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Howdy friends!
I hope all is well with everyone back home and you enjoyed Chris' last blog. Sorry it's taken us a while to update you, we have been suffering with pretty non-existent internet - which, by the way, Chris considers one of life's essentials; you know like electricity and water! Bless him. Actually, we have both quickly learnt, that in places like Rio, Patanal and the Amazon, air conditioning is the equivalent essential! Phew, is it hot... and it's still "winter" here!
So since our last blog we have visited the Iguazu falls (Argentina spelling), first in Argentina and then crossed the border to get a view from the Brazilian side. This was meant to be the start of our 3 weeks or so in Brazil, so we needed to get a proper entry stamp on our passports. I say this now, with the benefit of hindsight knowledge. It turns out that many tourists cross the border for a day, to get a view of the Iguazu falls from the other country's perspective. As a result, Brazilian immigration is pretty lax about border crossings in the Iguazu town. So much so, that they didn't bother to stamp our passports or collect our Argentinean paperwork. At the time I queried this with the immigration officer, telling her I stay "aqui... err.. in Brazil, para tres semana." Even though my Spanish/ Portuguese is pretty rubbish, I'm pretty sure anyone else in Brazil (or Argentina for that matter) would have understood that. She answered quite dismissively with a 'waving me on' type hand gesture, speaking in very quick Spanish, the only words of which I could make out were 90 dias. (90 days). 'Okay', Chris and I thought; 'there's obviously no problem, and we must be allowed 90 days here on our tourist visa, without actually having to do anything.' We entered Brazil and checked out the Iguazu falls - nao problemo! No problem, that is, until we got to the airport with exactly 25 minutes before check-in closes and were told we wouldn't be allowed on our flight to Rio. (We were late getting to the airport as our bus never arrived to pick us up. It was diverted as the road was apparently closed for an impromptu carnival!) In order to get the flight we had to get a taxi to the local immigration office and get our passports stamped! - Of course, it took us a further 5 minutes of precious time to understand exactly what we needed to do and ask the check-in assistant to write down our basic scenario in Portuguese so we could communicate this to a taxi driver. We ran to the taxi rank and there was only one taxi. The driver was not there. 5 minutes to find the driver. The drive to the immigration office took 4 minutes. We quickly filled in the paperwork and pushed our way to the front of the queue, "Desculpe! Mais urgente!" We were in and out of the immigration office in 5 minutes! We hit some traffic on the way back to the airport, it took 6 minutes to hit the departures lane and jump out of the taxi with our bags. We ran back in to the check out desk. There's no staff, but one guy who looks like a security guard. It was about 1 minute after check out was due to close, but the security guard hollers out to someone in Portuguese and decides to check us on to the flight himself! We ran to the gate where people are boarding our plane, all the while, and for the entire duration of our flight to Rio, I am working out fallback plans for the inevitability that our check-in bags do not follow us to Rio!
Of course we made it to Rio and surprisingly, so did our bags! Our new phrase, for amusement, that day was "mais sorte!" (Very lucky.) Rather sweetly, Chris now uses this to describe himself in response to Brazilians who tell him his girlfriend is "very beautiful." Ahhhh. I digress, however, and don't want to over-look telling you how overwhelmed we were at the awesome beauty of the Iguazu falls! On the Argentinean side you can get very close to the falls, walking along the top and on the bottom we took a boat ride which actually took us into one of the falls! Incredible! The Brazilian side is actually the other side of the river and this gives you sufficient distance to take in the whole falls. I hope you like the photos! Whilst in Foz do Iguasu we also visited the Parque do Aves (bird park) and went to a fantastic Churrascaria with a show encompassing lots of dancing and music from all over South America. One particular act involved a highly impressive fire juggler, who asked a member of the audience to stand in the middle of the flames. Daredevil Chris, obviously slightly jealous of his fellow audience member's adventure, did not hesitate when asked to go on stage. Unfortunately for him, as a very dance-shy individual; he had to dance the salsa/conga in front of a sizeable audience. I carry no sympathy though - he got to have his hands on a very attractive Brazilian lady's bottom for a whole 10 minutes!
I must also mention the Shirley Bassey lookalike that was our host in Foz do Iguassu (Brazilian spelling!). We were pretty much staying in her house, almost like staying with a long lost friend, as she only had 3 rooms available for potential guests. She quite rightly, told us that the bus left on the opposite road and went into town every 10 minutes, but us being us decided to have a walk around anyway. Sure enough, we were actually staying on a residential estate, but we did stumble into one bar, we thought for a juice or coke. It's the oddest thing to us, but we've since found these places fairly common in Brazil. They are little bars that do not serve water or juice or coke, or actually anything other than 2 (sometimes 3, if it's a posh place) brands of beer. To accompany your beer you can have fried chicken or a burger. Fabulous! So at this one particular luxurious stop, and after 2 large jugs of beer each, (They were only £1 each!) we get chatting to some wonderful locals, who find it hard to pronounce Chris' name. His new name is "Fish," by the way. I'm afraid in my then slightly merry state of mind, I could not stop myself finding this highly amusing and despite Chris patiently and tirelessly, on the one hand, trying repeatedly to correct his new friends' pronunciation, I'm there on the other spurring them on... 'yes, Emma and FISH. YES!' Before Chris is successful at correcting them, the locals have introduced us to all their friends as 'Emma and Fish.' Maybe it was the beer, but I haven't cried laughing that much in ages!
So that's pretty much our time in Iguassu. The pictures also take in the Itaipu Dam, I think it's possibly the largest hydro-electric dam in the world... oh, and Chris and I purchased travel buddy bracelets. 'Sad,' you're thinking, aren't you? Next blog is from Rio de Janeiro and I think Chris has already written it!
I hope we have some better internet soon and can keep in touch with you all more regularly. We're missing you all loads and wish you could be here with us. Take care, loads of love, Em and Chris/ Fish! xxxx
- comments
Jess Matthews Ahhh, so cool! I love a bit of airport drama. Glad you're having a wicked time dude, mais jealous :) xxx
ayla loving the album for this, just beautiful!!! Airport drama, sounds so stressful, but looked like you had at all under control! Miss ya loads xxxxxxxxxx
selina Phew - just read the amazing blog - congrats Emma on leaving nothing out! My good ness that taxi ride to/from - I think I would have ended up a quivering wreck in a pool of water! Just love Christo's new name......I have every expectations that you will not let him forgt it - well, maybe when you are back in 'ol Blighty! Don;t forget that we are off to Canada so will be "quiet" for next 13/14 days. Love to you both xxxxx
Jenna loving the photos, so many amazing birds - and worrying large rodent creatures on your table!? I can only imagine how pained Fish must have been when he realised dancing was in store ... ha haha . looks like he pulled it off though. flightmare my end too... i just got back from cuba with nat - i went off alone into havana on our last day without my phone, and not knowing that we had the flight time wrong by 2 hours ... so nat was having panics that i'd be left in cuba!.... i happened to come back early for a spot of sunbathing... just made it, and nat had packed all my stuff for me :-) xx