Igassu, Brazil Days 4 and 5

So... picking up where I left off. At the market Olya, Masha, and I did some great bargaining. One of the people who ended up selling us stuff even inquired if we were from Israel :-). You will all see what we bought when we come back so there is no point in describing it here. I have to say that the club was amazing. (Although kind of a rip off) Let me say that the club culture and etiquette is very different here. The guys come on strong but move on if you are not immediately interested. When we got home it was around 5 am, so we didn’t really get much sleep.

The next day was mostly spent flying, and as you can imagine, no flight here is without adventures. When we got to the airport, the flight attendants told us that we should take an earlier flight, one that was leaving 20 minutes later. We agreed and Masha, Ilyusha and I went directly to the plane, while the Shafrans went to get their cash from having their bag lost. We weren’t really worried until the plane started moving and the Shafrans weren’t on it!!! We started making plans on what we would do with their luggage if they didn’t make it to Sao Paulo in time to make the flight to Iguassu. Thankfully they got there with 40 minutes to spare. Also imagine our surprise when we all got our bags upon arrival to Iguassu!!!

Our guide turned out to be a really laid back middle aged man named Fernando. Fernando told us that he could take us to the Brazilian side of Iguassu falls right away so that we would have more time on our last day here for the Argentinean side of the falls and Itaipu. We gladly agreed to start our adventures as soon as possible. The bus took us to the national park and we walked through the trail to the falls. I can not describe the beauty of this place. It was relatively warm and sunny and there were rainbows everywhere because of the sun hitting the mist that was coming off the falls. We couldn’t stop taking pictures. At the end of the trail Fernando led us to a bridge that was catching all of the mist. It was incredible to stand on it and watch the insane amount of water rushing all around us. We also noticed that the birds liked to fly in to the fall, not quite sure why. When we left the park the sun was just setting and it made everything a little better, especially the fact that I was freezing and soaked to the bone.

Our hotel was not as nice as the previous one, but still relatively good. We had dinner and then the guys checked out the local area (there is NOTHING here) while I fell asleep wondering how we manage to get wet and cold every single day of this trip.

This morning we woke up kind of early and made our way to Itaipu - which is an Indian phrase meaning ´rock that sings´. In reality Itaipu is a dam that is shared by Paraguay and Brazil. The first thing we had to do is watch a propaganda communist type movie about the joys of water and the camaraderie of the countries that share the dam (In reality Argentina, Chile and Brazil attacked Paraguay to get access to the Parana river and killed 99 percent of the white population in the 1800s and then restricted |Paraguay’s use of their own oil so Paraguay had no choice but to be in on the whole Itaipu thing). After we were sufficiently brainwashed and our pupils have dilated to twice their normal size, we were put on busses and had a tour of the dam. The tour guide let us out to take pictures - they are pretty funny because all of us girls were freezing and huddling to keep warm, we kind of didn’t care about the dam at that point. When they let us back on the bus we traveled to the Paraguayan side of the dam and back - so technically we have been in Paraguay on this trip as well.

After Itaipu Fernando took us to the Argentinean side of Iguassu. I didn’t think that I could ever see anything more impressive than the Brazilian side, I was wrong. The weather was sunny and warm and the falls were incredibly beautiful. We walked around all morning and took an insane amount of pictures again. Fernando suggested that we take the boat ride to the falls. Everyone else took the opportunity and will tell you about it later. All they told me was that it was fun and amusement park like. I opted of a nice uphill hike and Fernando kept pointing out some animals and birds to me. I would say we all had a great time. When the guys came back we went to our hotel and rested for a few hours, and then Fernando took us to dinner and an international show. The show started off a little cheesy, but picked up momentum towards the end. They had really nice Argentinean tango and capoera - that’s right hushband eat your hearts out. There was also a half naked guy dancing with fire that we really liked and of course the half naked Brazilian girls with the giant feathers on their heads. I say it was the perfect last night of Brazil.

Tomorrow we will leave the hotel at the crack of dawn and travel to Sao Paulo so that we can fly to Chile. Let us all pray for the airplane trip to be uneventful. More to come! Also thank you all for your support of these emails. I write them as kind of a diary to help me remember the trip and it’s nice that you enjoy reading them :-)

Katya