this past weekend was definitely one for the books. more than two entire months after i set foot here in argentina, i finally made my way up north to visit perhaps the most magnificent and impressive waterfalls in the world, iguazú falls. a protected UNESCO heritage site, the national park boasts an astounding 275 individual cascades and spans over 1.5 miles in both argentina and brazil. i have always dreamt of visiting the waterfall dreamland, waterfalls easily being one of the my favorite things in the whole wide wide world. iguazú was the perfect weekend ever: despite vicious mosquitos, lack of sleep and food, and a bizarre expanding-feet phenomenon (more on that story later), nothing could eclipse the wonderful memories and experiences i had there!!
the epic weekend actually started on thursday evening (no class on fridays = best thing that ever happened to me) when i met up with two friends at the retiro bus station. although a quick two hours flight only costs about fifty bucks more, penniless me tries to cut corners and save money whenever possible, which meant that we were hopping onto a bus and staying there for the next fourteen hours. yup, a slightly crazy decision, but i gotta save up for those 50 pesos boliche entrance fees when i can!! college girl's gotta do what a college girl's gotta do. i plugged in my ipod, whipped out my anthropology readings, and resigned myself to the upcoming half-day journey towards the town of san ignacio, where we would be making a pit-stop to visit the jesuit missions of the 17th and 18th centuries, established to acculturate the guaraní population to Catholicism, spanish language, and other european customs. when we finally arrived, i knew that suffering through an almost fourteen-hour journey was totally and completely worth the hassle: the historical ruins at this particular mission site were beautifully maintained and eternally-curious me was completely absorbed by the scene, wondering what daily life on the grounds must have been like way back when.
as a georgetown student, where the jesuits run the show in both religious and academic realms, the san ignacio missions were really significant for me on a personal level. as an anthropology student, they were also significant for me on an academic level, having spent several days in my "ethnicity and multiculturalism of argentina" course talking about the aboriginal population's forced integration and assimilation into the new dominant society following colonization. for me, perhaps one of the most striking things about the jesuit missions is the interesting paradox they represented for the indigenous population: while on one hand the missions functioned as an inherent center of cultural degradation and enforced inferiority, they also provided an important source of economic stability for the guaraní and guaranteed their protection from relentless portuguese slave traders (known as bandeirantes or mamelucos) . i regret that my beloved jesuits were one of the primary forces in the systematic elimination of a once-thriving guaraní culture (which almost barely exists today in argentina, and concentrated in the marginalized fringes of society) but, in a sense, things could have been even worse for the guaraní without their guardianship. i guess it goes both ways.
we took a guided tour around the ruins, first strolling through the guaraní living quarters, where hundreds of families slept in close proximity to one another, and then through the classrooms and church ruins further back in the compound. as a total language nerd, the highlight of the tour for me was reading the translations of the lord's prayer, in spanish, then in guaraní, and then the spanish literal translation of the guaraní version (if that makes any sense)....really fascinating. the missions were just as breathtaking and awe-inspiring as i was expecting, and i could've spent much longer meandering around the grounds imagining the daily activities and lessons that occurred there for almost 200 consecutive years.
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| living quarters of the guaraní families, many cramped together in the same space |
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these were once the walls of the main church unit a reproduction of what the main church looked like in the 1600s and 1700s.  and what the church facade looks like today!! i appear so tiny!! |
our visit to the missions was followed by a $7 steak + beer lunch (something i could NEVER do back at home) in the quaint town center. since the weather was beautiful and we were in no rush getting to iguazú, paige and wendy and i rented some bikes and set off on what would be quite an adventurous bike ride, lasting a full four hours when all was well and done. we got completely lost for awhile, and were hoping to hitch a ride with someone with a truck but unfortunately there were hardly any people in sight!! we wound up at this bizarre, totally deserted hotel resort in the middle of the forest, where there was not a single guest and not an ounce of activity on the grounds. we managed to find our way back out and eventually biked (well, with the giant dirt and gravel hills we ended up walking our bikes about half the time!!) to the main campsite of the teyú cuaré national park, then embarking on another thirty minute hike to the main lookout spot. the ride had been beautiful but slightly stressful, considering our lack of direction savviness and our multiple near-wipe-outs on the unpaved roads, but the final view was absolutely worth the struggle!!
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| the beautiful río paraná at the end of the long and exhausting ride!! perfect place to catch the sunset!! we started biking back into the main town center with only a couple minutes of light left, and soon wound up in the pitch dark biking through dirt roads, nowhere near any type of sidewalk. a little risky, but we survived!! along the way, we passed various guaraní families who live in the same quasi-jungle forest we had been exploring, returning from a long day outside the jesuit missions where they sell their handiwork to tourists passing by. i zoomed past one guy who was talking loudly to himself in guaraní.....so that was kinda interesting i suppose?? we arrived at the tourist information office with only a few minutes to spare before they closed, quickly returned our bikes, grabbed our stuff and set off again hoping to catch a bus to iguazú, ticketless and dirty and all!! actually finding our way to puerto iguazú turned into quite an adventure. since it was already late and we had already made a hostel reservation for that friday night in iguazú, we decided to forgo dinner and catch the earliest bus we could. for those that know me, they know that NEVER IN MY LIFE have i skipped dinner. so, now you know how much getting to iguazú and being able to spend a full day there from start to finish on saturday meant to me!! in the pitch black under a stunning night sky (stars!! finally!!), we trudged our way out of the town center and through the sludgy reddish mud, then encountered the highway where we were told to wait for the bus. however, the side of the road where most people were waiting was headed in the opposite direction....i asked around about catching the bus to iguazú and was told we had to wait on the little patch of dirt in the middle of the highway and hope that the conductors noticed us under the fading lamplight. apparently that's how they run things up in northern argentina!! so there i stood, with my backpack and all, in between a freeway hoping i would be able to flag down a double-decker behemoth in the middle of the night. we managed to succeed, and jumped onboard for the final four hour push to iguazú, hoping to arrive around midnight. the trip was smooth and painless, and we were even served dulce de leche-flavored liquor shots!! can you say totally random?? i politely declined after one sip, dulce de leche and alcohol was a mix never meant to be. i would totally expect that in argentina though, not a huge shocker, DDL runs through their blood!! surprisingly, the weekend in iguazú was my first real hostel experience. even though i traveled a ton around ecuador when i was there last summer, we never actually stayed in a straight-up grunge hole, always managing to find super cheap hotel-inn-like accommodations. the "hostel inn" was definitely your quintessential hostel, overflowing with european backpackers and costing a mere ten bucks a night for a bunk bed, pool access and breakfast buffet to boot. can't do much better than that!! when the front desk guy handed me a plastic bag, i thought "wow, fresh towels!! how nice of them!!" and then realized i was actually receiving the sheets for my bed. whoops. welcome to hostel life sarah!! our room smelled like a fishing pier for some odd reason, we caught the security guard staring at us through the window (peeping-tom to the max), and i broke the ladder leading up to my to bunk. however, in the end, the whole budget-life wasn't all that bad and we shared many good laughs throughout the experience. |
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my favorite iguazú view of all!! at "la garganta del diablo" (devil's throat), getting totally soaked by the sprays!! |
you can hear the roar of the falls from far far away, yet nothing can possibly prepare you for the moment in which you actually see them for the first time. i think i almost started crying when i saw my first glimpse of the waterfall chain. we started on the lower circuit route, followed by the upper circuit, then the "devil's throat" (probably the most ridiculous and impressive viewpoint of them all), and finished the day with a boat ride underneath the more gentle waterfalls, getting totally and completely soaked!! honestly one of the best days ever, that was my idea of paradise.
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paige and i in front of one of the smaller waterfalls |
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| i didn't take this picture, but gives a good overall view of the park!! the devil's throat is the waterfall mass on the far left, and the upper/lower circuits cover the chain of waterfalls on the right side. san martín island in the middle of everything, which we circled during our boat ride. |
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| an agouti crossing our path!! |
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| obvi i didn't take this photo....although i tried many times!! |
because a second entrance into the national park costs a mere $2, we decided to head back to iguazú sunday morning. hoping to avoid the tourist swarms, the three of us took a detour from the main waterfall trails and opted instead for the sendero macuco, slightly off the beaten path and definitely one of the highlights of my weekend. along the way, we came across an agouti (basically a giant rodent-guinea-pig-thing, how lovely), my favorite butterfly in the entire entire world (that i first encountered in the ecuador amazon jungle last summer and relentlessly tried to capture photos of, with no suck luck), and an adorable family of MONOS (MONKEYS)!!! monkeys being my third favorite animal behind dogs and killer whales, i was over the moon with excitement. totally in heaven. in a span of about ten minutes, i snapped fifty pictures....most of which came out pretty crappy, but i'll always remember the moment when we came across them in the trail, priceless!! as much as i love living in busy action-filled cities like buenos aires and washington d.c., nothing in the world beats walking through the natural jungle and seeing wildlife in action.
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| mid-jump!!! |
okay scratch what i just said. nothing in the world beats swimming underneath a waterfall in the jungle. at that point, i was reallllyyy in heaven. after walking for about an hour, we arrived at the beautiful salto arrechea and jumped into the freezing cold water. there were only several other people there along with us, and the intimate environment provided a nice alternative to the overpowering iguazú falls.
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| paradise!!! |
on monday morning, we packed up our stuff, hopped onto the public bus, and headed into the main puerto iguazú town center, with a couple hours to kill before catching our bus back home to buenos aires. i was fiddling excessively with my backpack on the bus, so much that a local, around my age, asked me if i wanted him to carry it to take the weight off my shoulders. we started chatting and he was excited to hear that i was from california, and immediately asked if i liked the red hot chili-peppers, who i pretty much forgot were a california endemic band. that little experience really highlighted for me how much my own american culture permeates throughout the rest of the world. somehow, american pop culture manages to find its way even in northern argentina, where many people speak the indigenous guaraní language and live a relatively simplistic life among the sounds of the jungle and the river. and yet, that kid knew more chili-pepper songs than i did!!
as if iguazú wasn't already enough of a surreal dreamworld, the ideal topper to the weekend was the final bus ride back to buenos aires, which was almost just as beautiful as everything iguazú falls had to offer (and that's a pretty freaking bold statement). though not an extreme, the region definitely suffered from poverty to a certain extent (the homes were tiny and haphazardly constructed with wooden boards), but the scenery was unbelievable and i literally spent a consecutive six hours simply watching the countryside drift past me. like, actually. i don't think my attention span has ever lasted for over twenty minutes, yet the stunning countryside images managed to bewitch me for hours and hours on end: women selling fresh oranges from small wooden stalls, kids splashing and people fishing in the various creeks along the side of the road, men tilling their yerba mate fields as the sunlight waned, a pair of sisters skipping home from school hand in hand. most memorable however was the endless array of colors. i felt like i was drunkenly floating through a rainbow: the clearest blue sky i've ever witnessed, bright green trees stretching as far as the eye can see, bright orange-red dirt roads connecting everything, vibrant clothing hanging along the wire lines and ruffling in the breeze. my curiosity just about killed me though!! i was absolutely itching to jump off the bus and wander through the various communities we passed along the way and meet the people that lived there. one day i will have to return to northern argentina, rent a car, and quench my curiosity once and for all. heck, maybe i'll go full-blown che guevara on y'all and explore latin america by motorcycle (but probably just by car, no worries mom)!! each time we passed a new sign, i noted the town name in my journal so that i wouldn't forget. when i later looked up the names in my argentina guidebook, not a single one was listed in the index, and moreover, i couldn't locate any of them on the various maps in my guidebook. just goes to show, sometimes you have to just explore the world yourself!! sometimes the most unsung and overlooked places are actually the brightest gems of all.
after a beautiful sunset, i finally did some homework and then tucked in for a long and restful sleep. just my luck though, i somehow got stuck with the only person on the entire bus who snored!! i then spent half the night wondering how to say "nose-plug" and "drop-kick" in spanish. for real.
i know the following info/photo will probably seem slightly gross and TMI, but the whole thing also strikes me as a little too hilarious and typical-sarah-fashion and impossible not to share. so, since i was trapped in my window seat, imprisoned by the sharapova-decibel snores of my bus buddy, i ended up not moving or walking around for a solid eleven hours. little did i know what would be the end result of that inertia.....i got CANKLES. to the fifth degree. my feet and ankles swelled so much from lack of blood flow that, after coming home and showering before going to meet my anthropology tutor, i was literally unable to get my beloved converse sneakers on. kinda nasty, but i couldn't help laughing at myself. that WOULD happen to me!! check out those fatties!!! overall, a phenomenal weekend though!!
hahahahaha omg dog im dying in class reading this and the kicker was those FATTIES at the end!! gross! those waterfalls are amazing though WOW! i wanna swim in them, they look incredible! all that was missing was a sweetie stray dog to squeeze!
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