Foz do Iguaçu: Sunday Afternoon

After our trek to Argentina,we were pretty tired, and still very broke. When we got back to the hostel, Luis and Miguel invited us to eat with them, so we made spaghetti and pigged out. That morning, Luis had told us he had a surprise for us, and to meet him at the hostel at 3:00. So, at 3, we were ready in the lobby. I was a little wary, because he wouldn't tell us where we were going. He did tell us not to bring bags or purses, just our passports (!) and cameras. Please don't tell me how naive it was to go along with this scheme.

Luis took us first to a bus, then to a taxi, and then to the Brazilian Border Control. We got our passports stamped there, and Luis said, "Let me hold on to your passports, because I look less like a tourist than you and I can keep them safe." I had my money belt, so I declined, but Diane had only a pocket, and I was doubly nervous when she handed over her papers.

We took a taxi across a bridge, at which point Luis said, "We are in Paraguay! You are illegal. Don't look suspicious, and hide from police."

Luis took his two Germanic charges to a crazy bus stop:

And to an even crazier bus:All the buses were like that: red and orange, green and yellow, or red and purple--any color scheme you can imagine, with swirls and stripes and people hanging out the windows. The inside was amazing:

I think the bus drivers decorate their own buses, and ours had milti-colored curtains at every window and fringe at the front. Diane swears our driver was sitting in a beach chair.

We rode the bus for a suspiciously long time and got off in a quiet neighborhood. I was completely stumped about where Luis was taking us, but after trusting him this far, we didn't have much choice but to tag along after him. Walking through the residential streets I was surprised how different Paraguay looked from Brazil. The difference between the houses was appalling, with this one one side of the street:

And this on the other:

We also witnessed this one-on-one soccer game:

Luis seemed to know lots of people in the neighborhoods we passed, which was somewhat reassuring. Neighborhoods turned into fields, pavement turned into dirt, and eventually we reached our destination: the Beautiful Secret Waterfalls of Somewhere in Paraguay.

I started to feel bad for not trusting Luis, when the whole time he planned to show us these falls. On the way home, he introduced us to some friends of his, and we drank coke and ate these delicious fruits that I hope to find again someday.

The most exciting part of Paraguay was leaving it. We had to sneak out past the police, or we would go to a Paraguayan jail and pay a huge fine. So, in our Experienced-Spies kind of way, we hunched our shoulders and put our hoods on, and ran past border control. Fool proof! Luckily, we made it back across the bridge and safely into Brazil again. And that is the story of my trip to Paraguay.

Foz do Iguaçu: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

Diane and I spent all of our cash to pay for that trip to the falls, but we figured we'd be fine: we could just talk to the hostel owner, pay with credit card, and get our cash back. On Saturday night, we wanted to go out and experience the Foz do Iguaçu nightlife, so we went to talk to Luis about paying in credit. Unfortunately, Katharina House doesn't take credit cards. So basically, we were screwed. We had, I think, R$5 left. Luis, ever almost creepily kind, said he could loan us money to go out. We promised to buy him something from the grocery store, which did take credit, the next morning, and borrowed R$50. Then we ventured out to a bar, which is another story: let me just say, never go to a Metallica tribute concert in a pink dress and jelly shoes.

We spent R$15 each to enter the bar, R$1.50 on a water, and R$12 for the cab home. That left us with R$6.50 from Luis, and R$11.50 total.

The next morning, we wanted to get out of Luis's debt asap, so we went to the grocery store to buy him the 3 cases of beer he requested. That's right, Follower: instead of going to church on Sunday, I bought 36 cans of beer. We tried to get cash back (in many painful and embarrassing schemes) at the store, because R$11.50 wasn't enough for all the bus rides we needed, but no luck. So, after bringing the beer to the hostel, we decided to just walk to our next destination: 3 Frontiers.

3 Frontiers is where Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil meet. It's the coolest border-monument I've been to, because the countries are separated by a river, and each country has a monument like this on their bank of the river:

The river makes a T, and you can see the other countries from the banks of whichever one you're standing on.

By our finger measurements on the map, the walk should have taken about 45 minutes. However, either our fingers or the map weren't to scale, so it took about 2 hours. That's right: we totally hiked to Argentina, through what we later learned were the slums of Foz do Iguaçu. We walked past banana groves, boys with homemade go-carts, and run down soccer fields. Fortunately, the tourist shop at the monument let us get R$10 cash back, so we could afford a bus ride home! Yay!

Foz do Iguaçu: Saturday, continued

The afternoon warmed up, which was fortunate, because we got soaked when we saw the Falls. I don't have much to say about them, except that they were incredible. Here are some pictures.

Foz do Iguaçu: Saturday, the jungle

After a delicious, included breakfast at our hostel, we took the bus to Foz do Iguaçu National Park. We'd decided to do the "Trilha do Poço Preto" tour, which was expensive but included a trek through the rain forest, a boat ride on the Iguaçu River, and kayaking.

Predictably, the tour was not nearly as cool as we expected. The rest of the group biked, but we walked so we could see all the monkeys, tapirs, armadillos, and jaguars that hang out on the trail, hoping to be seen by tourists. Our chatty tour guide scared them all away, but we got to see some jungle plants:

Red Pineapple!

Cool vines (I really did feel like Tarzan)!

Bird of Paradise:And most importantly: Matthew, Boppy, and Scott, you and the Inca King will be pleased with my success:

Things got better when it started raining, and the tour guide called a car and left us alone in the jungle (he was afraid of the harsh winds that frequently knock over trees. There was no wind). We saw a weird bird and strayed from the trail a little bit, and it was cool to hear rain in the rain forest.* We finally caught up with the group at the river. It was too cold to kayak, but we did the boat part of the tour and saw more animals:

There's a giant otter on the log, I promise:

...and a baby caiman/alligator thing between the branches:

The boat ride was cold but fun, and at least we saw some animals. Plus, on the walk back, we saw a tailless, rodent like thing that maybe was a capybara. Not sure. It ran away pretty fast

*The more interesting version of this story is:

After we were deserted in the jungle in the midst of a storm, Diane and I dodged the giant trees crashing around us and thrashed our way through the underbrush, bravely facing unknown beasts and enduring until we once again joined our guide.

Side Note

I found this sign in one of the many bathrooms I frequented on my trip to the Falls. I present it here to you in order of increasing weirdness:

No tampons? A reasonable request. Next:

A good, if somewhat desperate, reminder. Third:

I still think it's weird that NO TOILETS in Brazil can handle a wad of toilet paper. And lastly:

What? Is this a common problem among tourists? Is it the Argentinians? The Americans? The Europeans? Who feels the need to clamber onto Brazilian toilets? And if we do feel the need, why is it such a problem? If we fall in, we'll deal with it. I claim the right to stand on any toilet that I darn well please.

Foz do Iguaçu: Friday

On Thursday night, we departed for Foz do Iguaçu, the fantastic waterfalls located at the borders of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. Today (Tuesday) was Brazil's Independence Day, so it was a long weekend. Our bus was 3 hours late; we left at about 11:00 and arrived in Foz around 10:00 Friday morning.

Our hostel was nice and clean, and for the first night we had a 10 person room all to ourselves:

After moving in and making a rough outline of our 4-day plan, we visited the free zoo across the street. I saw my first banana tree (I know this is weird, but I've always wanted to see a banana tree. It's a good goal to have: they are awesome):

While wandering around the zoo, we came across a man cutting down a tree with a machete (he was not intentionally part of the zoo, but he was still interesting to watch). He turned out to be the zoo keeper, and he noticed us watching and showed us around the zoo himself. He even let himself into the animals' cages and took up-close pictures of them. So even though I haven't been this close to alligators, my camera has:

And, he let us hold the baby tortoises.

For the rest of the day, we explored the city. Little expecting any money issues (foreshadowing, Follower!), we even bought some souvenirs at the market, and found kebabs for dinner:

Yum!

When we got back to the hostel, L, the owner, made us drinks and started talking to us. We were pretty much the only guests there that night, so he had plenty of time to chat. The conversation took a sudden turn from "Where have you traveled?" to "Let me tell you about my sexcapades!" L looks young for his 46 years, but certainly not young enough to be dating a 21 year-old or sleeping with 19 year-old clients. To be fair, he also doesn't look old enough for his 72 year-old clients, but he'll sleep with them, too. In fact, L told us, he'd slept with about 1,000 women. His favorites are blonde, blue-eyed Germans. He made us promise to tell him about our dating lives the next night, but we assured him that ours were not half so interesting.

After over an hour of talking, L showed us to our room and brought us some quilts. He pointed to the empty bunk next to ours and asked,

"Do you know who's sleeping here?"

"No..."

"I am!"

We giggled awkwardly and said, "Um, see you tomorrow!" and closed the door firmly behind us.