Somewhere over the Rainbow

So I just got home from a 19 hour bus ride home from Iguazu. I would start with last night, but lets go from the begining.

Wednesday: Get on the bus at 7:00 pm, 16 hour bus ride to Puerto Iguazu. Complete with dinner, Ice Age 2 (in spanish), and chamagne.

Thursday: Arrive in Puerto Iguazu at 1. Off the bus and walk 3 blocks dragging our luggage down the sidewalk to our hostel. Nice looking place, check in. Our room was as wide as bunk beds. Literally the smallest room I've ever stayed in. Pretty clean though. Next adventure was to venture to find the Triple Frontera. We hiked around the city until we found the point where all three countries met. Each has a big tower painted in the colors of their flag. It was kinda neat. Lots of people brag about being able to be in three states as the same time...never three countries!

After the big hike we were pretty exhausted so we sat down and had a fruit salad and the best strawberry licuado of my life! So refreshing. We went back to the hostel to read and lie in the hammacks out back. This is when we discovered how old school the hot water heater was. (See pics to understand) After that we showered and went out for dinner at 6...way early for Argentine standards. We fould a great little place with a "Menu Touristica" which was too good of a deal to pass up. It was a nice quite little dinner. Afterwards we thought we would be tired and had booked an adventure tour of the waterfalls the next day so we went back to try and go to sleep. We were too awake so we decided to go and play cards. We played every game you can imagine, Gin, Speed, Memory, War, and of course, Go Fish. It was fun because at the other table there was another group of people talking and we talked to them for a bit. They were from everywhere from Canada to Scotland. Eventually we got sick of cards and fell asleep.

Friday: We woke up early and treked back to the bus station to find our bus. Seven pesos and thirty minutes later we were at the park. We found our guides pretty easily and waited around freezing our butts off till the tour started. Everyone else was wearing rain jackets and fleeces and jeans. We were in shorts and tanktops. Something we regreted in the morning but were VERY glad of in the afternoon when it was steaming hot.

The first part of the tour was a 4x4 safari ride through the jungle. They pointed out different birds and plants and said we probably wouldn't see any animals...just as they said it a huge family of monkey's appeared in front of us! We stopped the truck and took pics. It was so cool! They literally do jump from tree to tree....a long way! After that we got to the port and hopped on a speedboat that would take us to the falls. Talk about a ride....we were zooming down the river and it was like going through level 4 rapids in a speed boat! It was ridiculous! Everyone was screaming and having a blast! Finally we started to hear the roar of the falls and turned the corner to see the magificent falls! We snapped tons of pictures like it might some how dissappear. It was just so beautiful! After photo opts we went to the main river and got way too darn close to the "garganta del diablo"....one of the biggest falls in the world. It kicks Niagra's butt. We turned around and went back to the first falls and then the boat driver drove us INTO the falls! Well not all the way in but we were all screaming because it felt like we were gonna get pulled under! That has to be one of the highlights of my life! It was like virtual reality but it was real!

After that we were obviously soaking wet. We put our shoes back on and treked around the park all day taking pictures and following all the paths. We stopped at noon to eat lunch and some sort of ant eater creature stole Mia's sandwich. Not funny but absolutely hilarious! After lunch we treked over to Garganta del diablo where we saw the most amazing thing. We had to walk on a cat walk over the river to get there and once we did it was totally worth it. Now I have to tell you I am scared of heights and I was about to pee my pants! It took some courage to look over the edge. It was so loud and water was spraying everywhere so we got wet again. You have to see the pics. Words can't describe the sight. It was incredible.

We spent about 7 hours at the park and then came home because we were pooped. We showered, went to the store, came back, made sandwiches and then went out for a quick drink. We had our first Caipiriñas which were pretty tasty. After that we went back to the hostel and konked out.

Saturday: The nighte before we had been debating what to do and finally settled on taking a tour of a Guarani indian village. At 9 am we ventured out in another safari vehicle to go check it out. When we got there our tour guide was named Roberto...that was his name in Spanish but he has a different one in Guarani. He was born to be a hunter but does tours on the side. Half of his salary goes to the village. He showed us all sorts of medicinal plants, told us about their religion, shamans, leaders, showed us traps and told us about their education. It was all VERY interesting. It was neat to be actually living part of the history that we had been learning. After the tour of the village we got to watch a children's choir sing us songs in Guarani and then we got to see some of their crafts. Overall, a VERY neat experience. Too much to write about right now.

Afterwards we wanted to go to Brasil but since we are Americans we have to buy a visa. Darn US govt for charging Brazilians to get visas! Oh well. We went back to the bus station and changed our tickets for that evening. We spent the day reading by the pool and catching some rays. At 6 we left and that was just the begining of the 18 hour bus ride home. Anyways...that is a whole story in itself and my fingers are soar from typing so it will be left for another day.