Puerto Iguazu

Hey Guys,



I am just stupidly hot right now, i´m in an internet cafe and its like 35deg in here, and its worse outside with the humidity. I was planning on uploading all the photos from our day at the falls but the computers are just soo incredibly slow so it will just have to wait.



So our last day in Buenos Aires was fairly uneventful, we packed up our gear and left it at the hostel, Katrina wanted to see a few museums and Claire and I walked Anthea to her Mundo Jurasica event that she was looking forward too. Claire and i wandered around and found an art gallery butit was very odd, it was just thirty variations on the same theme-tiny plastic toy babys brightly coloured and ramdomly scattered in a frame. some were tied together with rope, some just glued on,. some stuck between pages of books, some amongst sellophane etc.

Claire believed it was a message about abortion and artificial insemination, i just thought they guy wanted to be random.

We picked up Anthea and we took the subway to a mall that Lonely Planet claims has an awesome roof. on our way in it started to drizzle and that felt quite nice after all the heat we´ve had. the roof was quite pretty but nothing too spectacular, and the mall itself felt very fancy and expensive. upon leaving we discovered the skies had opened up and it was absolutely pouring down, we were all just wearing singlets and shorts/skirts so we though ah well nothing for it and just started walking to the subway. by the time we got there some 5 blocks later we all looked liked drowned rats. but it was quite fun.

We subwayed back to the hostel to meet Katrina then prepared for our trip to the bus station which was definately less fun. We were trying hard not to get our packs wet and we weren´t entirely sure where the bus station was but we found it eventually. It was quite stressful and we were running a bit late. but we were greeted with the most amazing 2 storey bus. the seats reclined to 180degrees, with blankets and pillows. Anthea and i sat sat up the top and Katrina and Claire were down the bottom. we were served lollies, followed by drinked (wine, beer whiskey or soft drinks) then little cheese and olive sticks, which i politely declined. then dinner of rice and ham, a pastry parcel, cheese and crackers, breadroll a sponge with dulce de leche (caramel) filling. (which is huge in argentina-they even use it as a breakfast spread!) and this was followed by second dinner and more drinks. this time a hot chicken and veges meal. Later in the evening we were given champagne and little cakes. We also watched two movies on our personal screens, In her shoes and another i forget. Only problem was the sound was just a bit too quiet and the subtitles were Spanish. It was so crazy, we almost felt like we didn´t belong cos it was too fancy :p
But that is where it stopped being enjoyable for me. When everyone decided to go to sleep and i just couldn´t do it. The bed was comfy, i wasn´t too hot or too cold, the earplugs blocked the engine noise but i just couldn´t sleep. i sort of dozed a bit and the last time i remember looking at the clock it was 5.30 and then i finally fell asleep. But by some ridiculous rule they served breakfast at 6.30!! which meant i got a total of 1 hour sleep. It was still dark outside and there was a massive lightning storm that lit up the sky every few mins. I could hardly stomach breakfast that early and then everyone else fell back asleep but once again i couldn´t do it. I was not impressed. and then i started feeling car sick (or bus sick if you wish) i think the top storey swayed more but i did not feel good so just looked out the window for the last 2 hours.

We finally arrived and the rain became soo heavy we couldn´t hear each other in the bus station. So we decided to leave the falls for the next day and stay in iguazu for 2 nights. which worked out well cos i got to catch up on some sleep and relax for a while, plus the falls require a full day to complete them.

Which brings me to today. The falls were absolutely spectacular!! i was really looking forward to seeing them and i wasn´t disappointed. in the morning it was very misty and we were worried about obscurred views but when we arrived at the national park the sun started peaking out and the rest of the day was clear skys and super hot. Dam i´m running out of time so i´ll have to be quick on descriing this and may come back to it more later.

It was a perfect day, we saw GARGANTA salta first which was to be written in capitals because its just so huge. The immensity of the water and height of the fall and distance they spread out over were awe inspiring, probably the most amazing natural sight i´ve seen. you couldn´t even see to the bottom because the mist from the crashing falls was so thick. From there we did the upper and lower walkways, and there were just so many falls, and so many beautiful views, everytime we though it couldn´t get better it did!! we even got a boat ride the the island in the middle of the falls and swam in the water, i didn´t have my togs but i jumped in anyway, i couldn´t pass up the opportunity to swim in such a stunning setting and little fish swam all around us. I was amazed at how close we could get the the falls with the boardwalks-some you would get wet just standing next to them from the spray of mist.

I would love to descride it in more depth but i will just mention the final part of our day, a boat ride to the base of the falls, we went right under the falls and it was soo much fun, we got absolutely drenched and it was fantastic. the we went further down the river over rapids and the final part was a 4WD ride through the jumgle which wasn´t as exciting but still cool. I took like 100 photos today but i´ll have to upload them some other time.

Wow i'm so incredibly lucky, my computer shut down after writing this massive blog but i just found it in my drafts!! I'm soo relieved.

Well that's it from me, Goodnight!