from brazil and entry and exit from paraguay. we crossed from puerto iguazu into its sister falls watching base in brazil, foz de iguazu, in the mid morning but, within an hour or so of arrival, were on another bus heading to another border, the chaotic blurred space between brazil and paraguay. we were, in all honesty, only really heading into ciudad del este to say that we had at least set foot in paraguay but it was not a wasted couple of hours. the place is a giant tacky electronics supermarket, but it was like stepping back into the haphazard craziness that parts of me wished our entire south american trip had been lived out in. motorbikes laden with impossibly large parcels, grabby shopkeepers ready to berate plead and haggle, men selling portable sewing machines out of bags, women selling socks, this is what travelling should be about! a fun, if slightly ridiculous, place, it is a shame that paraguay could not offer more attractions to entice us in more effectively.
the brazilian side of the iguazu falls was as expected, a better view of the overall sweep of the falls: worth going, but after the excitement of the first look on the argentinian side it was always going to struggle to match the initial euphoria. although the falls were basically the same on either side of the border however, other things have changed in a way not suggested by the brevity of our one hour bus ride. people are thinner, darker and better looking, but most noticeably brazil is eye wateringly expensive. painfully so. even mcdonalds, so often a respite from expensive locales, let me down by being more expensive then back in london. off to rio tonight: we are both wary by the absurd prices of hostel rooms, but hopefully an absence of any more expensive bus trips or tours coupled with beaches and sunshine should see us through.
argentina: epilogue
from the snowy tip of tierra del fuego via the almost painful chic of buenos aires to the balmy heat of iguazu, argentina is the country which we have explored for the most time and in the most depth. it is not a place which bears the scars of the not so recent economic crisis as vividly as i had been led to believe, from the ambience of the neighbourhoods to the prices of everything, from food to transport. the individual sights, the novelty of being so close to the antartic, of watching whales toy with a boat for attention, of being slowly drenched by the spray from a hundred waterfalls, all anchored by a capital city to compete with any in the world, stand up against almost all other destinations. and yet argentina retains the feel of a holiday destination rather than a travelling one, if such a distinction is not too artificial. a beautiful, civilized country blessed with colonial finery and an almost embarrassingly large plethora of natural attractions is how argentina revealed itself to us, but it is one which left me with a warm, comfortable feeling of contentment rather than any visceral desire to shout my happiness from the rooftops.
mercury rising
our journey from uruguay to the brazilian border in the far north of argentina was an odd one, involving a border crossing no longer served by buses, a very strange transfer from a uruguayan cabbie to an argentinian counterpart and an unplanned, though pleasant, one night sojourn in the unpronounceable little riverside town of gualeguaychu. although we had a surprisingly enjoyable day splashing around the, albeit grimy, thermal baths and befriending a six year old argentininan child whose stuttering command of a few words of english nonetheless put my quack attempts at spanish to shame we were primed for what was to come as we got onto our overnight bus on friday night. the 19 hour journey was, after all, not merely to take us up to yet another border crossing, but moreover to deliver us at the doorstep of the gargantuan iguazu falls, perched imposingly on the border of brazil, argentina and paraguay.
stepping off the bus on saturday morning it was as if into a completely different world; we remain accustomed to the concept that a bus journey will never be significant enough to deliver markedly different terrain in the way that air travel can, despite having dozed through enough 24 hour plus journeys to suggest otherwise. the change from the slightly weak sunshine when we got onto this particular bus to the balmy tropical humidity bearing down on the suddenly red clau surroudings when we disembarked, however, was particularly disorientating. after two months travelling around what has, on many occasions, seemed to be a spectacularly distant suburb of europe we were suddenly in the tropics. the shorts, the sandals, it all came out to herald the heat in which we had stumbled off the bus and straight into.
sunshine was not, however, the reason we had come here, and it was with some excitement that we headed off to the falls on sunday morning. as we entered the park and hurried towards the catwalks tastefully set up to approach and view the falls a not so distant rumbling became more and more audible. as we rounded the corner we caught our first glimpse of a stupendous panorama, a long line of waterfalls stretching into the distance, venomously flinging water down into the river below, the water vapour rising from time to time to block out the casual iridiscence of the rainbows accompanying every vista. the sound, the sight, even the touch of the water as it sprayed over the passageways; i could even taste it. this truly was a full on assault on the senses, a physical battery which reached new heights when we took a short speedboat ride up to the falls themselves, jolting extraordinarily close to the impact point of tumbling water on water and paying the price for breathtaking views almost directly under massive falls with a drenching of biblical proportions.
iguazu was genuinely amazing, one of the most spectacular things i have ever seen anywhere on my travels. we returned for another glimpse today and a trek through the jungle to a secluded mini waterfall and accompanying pool: pretty enough, but it was the majesty, the sheer volume of the main falls which are the real attraction and which pounded in our heads as we left the park.
off to brazil tomorrow to look again at the falls but from the brazilian side. it was blisteringly hot today; who knows, maybe even the beaters will get an airing soon...
