Holy crap, this was an exhausting trip. It was really great, but we did So. Much. Here is a breakdown:
We left Montevideo at about 1pm on Monday after dragging our luggage over ten blocks (ouch). The trip took us about 21 hours, counting stopping for food and customs and whatnot, and we arrived at oiur Hotel in Brazil near the Iguazu National Park at about 10am. We chilled for a couple of hours (I slept), and then we headed out to this bird park. It was actually quite cool. I took a whole bunch of picutres. The highlight of the trip, for lack of a better term, though, was the parrot cage. There were parrots all over the park, but this was a kind of barn-shaped enclosure that you could walk into. All of the birds at the park were friendly, and Peter and I each allowed a parrot to use our arm as a perch (mine liked the buttons on my jean jacket). However, a parrot hanging from the roof of the cage pooped on me. Then we were dive-bombed several times. Seriously. I´m certain the parrots weren´t actually going for us, but they would bicker or something with eachother and then fly across the cage, really low. My poop-stained pants got even dirtier from diving into a crouching position over and over. Mind, now, that these are big birds. From their feet to the top of their heads is about 15 inches. There were smaller ones, too, but those ones were... less energetic.
After the bird park, we went to the Brazilian National Park at Iguazu falls. We took a walk and caught our first glimpse of the falls. Before we started on the walk, though, I bought another disposable camera at the giftshop, so I have pictures of this, too. The gift shop was really cool, and I was looking forward to buying people souvenirs, but, for some reason, this tourist junket did not involve shoppin at souvenir shops. There was other shopping, as I´ll mention later, but I was unable to get the cute lemurcoon shirt I wanted. I have no idea what these animals are actually called. The translation of the guide announcement on the park bus called them raccoons. They´re not raccoons in the Canadian sense. They are, however, ridculously cute. Their noses move so adorably! I got pictures of them, including one where a whole group of them just walked into our midst and flopped into a furpile. That was quite something. ^_^ But, yeah, I thought they looked more like lemurs, although I´m apparantly mistaken in that, because Peter says that a lemur is kind of like a monkey (I´ll go look that up once I´m finished here), but, by the time Peter told me this, they were all ready lemurcoons to me. ^_^
Edit: These things totally look like lemurs, but with longer noses. Peter says that lemurs look like something halfway between a lemurcoon and a monkey. I say that lemurcoons look halfway between between a lemur and a racoon. With slightly longer, remarkably flexible noses that looks insanely cute when they sniff at something. ^_^ Ok, now Peter says that lemurcoons is a good name for them. ^_^
That was it for that day. Most meals were buffets, either at the hotel or at some tourist trough. Luckily, we were doing enough walking for the unhealthy food not to matter one bit. The next day was insane for that. We got up at seven and were out the door at eight to go to the Argentine side of the falls. We bought garbage bag-esque rain ponchos before we left, as it was storming insanely outside, but no camera. I regretted this once I saw the Argentine side of the falls. It was gorgeous. It´s called what translates to ¨The throat of the devil,¨ and that´s quite an appropriate name. The Guarani native myth for the creation of the falls says that the river was angry that a warrior was escaping with a young virgin, so the riverbed dropped out from under them, and you can tell how one might get that impression. Luckily, though, it was around then that I became certain that there was in fact a guy filming us. We were able to buy a DVD with documentaries about the falls and other local attractions, plus a great deal of footage of us throughout the day. There´s a clip of me singing Happy Birthday in French to one of the women on our tour. People on the tour got the idea that I was primarily a French speaker, because, really, when I´m trying to understand Spanish, I compare it to French, and so, often, French is what comes out of my mouth when I reply. Oh, well. We got the documentary DVD in English, not French, so people back home will be able to understand it.
After the walk through the Argentine National Park, some of us went on a ¨safari.¨ This was a jeep ride through the rainforest with a woman talking about neat things around us. Holy crap, that forest was dense. And I now understand why rainforests are irreplaceable; the soil isn´t fertile--in fact, it´s all full of iron and really, really hard rock--but all the plants have shallow roots that draw nutrients from the fallen foliage of other plants, so the rainforest sustains itself because there are so many plants there. Other nifty facts include the one that deer there don´t have antlers because they prevent them from escaping their predators with all those plants hanging around. The vines were something else, too. Anyway, after the jeep ride, we went on a motorboat ride along the Iguzu river. We went as close to the falls as we safely could, which isn´t _that_ close, but still pretty nifty. And then the driver stunted a bit before we returned to shore. The water in the river was warm and only about 3 feet deep, and I got soaked. And since it was rainy a such, I stayed wet for teh rest of the day. It was worth it, though. The 3 feet deep water is something I forgot to mention. It´s one of the things that makes the falls so impressive. Right up until the waterfall, the river is lazy and wide and three feet deep. While I wouldn´t try my luck at walking through it, it looks perfectly calm. Then it falls a couple hundred feet.
After walking back up the stairs to the jeep that didn´t seem so long on the way down, we ate lunch and left the park. On our way out of Argentina (where I did in fact manage to buy a couple of shirts, including a baby-sized lemurcoon one) we stopped at what must be the biggest duty-free shop in the world. It had a car audio section. I was somewhat tempted to buy a cheap digital camera, but all we bought was Peanut M&Ms because we were hungry. And some Droste chocolate pastilles because there was a $10 minimum charge to use a credit card. After that, we returned to the hotel and I slept a bit before we had dinner and left for a show. It was supposed to be of traditional South American music and dancing. It started out with calling people from various countries onto the stage to sing fold songs from those countries, and Peter and I wound up on stage singing Alouette. Then came the scantily-clad women. There were three featured women wh0 each got to do a number featuring their ass, but the star of the show was something else. I mean, I don´t take this stuff the least bit seriously, but this woman had what I have no problem describing as insanely lng legs and a very pert ass. Interspersed were bits by tumblers and musicians and re-enactments of tribal rituals that involved a great many men in hoop skirts. I wound up being brought on stage again to dance with a bunch of other women from the audience. All in all, the show was kind of fun but mediocre, and it went nearly an hour longer than I thought it would. We left at half past midnight, and our wake-up call the next morning was at six.
The next day I could´ve done without. I was sooooo tired. We started out by going into Paraguay to see the Itaipu dam, which is apparantly the biggest or second biggest in the world. It wasn´t in use that day. I have a couple of pictures. Then we went into the ¨City in the East,¨ to shop. This place was what I imagine some less pleasant parts of Hong Kong to look like. The sidewalks were completely lined with hawker stands to the point where you could either walk through their booths or walk on the street. For some reason, the majority of these places sold underwear. And pirated DVDs. Peter and I went to a bank where we could get American currency, which was what worked more or less anywhere outside of Uruguay. I did wind up with some Argentine currency at one point, though, but I spent it on the 5 peso leaving Argentina tax. Down the street from where our bus stopped was a place called Mona Lisa. It was a ridiculously high-end shop. Except that it didn´t sell many clothes, it put Holt Renfrew to shame. We had coffee there because it was a less off-putting place to kill an hour. The coffee was actually reasonably cheap, too, unlike the rest of the stuff they sold. Eventually, though, we wound up back on the bus ignoring the kids who were trying to sell us stuff from outside the bus door. One hawker actually got on the bus with us and came back to Brazil. She was selling towels and dolls and a some shirts. I think somebody even bought something.
That evening there was a meeting for drinks in the hotel bar, but I slept insead. There was also another show, I think, but I never heard anything about it from anyone except Peter, and I slept through it, too. I was tired and rather cranky and did not want to go anywhere. The next morning, our wake up call came at 5:30, and though I wasn´t homicidal anymore, I certainly wasn´t well-rested. We ate breakfast and got on the bus. Around 11, we stopped at the Jesuit ruins in the Misiones province of Argentina. That rocked. Took lots of pictures. Then we got on the bus again and went to Wanda, where they mine all kinds of semi-precious stones. We didn´t tour the mines, but we did stop at a shop where I bought a couple of gifts for people. Did I mention I was sleeping whenever we were on the bus? Yeah, I totally was. Then, well, we drove to Montevideo. We got back around 8 this morning. Went to our new hotel and slept the morning away. It´s now coming up on six o´clock. This post is ridiculously long. And my left wrist is starting to hurt from begin bent in an odd direction because of the size of the desk at the internet cafe. I think I´m gonna stop writing now.
Oh, wait. One last thing: It was warm in Brazil! And Argentina! I was warm yesterday! Now, it´s actually quite nice in Montevideo at about 17 degrees, but it was warm on the tour. I was very happy. *sigh*
Now, this picture doesn't look all that cute, but it gives a good idea of how "coati" could be mistranslated into "raccoon," despite not looking all that much like one.
This picture is rather cuter, and shows the lemurcoon in what has come to be its natural habitat, acquiring food in what has come to be its natural form of hunting. Seriously, these things are all over the garbage cans. They may subsist primarily on insects, but they won't turn down an empty Coke bottle.
Now *this* picture showcases their cuteness, especially where the flexible nose is concerned. This is a young coati, of course, and I have no idea what kind of animal its looking at. Maybe a lemur. ^_^