Saturday, June 9, 2007

Today was an amazing day! We got up at 7:30 and got dressed. I waited for Diana and then we headed down to the breakfast buffet. It was fabulous! There were platters and platters of fruit, baskets and baskets of bread of all sorts, and many different juices and other drinks. I ate a ton of food! I really like the orange juice here because it is squeezed from real oranges. There was also drinkable strawberry yogurt similar to that which we had in Beijing. All of it was very good. The media lunas were super delicious and so was the homemade bread spread with dulce de leche. After breakfast, we went up and brushed our teeth. I went up before Diana and somehow got the door open, but stuck in the locked position so we could neither open nor close our door. It was time to go and neither of us could get it unstuck. Another girl from our program, Nichelle, was walking down the hall and we asked for her help. Of course she was able to get it unlocked on the first try! We went downstairs and got on our bus. We drove about 20 minutes to Iguazú National Park. We waited at the gate while our bus got permission to go in. While we were sitting there, we noticed a sign that had the entrance prices on it. For us, the cost was $10 a person, but if you lived in Argentina, it was less, and if you lived in the Misiones region (where it is located), the cost was lower still. We got out of the bus and waited while Paula and Gustavo paid our entrance fees and then we went in. Margi, our tour guide, led us through the park. It was a really pleasant day… warm, but not hot. We headed to Garganta del Diablo (Devil’s Throat) first. We walked along a nature path to get to the little train station that would take us to the correct path to see it. While on the nature path, we saw a plant that curls up its leaves if you touch it. We didn’t see any cool animals because our group of 35 people was making quite a ruckus. We got to the train station and had to wait for about 20 minutes for the train to come. It was a little train like the one at the zoo. We got on and had to fit four people on each seat. We were a bit squished. There were six ISA students and two Argentine men in our row. We talked to the men and they are from the Buenos Aires area, too. They asked us if we were German. We got to the next train station and got off and headed down the path to La Garganta del Diablo. This is the biggest waterfall in the park. It is half on the Argentina side and half on the Brazil side. We walked on metal catwalks over the Iguazú River most of the way. I could not believe how much water there was! It was like walking over an ocean! They had told us to bring swimsuits to wear later on because we were going to take a boat ride to the bottom of the falls, but they didn’t tell us that we would get soaked at Garganta del Diablo… but we did! Thank goodness for a waterproof bag. It wasn’t bad when the wind was blowing the other way, but when the wind blew the spray toward us, we all had to hide our cameras under our shirts. My hair was as wet as if I had just taken a shower. At first I was afraid to use my camera, so I took a few pictures on the disposable. Once I saw how the wind was working, I would take my camera out during the relatively dry moments. We were standing right by the side of the waterfall and it was totally incredible! We could see Brazil on the other side. Birds were swooping through the air and down into the mist. We could not even see where the water fell because it was too far away to see through the mist. After we were totally soaked and had taken a ton of pictures, we walked back to the train station. We rode back to the first station and headed on a trail that took us to the upper part of the waterfalls on the Argentine side of the falls. We saw falls that are not visible from Brazil. We walked right over the tops of them on the metal catwalks. I took a ton of pictures, of course! After we finished this trail, we went to a place where there were three options for food. There was a buffet, a “fast food” restaurant that wasn’t really, and a convenience store type thing. I wasn’t that hungry because I had eaten an enormous breakfast and so I just ate a granola bar and a banana. Will ate with me. We walked around after we finished eating and took some pictures. We saw some coatis, which are kind of like raccoons. There were signs everywhere warning people not to feed them because they will sometimes bite to get food. Of course there were people ignoring this rule and letting their small children hand-feed them and one man was even coaxing them to climb onto his knee! When lunch time was over, we walked on the lower path of the waterfalls. We stopped at a bathroom about halfway there and changed into our swimsuits. We kept walking. We saw lots more of the waterfalls and then we went for a boat ride right next to the bottom of the falls. We went on both sides—Garganta del Diablo and the Argentine falls. We were so close to the waterfalls that we were being pelted with water like a strong rain. It was kind of scary being so close to them, but it was an incredible experience. Before the boat ride, we received waterproof bags to put our stuff in and lifejackets to wear. Afterwards, we walked back to the bathrooms to change into dry clothes. It was a warm day, but kind of cool in the wind when you were soaking wet! We headed back to the first train station and then walked along with nature path to get to the exit. As we were walking, we saw a toucan in a tree! We all started taking pictures. We got to the bus and drove about 20 minutes to a place called Tres Fronteras or Three Borders. From Argentina, we could look across the Iguazú River to the right and see Brazil and we could look across the Parana? River to Paraguay. Unfortunately, we could visit neither of these locations as close as we were because American citizens need visas to go there. Oh, well. We were close enough to see people walking around in these countries. We could see Punto del Este (I think), a city in Paraguay where you can buy cheap things. There were little stalls where you could purchase souvenirs. We got back on the bus and drove back to our hotel about 5:30. We had four hours of free time until we were going to meet for dinner at 9:30. I was so hungry! A lot of people, including my roommate, Diana, went to take naps. Will and I went to try to find a locutorio where we could use the internet. We never found one even though we had seen one from the bus on our way back to the hotel that wasn’t too far away. It was getting dark so we headed back to the main street. Will wanted to find some shorts to buy, but we couldn’t find a store that sold any. We did find a store where I bought an Iguazú t-shirt for half the price of the gift stores in the park! We went back to the hotel and played ping pong outside in a little outdoor room with a roof but no walls. It was difficult because the ball was heavier than a normal ping pong ball. We talked mostly in Spanish. After a while, Will went to try to dry his pants with a hair dryer because he got his only pair of jeans wet during our boat ride and I sat in a cool swing attached to a tree. After a little bit, I went in and checked my email on the hotel computer. It was expensive compared to most internet places—fifty cents for a half hour! :) I went and took a shower quietly because Diana was still sleeping. I went to a little lobby area upstairs in the hotel where there were some comfortable chairs and I wrote in my journal and read my Bible for a while. I went to wake Diana up for dinner, but she didn’t want to go because she was still sleeping. I went down about ten minutes early and lots of people were already there. I ordered an “agua sin gas” which is regular bottled water compared to “agua con gas” which is carbonated water. It cost a little over a dollar which was quite expensive. I gave the waiter a 50 peso bill because I had run out of small change. He didn’t seem to mind and I wished that I had given him my 100! I had a ton of food at the buffet. There was good pasta. I like the parmesan cheese that they have here. It is real shredded cheese that melts when you put in on your warm pasta. The disappointment of the evening was that there was no chocolate mousse. Will and I had been talking about the chocolate mousse all day and there was none to be found! I ate lots of other good things instead. I was just getting ready to get one last piece of bread when I walked by the dessert table just to double check and they had just brought out a bowl of chocolate mousse! It was frozen and so it tasted like chocolate ice cream! It was so good! I had two bowls of it and so did lots of other people. We ate it all up! As part of our excursion, ISA was taking us to a boliche (club) near the hotel where we would all get one free drink… hooray! I chose to go to bed instead. Diana was still sleeping. I think she was planning on going to the boliche, but she was too tired. Before going to bed, Will and I went upstairs to see Rachel and Heather’s room because they had been upgraded as a result of Rachel breaking the sink in their old room. We went up right after dinner and it was hysterical because they could not get the door unlocked and Heather had to go to the front desk and get a man to help us. He showed Heather about five times in a row, slamming the door shut each time and then had Heather try and she still couldn’t do it! After a few more demonstrations, she got the hang of it and we got to see their room. It was huge and they each had their own queen size bed and there was a balcony. I guess the moral of this story is to break your sink when you are in a nice hotel because you might get a better room! I went to bed about 11, but couldn’t fall asleep until all the noisy people had left for the boliche at 11:30. It had been a really busy and tiring, but good day.