Mucho Agua
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2004
1
46
51
Trip End
??? ??, 2006
Iguazu Falls,
Argentina
Sunday, December 4, 2005
In our two hours in Corrientes we managed to break our own personal best for number of misunderstood conversations in Spanish. When I say misunderstood I mean completely over our heads and confusing to the friendly local who canīt figure out why we donīt speak Spanish. We had the local museum curator convinced we could understand for well over 10 minutes. Then she asked a question to which ĻIrlandaĻ definitely wasnīt the required response. But she was really nice about it and I think we were invited back for a guided tour the following day.
I stopped in the street to look at some restoration work of an old theatre
Alligator
. Two seconds later another friendly local is explaining all about it to me. In this instance nodding sagely and saying īsiīseemed to suffice. Then we got a taxi back to the bus station. The taxi driver was so nice we ended up giving him all our New Zealand bank notes because we felt bad about not being able to reply to him. He was pretty impressed they were water proof and tried to give us loads of pesos in exchange. Speaking Spanish would save us a lot of money.When we finally got to Puerto Igauzu we were pretty smelly and utterly delighted to see a pool awaiting is at the hostel. Maria, despite only being a relative newcomer to the backpacking lark, is embracing the general scankiness without complaint. A swim, shower, BBQ and several cuba libras later we were in flying form. So much so that we had to spend the next day at the pool. In our defense we werenīt the only ones overdoing the cuba libras ("put it on the room tab" are evil words). One Irish guy fell out of his top bunk and broke loads of ribs. He needed quite a few days by the pool afterwards.
Up bright and early the next day we headed over to Brazil, as you do, to check out the falls. We spend the morning mountain biking, bird and alligator watching, kayaking and swimming in the National Park with our guide Vincent
Igauzu 2
. Vincent was Brazilian but sounded German - "every year we have 12,678 cubic centimeters of rain except in 1978 when we had 13,456 cubic centimeters". He was a stickler for the details but a nice guy. Our first view of Igauzu Falls was that afternoon heading up the Igauzu River in a speedboat full of speedo-clad South American conservationists. I wouldnīt have planned it quite like that but Iīd highly recommend that approach. The conservationists were complete nutters (the world is not in safe hands) and made the speedboat captain go under on of the biggest waterfalls four times.
Despite the prevalence of speedos on the Brazilian side, the view of the falls is utterly amazing. Why hadnīt I heard of Igauzu Falls before coming to South America? Itīs 2kms of the most amazing, thundering waterfalls. Huge eagles fly overhead, swifts fly though the waterfalls to their nests and hundreds of huge butterflies flutter about the place. You couldnīt dream it up. Weīve met a few people who seen Niagara and Victoria Falls and they all agree that Igauzu Falls are by far the best. Not that itīs a competition or anything.
Despite our bus that evening almost colliding head-on with another much bigger bus we made it back the next day to the Argentine side
Igauzu 3
. And once again spent the entire day marvelling at the falls. The pictures we got are great but canīt capture the immensity of the falls.After touristy Igauzu we decided to escape the crowds of speedo-clad oldies and visit the Jesuit Missions Ruins in San Ignacio a few hours away by bus. The bus journey was nothing exciting although we did pass through one little town in which everyone was gathered in the town square to watch a powerpoint presentation. The little farming village looked exactly as it probably did 50 years ago and there they all were about to watch a powerpoint presentation on a huge outdoor screen.
We arrived in to San Ignacio (dumped on the side of the highway to be precise) on Saturday night and the town was rocking. Everyone had just been to Saturday night mass and now they were all going for some food in the one place in town that was open. Luckily for us we were staying there.
A few hundred years ago (Iīm not a stickler for details) some Spanish Jesuits came over here and set up a happy community with all the locals. Catholic Communism is probably the best way to describe it. They all lived together as equals and worked for their families and the community. Then some evil idiots came along (some evil idiots always come along sooner or later I reckon) and wrecked the place which soon got overgrown by the forest. Despite the happy Saturday night festivities San Ignacio doesnīt seem to have recovered from the destruction and pillage. Itīs a really interesting place but we were the only tourists and Maria claims she saw some tumbleweed roll down the main street. After checking out the ruins and funny museum with a tin foil waterfall and multicoloured papier-mache animals we jumped (quite literally) on a bus and started the long journey back to Buenos Aires.
