Viaje a Las Cataratas del Iguazú

On the 30th of April I set out on what was to one of my most enjoyable experiences of my exchange so far. I was bound for Rosario to join ten of my fellow exchange students on a trip to the Iguazu Falls in the province of Misiones in the far north-east of Argentina. 

My journey didn't start out all that well. I managed to miss my first bus due to an error in departure times by my coordinator. We went in pursuit of the bus, however once we had made it half way to Neuquén (where I would be changing buses), my coordinator decided she might as well drive me the remaining few hours to the province's capital. There I was met by one of their friends who is studying at university in Neuquén. She is fluent in English so we chatted away for the next few hours while she listened to the announcements to make sure I wouldn't miss my bus to Rosario.
The bus to Rosario took around twenty hours, but thankfully most of this was overnight travel and I was able to sleep most of the way. Due to a dodgy train system, buses are the most popular method of long distance travel in Argentina. For this reason, the companies are in hot competition and all possess top quality, super comfortable double-decker buses. If you're wanting to see the country, one of these buses is an ideal way to do so!

I arrived at the WEP offices several hours before most of the other students, so I was taken to the lovely home of the WEP Argentina director (conveniently located just around the corner from the WEP offices) where I could shower and sleep before spending a little while having a wander around Rosario.
When everyone had arrived we spent a while catching up about our adventures so far. While everyone's experiences have been unique, there was general consensus that mine has been particularly different. My life here contrasts greatly to almost everyone else's - not surprising considering that most are centred around the big city of Rosario, while I live in a relatively tiny town on the opposite side of the country. Many were very jealous my beautiful surroundings and said that they would love to visit me here if it wasn't such an insanely long journey to get here.

We then loaded our gear into the minibus that would be carrying us the rest of the way to the Falls. This would later be dubbed "The Bus from Hell". Twenty-four straight hours in a cramped, far from comfortable minibus on long, straight and mostly very boring roads would never be my preferred method of travel. This being said, I would be hard-pressed to find a group of people I would rather share the journey with. The travelling was already half over for me, so it wasn't quite as daunting, and through all the complaining, freezing night hours and numb back-sides, the trip wasn't all that bad. Once we got a fair way north, the scenery started to get really cool - very different to anything I had seen up to that point. The dirt turned a deep red (reminding me a lot of the dirt in Temora) and everything slowly became more 'jungle-looking'.

Having had very few opportunities to speak English for an extended period of time since our orientation week, I was loving being able to regain my voice! The irony is that my vocal chords weren't all that prepared for the onslaught of language and ten hours of nonstop talking resulted in the loss of my voice for the next few days.. Not wanting to waste the opportunity to speak English however, I kept on talking (much to the delight of my fellow travellers) and slowly gravelled my way back to full health. 

Our first stop as far as the major attractions went was the San Ignacio ruins - the remains of a mission set up several centuries ago in an attempt to convert the natives. Our guide gave some pretty interesting talks in both English and Spanish and I quite enjoyed wandering the ruins. While we were all glad to be free of the minibus and regaining feeling in the parts of our bodies that had fallen asleep, our exhaustion and hunger put a little bit of a damper on things.

After a few food and rest stops, we finally arrived at our accommodation at Puerto Iguazu, much to everyone's delight. Puerto Iguazu was a nice place to set up camp - quite touristy but with a very small-town feel to it. 

The next day we set out for Iguazu National Park. We spent our first half a day with a tour guide who gave us a brief overview of the best way to experience the park and a bit of extra info on some of the sites. We got to see heaps of monkeys! I don't know if you could class them as wild though - they were freely roaming the park and really comfortable with human presence (except for one of our Germans who got a little too close with his camera). We also saw an armadillo, some sort of large reptile that resembled a crocodile, turtles, butterflies of every colour and size and an abundance of coatis. The coatis - little brown racoon looking things - were possibly the most annoying animals I have ever come across. When we stopped to have lunch we were having to physically fend off the swarms of them looking to snatch away our sandwiches. One of the particularly sneaky ones made off with the lunch of our Dutch comrade. To their credit they were pretty cute and at times I was torn between picking them up for a hug or laying a boot into them. I'll admit to giving a bit of a kick to some of the more persistent critters.

While the wildlife and jungle atmosphere was pretty cool, the main attraction was always the waterfalls - "Las Cataratas del Iguazu". I don't know how to begin to describe them. The view got better and better at each viewing point we reached.  At first I was thinking "Yeah they look nice, but are they really worth all the hype?", however I became increasingly amazed the more time I spent there. The nicest views of the falls were from a long distance, but the best experiences came when we were able to get up close, hear the roar and feel the spray of the natural marvels.

On the first day, the best example of this came when we ventured out to "La Garganta de Diablo"  - "The Devi's Throat". To reach this particular section of the falls, we had to walk along a seemingly never-ending trail of metal walkway across small islands and large masses of open water. When we reached the viewing platform, standing right on the edge of the Argentinian side of the falls, I was lost for words (and that wasn't just because I had destroyed my voice on the trip there). No matter how hard I tried I could not find the words in English or Spanish to describe what I was feeling. My companion, a giant German boy with a very thick accent and interesting use of the English language, thought he might give it a go. Amongst the soaking spray of the falls he grabbed me by the shoulders and yelled above the roar of the falls "Have you ever seen anything so amazing!? I cannot believe it! It is so awesome man!".

I lost track of how much time we spent at La Garganta, taking countless photos, yelling to each other above the roar and just standing in awe, gazing through the spray at the beauty stretched out before us. Some of the photos turned out alright, but it really is something that needs to be experienced. The sound is incredible and the incomprehensible surge of water creates a spray so thick that you cannot see the bottom of the falls, and when the wind is right it rises up to soak those staring in from the top.

As amazing as this was, it wasn't to be our most up-close encounter with the falls. The next day we entered the park again (at a discounted rate because we went two days in a row (I still can't believe how cheap entry into and activities within the park were - we paid no more than the equivalent of AU$150 for entry and all activities at the falls!)). We then went on a little safari tour, learning a bit more about the park and its wildlife. Apparently there are pumas and other big cats that venture out during the night! The safari concluded at the entry to a boat ride that would take us closer to the falls for some picture opportunities and then into the base of part of the falls! If you ever have the opportunity to visit Iguazu, this boat ride is a must! We got back to shore thoroughly drenched and unable to wipe the smiles from our faces. I was one of the lucky two in our group to possess a fully waterproof camera (the girl from Holland that lost her lunch to the wildlife being the other) and was able to get some great pictures before, during and after the repeated drenchings.

After this we spent some time on San Martin Island, basking in the sun, having a bite to eat (safe from the coatis this time) and simply relaxing with out awesome view of the waterfalls. We then trekked up to some over viewing points. I chose not to take my camera for these, and while the views were again spectacular, it was nice to just stand and reflect on God's creation without having to worry about getting a picture from every possible angle. From there we headed back to the entrance, purchased some souvenirs (unfortunately not quite as fairly priced as the entry fee) and heading back to our accommodation to recover.

Over the course of the week we also visited a precious stone mine and the place where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet, as well as a wildlife park. Here we got to see toucans, monkeys and various types of eagles. The park also keeps some of the cooler animals like the native big cats, but unfortunately they don't have any at this time of the year because it is breeding season and the have too many issues with the wild animals trying to get in. At one point we had to hurry out of the way of a large, jealous and rather aggressive female monkey that was making her way through. 

When we weren't busy seeing the sites we enjoyed our time relaxing at the hotel. Many of us had purchased mates (the cups for drinking yerba mate) and were eager to try them out so we spent a lot of time feeding our yerba and 'mafia' addictions. For the uninformed: 'mafia' is a card game in which each participant is given a card unknown to the rest of the players. During the 'night' everybody falls asleep and those with the cards signifying 'assassins' wake and chose a person to kill off. During the 'day' everyone wakes to discuss who they believe to be the assassins and before going to sleep again someone is executed. The assassins win if one of them makes it to the end of the game, while civilians win if they are able to pick both assassins. I think it is a testament to how close our group was that we could play the game to its full potential - lying, backstabbing and furiously debating - yet come out of each game with no hard feelings.

On Sunday it was our coordinator's birthday so we all went out for dinner on Monday night. Following this, we returned to the accommodation for one last game of mafia before our trip home. During the 'night' someone ran and grabbed a cake that we had purchased earlier, lit the candles and placed it on the table in front of the coordinator so that he could 'awake' to it. After we had finished several repetitions of the of the Spanish birthday song he was still looking a little shocked but was very appreciative of the gesture. He said that he had felt the warmth of the candles yet had not suspected a thing. Thankfully the organisers of the cake placing managed to avoid lighting his hair on fire.

We began our journey home on Sunday afternoon. We were all dreading having to spend another full day in the bus but the return trip ended up being quite enjoyable. We spent a massive portion of it playing mafia - turns out it's even more fun playing in a mini-bus! By this point my voice had all but returned to normal and was better conditioned to extended periods of talking so I employed the tactic of talking non-stop. I'm sure my companions were all very fond of my voice by the end of the trip. We returned to Rosario very well travelled, quite exhausted but very much thrilled with the week that was. It was a week that I will never forget!

We gradually parted ways as people made for their respective modes of travel back to host families, a couple of us with further to travel sticking around over night. While we were all smiles, it was a little sad to be saying goodbye - I have formed some amazing friendships and feel very close to the whole group but it may have been the last time that I will see some. (The last time in Argentina anyway - we have all formulated plans to travel the world and visit each other in our respective home countries when our time in South America expires)
Either way, I very much hope that I will get to meet up with many of my intercambio amigos again during my stay in Argentina. To have such strong friendships and to be able to share my feelings with people that are taking part in the same life-changing experience is something very special to me.

My apologies for taking so long in posting this update - hopefully the extra photos make up for it!