palabra

Días LXXIX-LXXXVI

Monday through Wednesday was not particularly notable. Had class, finished up at Idealist, and worked a bit.

Thursday night, Coby and I left for Misiones, Argentina to see Iguazu falls. Thanks to Coby´s brother, who is a travel agent & booked the trip for us, we barely had to do any planning, so the trip was stress-free. Our bus was quite high class: complete with blankets, pillows, a painfully detailed video overview of how everything from the coffee to the ham and cheese sandwiches were created (at a very loud volume), No Reservations featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones, two BACK-TO-BACK ADAM SANDLER MOVIES (uh…), and complimentary red wine. These films lasted into the night way past when I wanted to go to sleep, but it was fun to try to read the Spanish subtitles. I passed out during the last movie and probably managed to drool embarrassingly on my pillow while dreaming of Catherine Zeta-Jone´s delectable deserts.

When we got there, Coby and I split up. She went to visit the Brazilian side of the falls (US citizens need a visa), and I went on a boat tour on the Paraná River. During the ride, the boat stopped, and a group of Guarani children performed an evening ritual praising their gods on the shore of the river. It was strange and touristy, but the sun was setting, the children, the landscape, and music were beautiful, and the air smelled good (a touch of burning wood), so I momentarily stopped thinking of power dynamics, native american tribes, the tourist industry, the awkward stance we had towering over these children whom had been robbed of their traditional way of live by modern industry.

Once the performance finished, one of the members of the tribe, an older fellow, hopped on the boat and set up a table to sell their tribal wares to the tourists. The rest of the trip was filled with song and dance. Two men with guitars played original tunes, and then a series of Latin American and Spanish classics like La Bomba. I declined to sing along because despite the 100s of times I have hear that specific song, I manage to only know the chorus, and when my time came, we were past the chorus.

We docked , and I returned to have a low-key evening with Coby at the Hostel Inn of chatting with other travelers and looking at each other´s photos.

Our first full day, we visited a precious stone mine, which was pretty cool although there wasn´t much activity going on probably because it was the weekend. The tour was in Spanish, which was a bit difficult to understand because the vocab used was pretty technical. Fortunately, we were stuck all day with a woman traveling with her three teenage nieces, who helped us along.

The driver of the van was pretty awesome, and was admirably patient when I tried to pick his brain about the best mates and how to cure a mate (so that it’s ready for yerba mate and doesn’t rot).

We visited San Ignacio Mini, a UNESCO World Heritage site with the same group. We had a fantastic tour guide, who told us all about the history of San Ignacio Mini, the ruins as they stand now, and the imagery of the designs. She decided (not sure why) that I was her dictionary, so she stopped every once and a while to have me translate something, which I could do maybe half of the time. I felt flattered, but definitely not competent. Ha.

The ruins are beautiful and in the process of being preserved. I have to wonder, though, about how funding works because there was a very new and technologically-equipped museum on the land, but the many parts of the ruins were held up by scaffolding that seemed permanent even though it was declared a world heritage site in the 90s.

The following day, we went on a tour of Iguazu falls. I think the photos speak for themselves, so I won’t say much here. We saw strange butterflies (see below) with the number 88 painted on them, vultures, a humming bird, and other animals. We took a path, which got us so close to the falls that we got soaked. It was funny to see people with ponchos and umbrellas standing next to the grandest waterfall I have ever seen in my entire life. I stood in the spray for a while. Cold and refreshing. We walked along several trails, which surprised us with curious animals, small rainbows, and a restaurant that had veggie burgers (what!?). During the tour, we met some of our fellow tourists including a couple from Holland, a nice woman from Texas, a lanky dude from England, and a girl from Hong Kong.

Our tour finished with an “extreme” boat ride. We got soaked again as per the plan when the boat drove under two of the falls to engulf us in a white wall of water.

That evening, Coby met some nice kids from Holland and Canada, and went to the center of the town for dinner. We had a fantastic time, started a fake band, and goofed off all night. It was great.

In the morning, we were given a tour of part of the Guarani’s land by a Guarani tour guide. This was completely in Spanish, and I was surprised at how much I could understand. The guide explained how they used to set traps (there aren’t enough animals now to subsist off of), how the lifestyle of the formerly nomadic tribe has changed over the years to adapt to the shrinking of their land and the encroachment of modern technology. The children of the tribe greeted us shyly and performed a song for us.

After this, I headed back to the hostel with Coby, took a dip in the pool, and boarded my bus back to Buenos Aires.