Gratuitous Shots of Waterfalls

It's already been over two weeks since we were in Foz do Iguaçu, but I keep remembering how wonderful it was just to watch the waterfalls in awestruck enjoyment. For those who haven't had enough of the falls either, here are a few more pics for your viewing pleasure:

Last Day in the Iguaçu National Park

We had an evening flight back to Porto Alegre from Foz do Iguaçu and we were determined to make the most of the day. We packed our bags, checked out of the hotel, caught a bus to the Parque Nacional, stuffed our luggage in a locker and set out to enjoy the sunny day

The bus system, by the way, is easy to use. For those on a budget, I'd highly recommend it. R$2.20 per person versus a cab ride that's going to run upwards of R$30 to get from the downtown to the waterfalls. For those not on a budget, the cabbies are pretty nice guys and often willing to make deals instead of letting the meter run.

In the park, we opted for a package that began with a 9 kilometer bike ride through the rain forest.



The others on the tour were a local tour guide taking two neighbor friends to see the park. One of them had never ridden on a bike before. Much hilarity ensued. Usually too far behind us for us to actually see it. Though we could hear the laughing.

Our tour guide (who'd also been our tour guide on the boating trip we'd taken) would stop every once and a while to give these sweetly goofy guys a chance to catch up.



He also liked to point out the wildlife. Such as excitedly picking up this little dude and trying to take a picture with his camera phone at the same time.

Looks cute doesn't he? Or at least like some unassuming funky colored moss. Well, as we learned, do not mess with him. Just don't do it. Don't even let him brush against your skin. Because if you do you will have 48 hours to get to the hospital, or...you will die. No kidding.

Perhaps, it's not surprising that the rest of us weren't quite as eager to get close to the little dude.

Then, we saw another sight. A poor snake that had been run over (accidentally? not sure...) by a jeep. Our tour guide was really upset about this, especially at whoever was responsible, but determined that the poor guy was going to survive and shooed him back into the underbrush.



Then, I became a wuss.

I'm not sure how far we'd biked, but eventually the tour guide called the jeep to come pick up the other guys because they were having too much fun to keep up. We picked up our pace. The path got muddier. And a few kilometers in I was exhausted, breathing a bit heavy and dripping with sweat.

And I kept envisioning my bicycle tire slipping in the mud and bringing me down with it.  The jeep puttered behind us for a while and eventually I waved a white flag saying, "You know, what the heck, we might as well get a ride the rest of the way." I hated giving up, but the tour guide seemed totally fine with the change of plans.

Upon later reflection, there's a possibility that the origins of my pneumonia lay somewhere in this last day at the waterfalls. Truth be told outside of a tremendous amount of walking in Porto Alegre, I hadn't been doing much exercise in Brazil prior to this bike ride. And considering the deadly caterpillars, who knows what I could have unknowingly subjected myself too in a slightly weaker state. Hmmm...

We trucked along until we reached the lake. Then we climbed in a boat and glided along the water checking out the scenery including baby alligators and toucans.



Then, just to add a little more exercise in, we jumped into inflatable kayaks and bumbled through the last kilometer on our own. The three guys shared a kayak and kept doing 360s, water from their oars splashing everywhere. They made Samosa and myself appear positively full of athletic prowess even though we could barely kayak in a straight line. We all couldn't stop laughing. The tour guide and the boat driver were also pretty amused as they observed from a distance.



Later we caught the second to last Parque Nacional bus back to the entrance.



Even the gift shop was closed. Everything was quiet and sunlit. We retrieved our bags and changed into dry clothes for the flight. The beautiful red mud of the state was all over our legs and feet and shoes.



We waited for the local bus with park employees and got off at the airport stop.



Time to go home to Porto Alegre.

Twilight in Foz do Iguaçu

On our second to last day at the waterfalls we had planned to return to the national park. It was Samosa's birthday so we figured we'd celebrate with some biking through the rain forest or maybe rappelling with a view of the falls. Something fun.

We woke up and it was pouring outside. Buckets of rain.

Downstairs the woman at the front-desk confirmed, "Yes, it's going to be like this all day." She agreed that a trip to the waterfalls might not be worth it, "You won't even see them through all the mist."

I asked her if she could recommend anything else to do. Perhaps there were some museums downtown worth getting lost in for the afternoon?

"Have you been to Itaipu?"

Check.

"Have you been to the bird park?"

Check.

"Hmm.." she thought for a moment, "Well there's always the Shopping." Literally "Shopping" is the Portuguese word for "Mall." As in shopping mall. They took the first word and we in the USA decided to stick with the second. Here in Brazil, everyone hangs out at the Shopping. [Here in Porto Alegre there are a crazy amount of Shoppings, 16 I think. Of which I've been to 4 already, meu deus]

And in some ways, I think this day turned out to be my favorite day in the small town of Foz do Iguaçu. Okay, maybe not that small of town. There are around 300,000 residents there, but when you walk the empty street at night, it doesn't feel that big.

It's just that there's something about a day when your expectations are wiped clear and you've got a blank slate. You can't go do the grandiose, marvelous stuff, so you might as well enjoy the small things:

Like walking through the main street trying to share a tiny umbrella between the two of you, nearly knocking each other out in the process. No matter how much you love a person, trying to squeeze both bodies into the space offered underneath tiny umbrella is just not easy.

And getting to observe some Foz do Iguaçu street art.





Enjoying lunch at an shawarma cafe where the hummus tastes like chalky paste but the waitress is nice. Where the man at the cash register, who refused to talk to you earlier, presides over the place in the same manner as the man in the ginormous poster above his head. A man dressed like a king who sits fully waited upon by a young lad, putting more coal on his hookah, and a young lass serving him drinks.

Where you get to marvel again at the utter deliciousness of a fresh passion fruit and milk smoothie at a little roadside stand while Samosa downs an espresso. And the two young women who work there are so kind and just laughing all the time.

Where you realize nearly slipping across all the slick sidewalks that your old flip flops have finally had their day. And luckily, the Shopping has a rainbow selection of new ones (with the Brazilian flag on the straps of course) so the walk home won't be so treacherous.

Where finally you realize your dream of finding "Twilight" in Portuguese (Crepúsculo) at a bookstore in the Shopping. And your boyfriend is thoroughly embarrassed by your literary selection. "Hey," you try to rationalize, "I've wanted to read this book for some time now, ever since the kids I worked with in the high school gushed about it so much. And my friends all admitted to having a hard time putting it down. So, I figured that the best way to do it would be in another language - that way I'm technically learning at the same time as indulging in a guilty pleasure."



"Yeah, yeah, yeah" says Samosa, rolling his eyes, not buying any of it and aghast at how much this frivolous book cost in Brazilian reais.



Where you think you know where you're going as you walk the wet streets but in fact you don't. Neither of you do. The maps only mention the big streets anyhow. And you walk several more miles than necessary. But in fact it's great because you "discover" a totally different neighborhood you never would have seen otherwise. And you're both taking pictures and just having a good time.



And when in the late afternoon the sun starts to come out. You recognize where you are because you saw the Hotel San Juan, glowing blue, when you swam in the rooftop pool of your hotel the other night. 



Yup, nerds having fun on a mostly rainy day in Foz do Iguaçu.

Happy birthday Samosa!

And now: A few waterfalls!

We started on a little tour through the rainforest.

It included frequent sitings of scary spiders. This photo is thanks to Samosa and his zoom lens and bravery for looking up and admitting that there were tons of spiderwebs overhead.

The guide said that we shouldn't worry about these guys, sure they'd bite and it'd hurt (like a mosquito), but they weren't poisonous. No big deal. Still, I'm not sure I'd be so rational if one landed on me. Apparently though they are the masters of strong web weaving and fisherman have used their gossamer threads when fishing. So I've been told. By a tour guide. On this tour.

So a car tour. Then a walking tour. Then...

...an American, a Finn and an Indian get photographed by a Pakistani as they suit up for the boat ride.

And we get close to some of the waterfalls.

They hand around a waterproof bag and we drop our cameras inside. Then we get really close to the waterfalls. Like, really close. We go right underneath them. Water, water, everywhere. Shouts and laughter. You try to look around you but you can hardly see. Then they're gearing up and they take you under the falls again. And again. And again. They almost look placid from a distance, but feel a little more intense when they're raining down upon you. Kinda amazing. Definitely fun.

I was pleased I'd had the foresight to leave my shoes on the dock. Though that felt like kind of an after-thought considering all my clothes and underclothes were soaking with waterfall water. But, luckily I'd brought more clothes. Actually, due to some crazy-running-to-get-to-the-tour-on-time, I hadn't changed into my bathing suit and old t-shirt on time. But, I was grateful for the dry bathing suit to put on.

So, after this whole-body drenching experience, we followed the signs to more waterfalls!

Ah, look, these are our waterfalls-viewing-smiles-of-contentment!

Yup, this is the kind of thing we're looking at:

 

Then for the fun of it, we got misted again when we went out past the End Polio Now sign onto the walkway and got even closer to it all (as close as you can get on the Brazilian side, I'd say). This time I was happy for this "raincoat" and keeping my bathing suit dry(ish).

It was lovely. If you want to see more, I've been posting photos less discriminately on my flickr site.

And luckily we didn't get hit on the head by any falling rocks at any point during the day's activities.

We left the park that Friday afternoon completely thrilled to devote our entire Saturday to more time with the waterfalls.

Except when we awoke the next morning, there was a torrential rain storm outside our window...

...on the Planet!

Everything's bigger in Texas? Forget it! Everything, it seems, is bigger in Brazil!

As part of Samosa's symposium, they loaded us all onto buses and brought us to see the Itaipu dam: "the largest hydroelectric power plant on the planet" (p. 329) according to the Lonely Planet guidebook for Brazil.  Well damn, even Texas can't beat that. That just seems like something a superhero should announce loudly and proudly. Or just as easily perhaps, a supervillain could utter this rather craftily and sneakily, maybe with signature hand gesture. 

Length: 8 kilometers
Height: 65 stories
Energy Production: Enough to cover 22% of Brazil's consumption and 90% of neighboring Paraguay's (they share the dam)

The pictures below (and believe me, my camera does the scene absolutely no justice unfortunately) show just the run-off surplus water. Yup, my glasses got all fogged up even from this distance.

On the one hand, the dam provides amazing clean energy. It's magnificent. And of course, it's now involved in all sorts of environmental and educational good works.

On the other, serious damage was definitely done when making way for this dam including destroying approximately, "700 sq km of forest...Several species of plant life...driven into extinction. Many native Guarani and Tupi settlements were destroyed, as was the impressive Sete Quedas waterfalls." (Lonely Planet, p. 329). It feels like one of those things where now we're supposed to just enjoy the thing, proudly tout it, and totally wash over (hah, no pun originally intended) what was done to get to this point.

We were given a tour of sorts. Mainly it involved some informative talking over the bus loudspeakers and then the bus letting us off at various places. We'd get off, wander into them and take lots of photos. There wasn't too much explanation until the smiley, happy yay-Itaipu! documentary of the dam that we were shown on a pavilion with an expansive view of the dam.

[Interesting note: the engineer's building is built right underneath the dam - perhaps to remind them that if they screw up in any way all this water is going to come toppling down on them first?]

Then they showed us a light show since it was well after dark. There was dramatic classical music playing, so for some reason, I thought I was in for something. But, then they just switched on the floodlights, some tinted with colors, one by one. With everything glaringly bright now, the music ended and that was it. The guidebook described the experience by employing the word "hokey." People continued taking pictures and others walked towards the buses.

The last picture I took that night, because it amused me, was of this chair in the Itaipu ladies bathroom intended for "elderly and pregnants."

From there we quietly filed into our buses and headed through the darkness to a churrascaria in the downtown for meat, more meat, caipirinhas, more meat and last-minute confusion about the drink bill. The buses took most of the engineers back to the resort, while Samosa and I walked back through silent but generally well-lit streets to our more modest lodgings. (Modest yeah, but how about those towels?!)

---


Brazil. Lonely Planet. January 2008, 7th Edition.

An Iranian, an Indian and a Pakistani walk into a ...

... bird park. I rounded out the group as the American contingent. We'd hopped on a bus to get there, after skipping out on afternoon electrical engineering talks at their conference.

Some of the birds at Parque das Aves were a bit wary of us...

Luckily however, we happened upon a friendly toucan who offered to show us around and introduce us to all the birds.

Including some birds not so thrilled about their cages (hard not to sympathize),

 And others, who didn't feel quite so caged in.

 

 
We said thanks to the birds for their hospitality and headed to the gift shop.

And now that we knew the bus route, the next day we would know exactly how to get to the waterfalls, located not much further down the road. Hopefully, we would run into some of their relatives there...

Waterfalls everywhere, but I'm showing you towels

Originally uploaded by Blue Dragonfly Girl

This was one of the groovy towels that greeted my boyfriend and I when we made it to our hotel room in the quiet town of Foz do Iguaçu.

A flickr reader named NoNo Joe described this creation in the following manner: "Looks like it sucked on a lemon."

The housekeepers created these fancy towel formations for us on the first day. And the second. But on the third day?
On the third day, they folded them like normal. Did we fail to show our appreciation of towel origami, I wonder?!

And yes, I have some pictures of the beautiful scenery of the area (hint: expect some photos with waterfalls. I'll try to control how many I post), but I'm still feeling a bit under the weather, despite the gorgeous sunset outside the window.

Therefore, just as we were greeted with the artistic vision of these towels at least one day before we were awed by the natural wonders of the area, I will also start y'all with this random piece of my adventures as a tourist and then move onto bigger things.