28th August 2010
Argentina for the Day – Iguazu Falls (The way the Argentinians spell it!)Todey we were up early for a full day at Iguazu Falls on the Agentinian side. We had breakfast...the usual of white bread, cheese, ham, fruit and cake and got our passport and things together for the day. We have to take our passports due to crossing the border and entering another country. We had pre-booked the trip with the hotel we are staying with, this means we get the transport by taxi their and back, help at the border, changing money, tickets, the boat ride and jungle trail.
We shared our taxi with another couple from the hotel, they were nice but Brazilian so we didnt speak much. Only time we did was when they asked me if I was Brazilian and if I spoke Pouturgiese. We drove to the Brazalian boder where we show our passports, they stamp it, we then drive to the Argentinian border where they check our passports and stamp them. We then had to change our money for the day into Peso's. We then drove through Argentina for all of 15-20 mins till we arrived at The national park of Iguazu.
We got our tickets, showed our voucher for the tours we had planned for the day. We spoke to some one from the park who said we could start our tour immediately so we did.
We got on a massive jeep thing and headed off into the forest. We saw lots of trrees. At one point I thought I saw a parrot or something but it was probably a bit of tree. After 6 kms or so we got to the river and got onto a massive speedboat thing. Everyone was changing into their swimming gear and stashing their clothes in waterproof bags. Bindya had the genius idea of taking our shoes off and putting them in the bag – I couldn't thank her enough for this idea later... We headed up river until we could see the falls in the distance – we took sone photos until we got too clolse and had to put the camera away. The driver then headed right up to one of the falls and we got soaked in the spray. We thought that was it until he then headed for one of the most mental, violent and insane waterfalls.
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| This is the one we went under... |
He then actually went right under it, soaking us completely to the skin. I couldn't see anything, due to my eyes being closed, B was screaming so much that she swallowed half the river, we then realised why we were told to do this in the morning. We sloshed off the boat and headed up the hills, stopping to get close up looks at various waterfalls.
We then saw loads of monkeys in the trees - I was trying to get close to get some pictures but loads of Argies came running up, shouting, playing music on their mobiles and generally being loud and obnoxious. This reminds me - on the drive up from the border we passed a military camp. There was a big wall in the front with a giant, golden map on it - it was an outline of the Falkland Islands, or Islas Malvinas as they call it. I thought this was a little bit petty and slightly worrying at the same time. I was in a country where the army still hadn't got over a humiliating defeat by my own country in the not so distant past...
Anyway - we then got a good look at these violent monster things we'd been warned about - see video below...It had stolen some biscuits from some woman
Later on we saw about five of them chasing a fat boy with a bag of crisps - that was funny, I should have videod that. We finished the day by getting a train up to the upper Iguazu River and walking along 1200m of bridge right up to the top of Devil's Throat. This was both amazing and incredibly annoying. What I'd learnt today was that I didn't particularly like the Argies. They had very little respect for their environment - throwing rubbish, dropping fag butts, making a racket etc. They also spent all their time barging past you to get a photo then barging off somewhere else to do the same. We were just trying to chill and enjoy the fantastic view.
We headed back about 5, jumped in the taxi and got home. We were forced to leave later to try to get food - usual thing, we couldn't really find anywhere where we wanted to eat and ended up eating a bowl of cod balls. We nearly ended up in Pizza Hut except there was a massive queue.
Click below for picture album...
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