Onwards to Brasil

We had some initial trouble in finding a hostel with vacancies on our return to Buenos Aires, but eventually found a spot in the very good Portal del Sur hostel. After a week away in the snow and with much more travel planned, our time back in Buenos Aires was spent desperately savouring our last few big city Argentinean meals. Springtime Buenos Aires had transformed, in our absence, from a cloudy grey metropolis to a blue-skied playground. In between sunny walks, we ate at the excellent DF Mexican restaurant, re-visited La Cabrera steakhouse, and Jim (temporarily) satisfied his craving for North American excess at TGIFridays. I had never before seen cocktails or meals that large in my life!

Monday was surprisingly - and relievingly - productive. I finally got my mail issues sorted out, and now have fresh new contact lenses! Thanks, Dad! After the post office, we trekked across the road to the Retiro bus station, where we purchased "Super Cama / Tutti Leito" bus tickets to leave for the Argentina-Brasil border town of Puerto Iguazu that evening. The 16-hour journey on a Via Bariloche bus was surprisingly luxurious, with fully reclining seats, blankets, pillows, and privacy curtains, as well as a suited waiter who served up hot meals, wine and champagne. Unsurprisingly, the 220 peso per person bus was populated with young gringos like ourselves - a far cry from the local-filled bus we caught from Bolivia!

We arrived at the famed Hostel Inn in Puerto Iguazu the next afternoon, feeling fairly well-rested for the journey. The hostel is located in what used to be a casino, and hence boasts a swimming pool, two bars, a good-sized lounge, kitchen and TV room. Jim and I booked ourselves into an air-conditioned private room, which, to our delight, happened to be close enough to the lounge for us to access wi-fi Internet! Much downloading ensued - movies are such a lifesaver when in transit!

Our first evening was spent in and about the pool, brandishing Brasil's national cocktail, the Caipirinha. We awoke the next morning to find that we had missed our pre-booked 9am transfer to the Iguazu Falls. Perhaps a barrage of cold cocktails in sweltering tropical weather wasn't such a good idea after all! At the instruction of hostel staff, we waited 40 minutes or so for a public bus to the falls, but eventually gave up and caught a ride with a very helpful taxi driver, who offered us the very reasonable price of 10 pesos.

The genuine helpfulness of our driver renewed my faith in taxis. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the tour agents at our hostel. The tour tickets offered to us by the hostel were in no way better priced than the exact same offering at the falls - besides the added inconvenience of having to pre-pay for tour vouchers at the hostel. We were already low on cash with no ATM in sight until the falls, so I am pretty disappointed at the hostel staff's insistence that we buy from them. It is a sad realisation that even in an out-of-the-way, seemingly friendly backpacker joint, the only thing that talks seems to be money, and money only.

Anyways, back to the sightseeing. The waterfalls in the Parque Nacional Iguazu were spectacular. Many a touristy photo was taken, and I did enjoy myself immensely, despite feeling like I was baking in a sauna the entire time. Our pre-booked tour with Jungle Explorers put us on a boat through the rapids and under a waterfall; consequently, I wandered the park in a drenched set of clothes all day.



After washing off layers of sweat and waterfall muck back at the hostel, we hopped into a taxi in search of a Lonely Planet-recommended dinner venue, only to be told by our taxi driver that it was too expensive and tourist-driven a restaurant. Without being too insistent, he took us past another joint instead. Suspecting undeserved profiteering, we initially refused the taxi driver's recommendation, but relented when we saw the quality of the place he was recommending. Surprisingly, he dropped us off outside the joint without seeming to claim anything from the restaurant. Yet more faith has been restored in taxi drivers at Puerto Iguazu.

After yet another day spent lazing by the pool, we decided to take advantage of our location and cross the "Triple Frontera" (three borders) to Brasil and Paraguay on Friday. We engaged the same restaurant-recommending driver at 150 pesos for the entire day, to ferry us across borders and act as our guide. I found the price quite reasonable given his advice on safety in Paraguay, (possibly questionable) methods of getting us into Paraguay without visas, restaurant recommendations, and general conversation.

Foz de Iguazu and the Brasillian side of the Triple Frontera was a surprisingly large city compared to its Argentinean counterpart, and I was a little disappointed that we did not have enough time to stay there for a couple of days also.

Ciudad del Este in Paraguay was a good jolt back into my Third World stereotype. Frightened by our driver's security warnings, we refused even to take our cameras out of our pockets, except while in the safety of the taxi!

That brings us finally to our Saturday bus ride to Rio de Janeiro. As I write this, I've only spent two hours on the bus and it has already broken down once. Surely this does not bode well for the next 20 hours of the journey!

posted by liz at 1:18 PM