I boarded the
Kaiowa bus at 11:00 am on the 8
th May. At 11:15 am the bus roared out from Rio
de Janeiro Riodoviara and started its journey towards Argentina. What was “supposed” to be a 22 hour bus ride ended up being a monster 25 and a half hours. Now you might say “what difference is 3.5 hours on top of an already long 22 hours?”. Not much, but when you’
ve mentally prepared yourself (and your ass) for 22 hours worth of sitting down each extra seated moment is amplified.
The bus from Rio to
Sao Paolo was quite empty with a total of 3 passengers (inclusive of me). Only 2 other people were crazy enough to take on the monster bus trip. I had no problem with this, traveling alone on a bus is one thing but the less people on the bus meant for a smoother trip. As the bus made its way south of
Sao Paolo more and more people boarded and soon enough the bus was at least 50% full. Every 3 or 4 hours the bus would stop and pull over for a refreshment stop at the local diners. Funnily enough the two people who started the journey with me
didn’t make it to the end, I was the only person with enough patience to last out the trip!
The bus was actually quite comfortable. Also known as a “sleeper buses” the seats are capable of reclining almost 170 degrees; it was the king of coaches, all that was missing was an in-bus movie. Having the option to recline as well as plenty of space to stretch out and move about it sure beats flying (if only it weren't so slow). I remember constantly checking the time and breaking the trip into eighths, then thirds, quarters, then remaining hours. Here’s the breakdown of my bus ride activities: Sleeping (At least 50%), listening to music (30%) and reading (20%).
A major portion of time was spent daydreaming, I admit it. There were periods where I sat staring out at the Brazilian country side just thinking about nothing whilst bopping my head to music. Ask me now what I was thinking about and I can’t remember but for some extended chunks of time I was admiring the landscape that I had taken the bus trip for. It was quite impressive and rivals that of my bus ride through the hills of
Takayama.
So at 12:45 pm the next day I finally arrived at
Foz Do
Iguacu Brazil. I had survived the longest commute of my life and was eager to get to the hostel. I grabbed a taxi and for 50
Reals he agreed to take me across the border to Argentina to the town of
Puerto Iguazu. Once we had past the Brazilian/Argentine border he pulled up next to a fellow
cabbie and asked directions in Spanish. We drove around for around 20 minutes and he must have asked at least 4 people for directions, a young boy, another taxi driver, a business man on the phone and finally a shopkeeper. Finally he pulled up next to my accommodation
Timbo Posado, funnily enough it was here where he had asked for directions only moments before.
With less than half a day left I settled into my new room and immediately caught a cab back over the border to explore the Brazilian side of the Falls.
Iguazu Falls is a series of 275 waterfalls along the
Iguazu River, the falls are shared by both Brazil and Argentina. Most guide books and people say that the Brazilian side should take no longer than a couple of hours so I thought this would be the perfect way to get some sightseeing done. The price of admission was 20.5
Reals in total, funnily enough me being Australian made some impression on the final ticket price.
I won’t try to describe the falls as a list of adjectives or any number of photos will to do this place justice. Put simply, it was pretty amazing! I spent a total of just over 2 hours in the National Park.
For some reason there’s a power problem at this Hostel. The lights in my room keep flickering on and off. Actually for a period of time I was typing in complete darkness with only my laptop screen running off battery power providing light. The concierge then comes running in after 20 minutes of blackout. “Hey, I think there’s something wrong with the power”. I
couldn’t help but laugh and agree with his astute observation. Went out and grabbed some chow and headed to bed early. First impressions of Argentina? Things are cheaper, place feels safer and they have Australian compatible
powerpoints!
3:00 am (10/5). I am awoken by Spanish Dialog, I can’t tell if it’s two people having a conversation outside my door or if somebody is watching a Spanish TV show. I forgot to mention that my room is adjacent to the hostel lounge room, with the TV less than a metre away from my window. In fact, I can hear most of the TV shows that they watch. I drowsily drift back to sleep.
Woken by the alarm clock on my mobile phone, which seems to be the only function of my phone these days. It’s bloody freezing here in Argentina, a far cry from the tropical weather that I had gotten used to in Rio. Ducked around to the hostel kitchen and grabbed some complementary breakfast; it’s nice to have something a little more continental for breakfast.
Having bought my bus ticket to the Argentinean National Park and picked up a tour package I sat at terminal 9 waiting for the bus. A small crowd had gathered that must have also been waiting, majority of the people had long trousers, denim, walking shoes, runners and long sleeved
tshirts. There I sat in a t-shirt,
boardies and thongs, I felt like I had missed the group memo on what to wear. Soon enough we were at the Park, I won’t bore you with the specifics, but the tour package for 120 Pesos included a 4
WD ride through the national park, pretty boring.
The next part of the tour was a boat ride down the
Iguazu River. I was looking forward to this and I had invested in a waterproof poncho as I had heard “you get absolutely drenched” (Which was the reason for the flip flops and board shorts). The people on my boat all had jackets and waterproof gear, all except one, he had definitely missed the memo. Shoes and socks were instructed to be taken off and put into a waterproof bag along with our other belongings. The boat sped down the river with the driver deliberately getting as close as possible to the waterfalls. The poncho had served me well as I disembarked from the boat almost complete dry, except my face. Spent the rest of the day checking out the falls from Argentinean side.
Just finished packing, having problems with the LAN web-check in, mostly because it's in Spanish. Off to
Buenos Aires tomorrow, I have a sinking feeling that it's not going to be a smooth check in at the airport...
1 kilo of food:
Brazilian BBQ (Churrascaria):
Churros: 
Wafers (I know these aren't Brazilian, but they tasted dam good):
