Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Hola!
In the fortnight since we last wrote a blog, we´ve visited a rather impressive 3 and a half countries...
Way back on the 28th April we took a rather smart ferry over the river from Buenos Aires to Uruguay, where we visited an old smuggling port town called Colonia. Aside from the pretty views of the river and the nice cobbled streets, we were most impressed by the number of old grannies that could be found riding motorised scooters (minus helmets, of course). The next day, we arrived in Montevideo, capital of Uruguay. In an effort to be cultural, we decided to spend a day museum-hopping, only to discover that not only one, or two, but THREE of the museums on our list were closed. So instead we found ourselves wandering slightly aimlessly around the city, visiting the occasional souvenir shop and the museum of the Uruguayan artist Joaquin Torres Garcia (who must have been a great footballer!), and who incorporated a lot of mathematical concepts into his art (much to Joel´s delight!).
The next morning we woke up early, ready to grab some breakfast and catch the ferry back to Argentina. Then came the shocking discovery that May 1st is, in fact, a national holiday and that everything (and we mean EVERYTHING) is shut for the day. After trekking a few miles to find a grim cafe which was open and serving breakfast, we managed to locate a cab to take us to the coach, to take us to the ferry, to take us back to Buenos Aires.
We spent a couple of days relaxing, and enjoying the kosher McDonalds, back in Buenos Aires (feeling more like citizens than tourists), before heading north of the city to Rosario, birthplace of one Che Guevara. Most of the sightseeing in Rosario focuses on their legendary citizen and we found ourselves visiting his first house, a plaza in his honour, as well as a large statue of him in a local park. Also rather impressive was the Monument to the Flag... a ridiculously large monument paying homage to the man who designed the Argentinian flag, complete with fountains, statues and an eternal flame in his honour. We took a lift up to the top of the monument to get some pretty views of the city and the river.
Next stop on our travels was the North-East of Argentina, at Puerto Iguazu. We had to take a 17 hour overnight bus to get there, and we weren´t too impressed with the onboard entertainment... the TVs functioned perfectly for once, and there were even some good films to be seen, except that they succeeded in starting the first film at the penultimate scene (thus ruining the ending), the second film kept freezing and eventually jumped straight to the end, the third film died halfway through and the final film of the night (in which we were fairly engrossed) was switched off before the end because apparently the entertainment ends at midnight. On the dot. Oh, and dinner wasn´t served until 10.30pm, which is apparently normal for this part of the world.
Iguazu is the point at which Argentina meets both Brazil and Paraguay, and the home of the incredible Iguazu waterfalls. We can´t really put into words how stunned we were upon arriving at the falls (after a REALLY early morning bus and train ride)... hundreds and hundreds of waterfalls, surrounded by gorgeous forests full of exotic birds and butterflies. The most impressive part of the waterfall is known as the Devil´s Throat (devils being a recurring theme in the naming of South American tourist attractions), and we found ourselves on the viewing platform above the enormous falls, watching huge amounts of water crashing over the edge, forming an opaque wall of white spray (which got us quite wet!). Legend has it that the falls were created when a girl due to be sacrificed to the river god, tried to flee in a canoe with her warrior lover. Upon seeing this, the serpent god collapsed the bank of the river creating the falls and turned the girl into a rock and the warrior into a tree thus separating them for eternity. We like to think that you learn something from each of our blogs... although that explanation may not be scientifically accurate.
We spent a full day exploring the Argentinian side of the falls, taking different trails through the forests to arrive at various viewpoints overlooking the falls. We also took a speedboat on the river itself, which involved being driven straight under one of the waterfalls, absolutely drenching us to the skin! Luckily for us, we had visisted Iguazu at exactly the time of the full moon and so we decided to do a moonlit tour of the falls on one of the five evenings that it was offered. We arrived at the National Park in the early evening and were guided through the forest to the platform overlooking the falls, lit up only by the moon. It was an incredibly beautiful experience!
Having explored the Argentinian side of the falls by both day and night, we felt it was time to give the Brazilian side a go! We crossed the border to Brazil and visited the falls again. The Brazilian side doesn´t get as close to the huge falls, but it does give an amazing panoramic view of the whole falls and we saw some impressively long rainbows!
During our stay in Foz de Iguaçu (the town on the Brazilian side of the falls), we also paid a little visit to the world´s second-largest hydroelectric dam, the Itaipu Dam, on the border of Paraguay (which we counted as half a country on our list of countries visited, because although we were definitely standing on Paraguayan territory, we didnt manage to get the stamp in our passports!). The dam isn´t quite as beautiful as the waterfalls, but it is 'dam' impressive... sorry! It´s been called one of the seven wonders of the modern world by the American Society of Civil Engineers. We took a tour of both the outside and inside of the dam (the use of some rather fetching hard hats was obligatory) and were pretty much in awe of what we saw... its huge!
Mel´s finding it increasingly frustrating that she can no longer communicate with the locals (Portuguese seems to be rather different to Spanish!) and Joel is finding it increasingly frustrating that Mel can no longer be his translator. We are, however, liking the fact that hostels here seem to come complete with hammocks and exotic fruit for breakfast. We´ve even been invited to share one of the hostel-owner´s cups of ´mate´, a popular herbal tea drunk through a filtered straw... everyone here seems to be obsessed with it (but we found the herbs quite bitter, so maybe it´s an acquired taste!)
Tonight we´re heading to the South coast of Brazil (on yet another 15 hour overnight bus journey - lets hope the onboard entertainment improves on last time), to a place called Florianopolis. We can´t believe we´ve only got two weeks left out here, and we have so much to fit in before we head back!
Lots of Brazilian love,
Mel and Joel xx
- comments