Week 110 to 111 - Puerto Iguazu and Foz do Iguaçu

We got up early and headed off in the direction of the ferry, where amazingly we found no queue! Following the purchase of our ferry tickets from a very friendly gentleman, we then proceeded to swiftly obtain our migration stamp out, handed in our TIPs (Temporary Import Permits) and then on down to the ferry. This latter section was a little off-road and bumpy but all-in-all, not too bad. The only cargo on the ferry ride across was a grand total of three motorbikes!!! It hardly seemed worth it, although it would have been a bit of a pain to have had to wait for other passengers in order for it to go, but it would have been understandable. I guess people on the other side were probably waiting to cross back. It was a grand total of 40,000 PYG for the ferry (not a lot) and stunning view of the 'tri-borders' of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. Once on the other side in Argentina, it was an easy border process and very friendly officials once again. 

After stowing our new paperwork away we headed to the 'Tres Fronteras' area where there's a view of all three countries, with all three flags on a monument (see picture below). We met a lovely couple there who were travelling on two small bikes from Argentina. They were taking photos of tourists and selling various wares to fund their travels, which seemed to be serving them well.

The next mission was to find somewhere to stay for a couple of nights while we sorted a trip to the Iguazu (Falls) National Park. We'd mainly avoided big touristy places on our travels so far; one, because of budget, and two, lots of people! However, I just love natural wonders and I just couldn't miss the opportunity. Plus as we were edging towards the end of our travels, we knew if we were careful we could stretch to one or two 'tourist' visits if we felt it worth it.

We found hostel Tierra Viva, which was a lovely, quiet place. Following check in the guy on reception sorted a taxi for us to the falls for the next day. Although we originally wanted to go for the cheaper bus option, we wanted to guarantee we got to the park early and maybe even book on a boat ride. How amazing would that be? It'd certainly be a different perspective of the stunning waterfalls, and probably one we'd never get again.

Our taxi decision paid off, as when we got to the park we were the first ones there...ok maybe we were a little over eager! We waited 15 mins for the ticket booth to open, got our tickets, entered the park and secured a spot on the 9am boat ride. Whoop whoop!

There was a bus that took us through park then on to the boat docking area down the river. This meant that the first time saw the waterfalls was from a boat! It was truly an awesome ride... very hairy going up the rapids, and we could feel strain of engines as it ploughed it's way up the river against the current, with the boat being thrown around.

The falls were a sight to behold. It was definitely worth every penny to get the boat and be able to see the falls from below, and get up close and personal. We got a dunking from the skipper about four times in total, on both the Argentinian side and the brazilian side...both equally as wet!!

By the end of our boating experience we were soaked through...maybe getting one of the earliest boats wasn't such a great plan after all?! We walked around park then took the park train to 'Devil's throat' where we ended up bumping in to Astrid and Luke. We'd previously met them in Hostal Casa Matte in Santiago, Chile, so it was a nice suprise. We spent a bit of time mooching around the falls, which were totally mesmerising. The sheer force of the water was mind blowing. The sound of the rumble penetrated our bodies!

We headed back on the train to the main / central park area, from where we then walked the upper circuit followed by the lower circuit. Again, as you can imagine there were just spectacular views around every corner, with waterfalls of varying shapes and sizes. We had been recommended to visit the falls on both sides, however we decided do the Argentinian side as well as we could and skip the Brazil side.

One thing that was also a great addition to the experience was some funny, cute creatures walking around all over the place called Coatis. Not so much fun if you were trying to eat food on one of the picnic benches, as we witnessed several people having their lunches robbed in broad daylight by these little mischevious things. Definitely funny if you're the one watching it though (sorry!). There were also so many beautiful birds and we also saw a couple of Toucans, some monkeys and other wildlife. That, the waterfalls and the greenery just made the experience so magical, and I was soooo glad we made the effort to go. It was then time to return to the hostel, totally pooped!

On our return to the hostel I just made us a quick curry before crashing in to bed. Zonked!

The next day it pelted it down with rain, combined with the odd passing thunderstorm, which continued for about 48 hours. We did venture in to town in an hour or so of respite from the wet weather, but mainly just for some food shopping. I forgot my passport to change our money so planned to just do that in Brazil instead. I prefer having a little local currency in cash when crossing in to a new country, but this often wasn't possible. No biggie!

We sat and relaxed, worked on our website and blog, whilst we waited for the storm to pass. Sadly, the storms meant us using the pool would be out of the question, but it looked nice at least! I also used the time to do some learning and route planning, which is never a bad thing, and keeps my brain alive. Having looked at the forecasts, we decided Saturday would be the day to cross to Brazil, so I tried to cram-learn a few words of Portuguese...not the easiest of languages I must say, and normally I'm not too bad at picking up languages. This was going to be interesting!

We crossed to Brazil via the bridge. It was a super easy check out of Argentina, however the Aduana guy was adamant that we could keep the Argentinian motorcycle TIPs as they were dated until 2020. I said 'ok' initially, but then went back and asked him to cancel them as it didn't feel right, and I definitely didn't want an issue trying to get back into Argentina before we went home in July! They were so very friendly, and we all talked about England and travel.

It was then ove the bridge to Brazil. A quick stamp in and then Aduana took over an hour due to them being a bit slow with the whole process and unsure of which data to input. However, rather swift in the grand scheme of things I guess! Basically, they didn't ask us any questions and ignored me when I tried to offer information, so we ended up with two TIPs saying we were Irish, that my passport number was my USA visa number (I had a USA Visa covering a whole page) and Kelvin's VIN number had an extra digit. Ah, yikes! Despite my concern and asking several times, they would not change it so we had to make do and hope we wouldn't encounter any problems. Apparently not everyone gets a TIP anyway. I had initially thought guy was grumpy, but it turned out he was just hard of hearing. The migration lady was a bit miserable and busy chatting, so ignored us for quite a while, but we eventually got things sorted and were allowed in to Brazil. I hoped that this initial experience wasn't going to set the tone for Brazil. The Argentinians and Paraguayan's had been so friendly,

We stopped to change money but I had the wrong supermarket pinned on my map so I ended up walking down to one with a 'Cambio'. However, it was well worth it as I got a really good exchange rate. 

It was then onto the Manga Rosa hostel where we were greeted by Johnny Hubbard and Glen Short (Gringo Loco), then Joe the owner. There was lots of chat then we got our room. Several beers later and Joe made Vaca Atolada, a traditional Brazilian beef stew, which was super yummy. A great intro to Brazil...thanks Joe! Johnny was telling us all about his travels and he'd only started travelling in his 50's, and before that had never been out of the US. He'd strated out on his trusty V-strom and had now moved on to a beautiful Triumph Tiger. Glen had also travelled a lot by bike, he'd been in a lot of Bollywood movies and has a keen interest in history. Needless to say, between the two of them there were lots of stories which were great to hear!  We'd made our accommodation choice well!

The next day we booked tickets to Itaipu Dam the following day as Kelvin really wanted to go, and interestingly his parents had been there years before. With our tickets for tomorrow sorted, we took an Uber to the Buddha temple. It was such a lovely day but difficult for photos as we went in the middle of the day and the sun was high in the sky. It was a beautiful area and quite peaceful, with the exception of the selfie brigade. Sadly all writings were in Brazilian Portuguese so we couldn't understand any of it, but never mind. We heard the monks singing with some drums and gongs upstairs in the temple whilst we were then, but unfortunately couldn't see them. Following our tranquil visit we decided to walk and we started walking back but it was just so hot and luckily we managed to get another Uber to come and collect us before we crumpled from the heat. 

In the evening we went off to a food fest with Joe, but unfortunately he had to go quite soon after we arrived. We got some tasty Kebabs (better than your average...not usually my thing), randomly listened to some Elvis stuff, and then some pan pipes music by a Bolivian and Brazilian band, which was excellent. We couldn't bypass the Churros van on way back without partaking, so we got ourselves some and mooched back to the hostel for an early night.

The next day, it was a chilled morning before heading off to the Itaipu dam in the afternoon. It was a great tour. We were incredibly lucky as we were the only English ones there so we ended up with a guide to ourselves and got to see a couple of extra bits that others didn't get to see, including over the edge of dam! We also saw the spinning thing (maybe a Turbine?) up close, which was immense. Apparently the dam could supply the world with power for 40 days with energy produced. The energy produced per day is equivalent to burning thousands of litres of oil per day, and they do projects for ecology and conservation, education and hospitals. It was a really fabulous experience and well worth the ticket price so we were happy with that.

In evening Johnny came over with his wife Juliana, who was so lovely. We also got chatting to Glen again, and he'd nipped over the bridge to Paraguay to get a new phone. Joe arrived back late as his sister had crash in Paraguay and he said that the cops changed the scene to blame her as the other car was a judges daughter. Not fun! Glen made us a veg stew with black beans for dinner, which was well yummy and we were invited to Johnny's the next day for a BBQ. That's a definite "yes" then! We also had decided to stay longer at the hostel due to some upcoming totally shit weather forecast. However, when you have a good crowd to sit out the shit with, it's a bit of a no-brainer?!

After getting up the next day we walked to the shop to get some cash, wine and ingredients for curry. We then chilled out and did some 'work' (aka played with our blog) but my trusty little Lenovo laptop broke. I was very sad, it'd done so well. Then, in the evening we got picked up by Juliana and went to theirs for a BBQ, where we met Juliana's daughter Anna, sister Gabriela and son Matheus, such a lovely, welcoming bunch. We had such a great evening, great meat, and some home made Caipirinha's that packed a punch. It was cocktails, wine and chat all night, and Anna enjoyed her Shisha pipe. It was then time for an Uber back to the hostel. It was nice to be able to use Uber again and for it to actually have rides available!

We didn't get a lot done the next day and then the next night I made a curry for Joe, Glen, Kelvin and I. Sadly, it wasn't as good as normal but the Chapatis were damn good so that helped a little. That night we had a crazy storm, and it was so damn loud that we hardly slept. We also got sent a video from Sergio (a chap we'd meet in person soon) of the Iguazu Falls in flood. Then a couple of days later we saw the Itaipu dam on TV with the spill way open due to the immense rains.

The next day everyone got together to get the hostel ready for a party and a chef came to make Yakisoba, which was oh-so tasty. Johnny and Juliana came along to, so it was great to see them again. We chatted loads, and Juliana had got us some pineapple and ginger jam plus some grape juice, which was so good. Much appreciated and swiftly enjoyed!

The next day Juliana and John picked me, Kelvin and Glen up and took us to a place for a traditional Brazilian buffet lunch. We had a traditional bean and meat food which they said dated back to slave times called Feijoada. Everyone eats it on a Saturday and the queue was extremely long, but it was well worth the wait as the Buffet was great and so were the super strong Caipirinha's. Another great day with great people!

It was our last day, and we were picked up at 11am and went to Johnny and Juliana's for another BBQ. We could get used to this, ha ha! One of the guests was cooking awesome ribs and made some mega tasty salads. It was such a nice day with everyone despite language barrier, and Juliana's dad was also there. There's nothing like a bit of charades for understanding each other! We were then taken to the three fronteras on the Brazil side so now done all three, kind of. We watched the beautiful sunset sat on the bank, and it was then back to hostel where we said goodbye to Juliana and Johnny. They'd been the most amazing, hospitable people and we'd definitely miss them.

All in all, over past week we had tried caipirinhas, feijoada, breaded banana, banana pudding, Brazilian barbecued rib! Definitely a fabulous taste experience!

#IguazuFals #PuertoIguazu #Argentina #AvVida #SouthernPatagonia #AdventureMotorcycleTravel