I'm back in BA, feasting on my first real meal all day (it's 3:45 pm), and mentally preparing to prepare myself to leave...cause I'm leaving. On a jet plane. Don't know when I'll be back again. Oh babe, I hate/love to go.
Iguazú was amazing. Willie, Monica, Alan, and I got to town around 3 in the afternoon and went to our hostel, and immediately after checking in, jumped into the POOL. I haven't been in a pool in who knows how long, so it felt great, and it was a relief from the hot sticky humidity around us. Brian showed up a little bit later, and we all headed into town to grab a bite to eat. We walked around the little centro and perused a few restaurants, finally ending up at a parilla with lots of tables outside and no wait to sit down. We had a nice leisurely dinner and then headed back to the hostel to get ready for our early wake-up call.
6:30 am, Tuesday, December the 27th. Beep beep beep beep, said my watch. Time to go to Iguazú! We all rolled out of bed, packed up our stuff, and hit the breakfast room a bit after 7. We caught a bus to the park around 8:30, and checked in for the next tour at 9:45. Walking our way to the meeting point, we wandered along concrete paths through tall plants and short trees, and we caught a glimpse of a family of coatis, a Latin American relative of the raccoon; but this would definitely not be our last encounter with them (ah, the suspense!).
We'd decided to go for the Gran Aventura (Great Adventure) tour, which included a jeep ride through the jungle and then a boat ride to get up close and personal with the falls. In hindsight, none of this was absolutely necessary, especially not the jeep ride. The jungle was beautiful, yes, but our guide kept talking during the whole ride and not saying much of anything important or interesting. The boat ride was fun and beautiful, going up the turquoise Iguazú River towards the 1.7-mile-wide falls, which look like they've been transplanted from Jurassic Park to the border between Brazil and Argentina. We all snapped plenty of photos, but then came the time to put all our belongings into dry bags and get ready for la ducha (the shower) they gave us by driving the boat right up underneath San Martín Falls. We did get soaked, but on the hot day that it was, the cool water was welcome.
After la ducha, we unloaded from the boat, returned our life jackets and dry bags, and started along the Upper Trail, which ran across the tops of several waterfalls and provided wonderful views the whole way. We took a lunch break when we found a place with food, and were again visited by the coatis, along with everyone else at the tables around us. Sadly, these previously wild animals have gotten so used to humans, and human food, that they have no shame in crawling up on the tables where tourists are enjoying lunch and trying to get their own piece of grub. They're smart animals and have a good tactic for grabbing food right out from under the noses of the unsuspecting, but once people noticed what they were doing, instead of just keeping the food away from the coatis, they started feeding them! Bad, bad humans! Ironic that this happened right in front of a big sign pleading with visitors to not feed the animals for various valid reasons. Ah, well, things happen.
After finishing the upper trail, we made our way back and hopped on a rickety little train to head up the the Garganta del Diablo trail, leading the waterfall sharing the same name. This is, by far, Iguazú's crowning jewel. The Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat) is a massive u-shaped falls that rumbles with the power of the mass amount of water falling over its lip and spits an enormous cloud of mist up into the sky. It's loud, it's wet, and it's mesmerizing. All of us at one point or another were rendered immobile, stuck staring at the blue sky, puffy white clouds, falling water, and rainbow below. Sound perfect? It was.
Willie, Monica, and Alan left on a bus that night for Uruguay and a beach for New Years', but Brian and I stayed one more day, and took full advantage of the pool and sunny weather as our accessories to a lazy day. I got on a bus at 5 yesterday afternoon, and through a combination of a book, sleep, and the radio, made it through to Buenos Aires today, right around noon. Once I made it back to Robin's, a shower was my first order of business, quickly followed by a pasta, veggies, and salad feast (all I'd eaten until then were two little media lunas they gave us for breakfast on the bus).
I'm getting excited beyond words to finally make it to CP. My flight to Chile leaves at 5:40 on Saturday morning, but because of the holiday, I won't be on a bus to CP until January 2nd. The waiting, the waiting! My boss, Paula, said that she's asking around to see if anyone is driving down that way beforehand, but either way, only a few days between me and Patagonia! I have this unquestionable gut feeling that I'm going to love this experience, maybe more than anything else I've done. High expectations, I know, but not unreasonable. I just know it.
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