Having taken a very early flight from Rio de Janeiro, we arrived in Foz do Iguaçu (also known as Iguazu Falls) late morning and had plenty of time to do all the walks in the Iguaçu national park and take lots of photos, despite it being a little chilly and overcast. Loved it though. In each place we visit we have a local guide with us as well as our own guide, so this time we had a swarthy Portuguese guide called Eduardo, who was very knowledgeable.
Got to see plenty of Coati which are a bit like a racoon with a very long nose and stripy tail. They are a pest, just like racoons, as they know that humans = food, so they appear from nowhere as soon as they hear the crinkle of plastic and will suddenly jump on your table while you’re eating your lunch. We watched one of them approaching a Japanese tourist who had just bought lunch for his family and was walking along with the lunch in a plastic carrier bag, when about 6 Coati appeared from nowhere, grabbed the bag with their teeth and ran off with it – so the man was left holding only the handles and a few shreds of plastic bag! He wasn’t at all amused but it was very funny to watch.
After a short stop at a cafe/gift shop/aviary, we were meant to be crossing the border from Brazil into Argentina and checking into our hotel on that side. However, when we’d had a wander round, we all met up again at the bus and Eduardo told us the bad news that there was a demonstration at the border crossing and the border police had closed the border indefinitely….no vehicles at all were allowed to cross the border and nobody had any idea how long it would be closed for.
By this time it was nearly dusk and starting to rain, but because we had to fly out to Buenos Aires the next day from the Argentine sid,e we had to get across the border that night. So the only option was to walk the 4 kms across the border, either pulling our luggage behind us, or leaving it in a locked but unmanned bus overnight, with the hope that it MIGHT arrive the next morning before 8am when we had to leave for the airport. After a brief discussion we decided as a group that we would just ‘suck it up’ and get on with it, so we all set off across the border on foot, most of us with our luggage in tow.
BUT what they hadn’t mentioned was that quite a lot of that 4kms was uphill! Now I may be blonde, but I’m not completely stupid, and as Eduardo was a big strong man who didn’t have any luggage to take across (and because I already have one dodgy shoulder), I had an “Aha!” moment and decided to bribe him with some American dollars to pull my case across the 4kms into Argentina. I was then able to stroll beside him carrying absolutely nothing, while he lost about 5 kilos through sweating up the hill. Brilliant!
After being bundled into several cars with our suitcases on our laps, we were taken to our hotel and then immediately out to dinner to a nearby restaurant – nothing like a good Argentinian steak with an even better bottle of Argentinian red wine to sooth away the trials of the day. The whole border crossing experience was actually a really bonding and fun one for the whole group and we all agreed afterwards that it was, in a way, one of the highlights of the trip so far.
I mean how boring would it have been to just drive over the border in a bus??
2 Frosty Tops Do South America 