Lost files- Iguazu

Hola a todas,

When I first started this blog, I had the intention of posting every day. I should have known that this was not going to happen. I started this blog post in the middle of last week, when I had less than a week left here in Buenos Aires. I started off by saying, "I'm really becoming saddened by the fact that this trip is ending. But we'll save all the sappy-ness for Sunday." Well turns out that I'm finishing this at my home in Georgia. You can imagine how sappy I'm feeling sitting at home and writing about my adventures in the amazing country. I'm not going to be able to fit the past week into one blog so this "post" will be split up into 3. I'll start off where I left off in my last blog post:

Wednesday:

      Wednesday morning I went to my internship. I was able to see 4 patients today, which was really exciting! There was a little (and I mean little) four year old girl who had been born premature that was receiving a speech eval. She had nothing wrong with her speech, but you have to take extra precautions with children who are born premature & who will likely have developmental delays. Can I just say that she was the cutest little girl EVER! She was trying to help her mom find her health documents and was so patient throughout all of the tests. Absolutely adorable! Mirta, the other fonoaudiologa, took me with her on her bedside evaluations. There was only one girl who was mentally challenged. Her parents had a lot of questions about how to choose the best high school for their daughter. You could tell that they were really concerned with the care and attention that she would receive there. I can only imagine how daunting of a task that must be for a parent to decide where their child with special needs will go to high school. My mom was a basket full of nerves when it was time for me to go to high school. It must be much worse to send a child with special needs to high school. Let's be honest....kids are brutal. 

I really enjoy the bus ride home from the hospital. We ride through Once, which is a poorer part of Buenos Aires that has a large immigrant population. You see a lot of Africans, Indians & Indigenas there...very different from Palermo. The streets are lined with vendors selling jewelry, clothing and baked goods. Then there are lots of stores that sell cheap clothing and things of that nature. There are always so many people walking the streets and it's fun to people watch. I will miss this when I leave.

       Wednesday evening we met our group at UP to catch a bus to Retiro to the MicroBus station. This part of Buenos Aires is the oldest and really dirty. LOL! There were so many of us that we all couldn't ride one bus so we ended up on three different buses. Vanessa, Emily and I were watching the other bus to see when the rest of the group got off. We thought we saw them got off, but it actually wasn't our group. We got a little lost but we found our way to the station. 

I was a little apprehensive about taking a 20 hour bus trip to Iguazu. However, the microbus was surprisingly comfortable. They had big comfortable cushion-y seats that reclined 180 degrees and there was lots of space. You could even lift the leg rest so that you could prop your legs up while you slept. The bus was way more comfortable than a plane. At midnight it was Aki's 21st birthday so we celebrated on the bus. It was really fun because there were only 2 or 3 non-UGA passengers on the bus so we basically had the bus to ourselves. However, the bus attendant didn't really seem to like us. Everyone fell asleep around 2 or 3 and when we woke up the next morning we were still on the bus. 

Our hostel

Thursday:

On the boat before we rode under the rapids

          The next morning's ride was really interesting because we were driving through the campesino/countryside of Argentina. It was really nice to see what the non-city part of Argentina looks like. There were lots of little farms and small houses along the way. It was beautiful and picturesque. We finally got to the city of Iguazu around 12. We had two hours or so to walk to the hostel and grab lunch. Luciano walked all the girls to their hostels and he lead us in the wrong direction a couple of times before we finally found it! haha!
         This was my very first time staying in a hostel and it was a very interesting experience to say the least. Aki, Kassidy and I stayed in a room that had about 6 or 7 other beds. It was really clean and everyone kept to themselves so I really can't complain. The bathrooms in my freshman dorm were much worse than the hostel. I survived living there for a year, so what was two nights in a hostel? We grabbed lomo-pan at a restaurant across the street and headed to meet the group at the Microbus station to begin our Iguazu adventure.

After the boat ride

        On our first day we would be taking an excursion through the jungle and then taking a boat underneath the falls. The concept of this sounded amazing, but I'm not going to lie, my experience in Iguazu Falls was probably one of the worst, if not the worst experiences of not only this trip, but of all my travels. I was really looking forward to Iguazu Falls because all of my friends who had done the program in the past had told me how beautiful the falls were and how I was going to see so many exotic animals. All of the Porteños in Buenos Aires had told me that it was going to be really warm during the day and really cool at night so pack a mix of warm and cold weather clothing. I had brought four changes of clothing (warm and cold) since we would be there for two and a half days. However, our group was totally unprepared for the weather. When we got the bus station, we were told that it was forecasted to rain the entire weekend and to buy panchos. Unfortunately the stores around the bus stop rain out of panchos when my group got there. There were about 10 of us that had no rain coats or panchos. On top of that it was about 55 degrees. 
        We took a city bus to the falls. The city buses in Iguazu are very nice and  look more like charter buses. You can tell that Iguazu is a tourist town. It began to rain as soon as we got to the park, but it was only drizzling so it wasn't that bad. We took a short walk to where we would hop on the truck that would drive us through the jungle. The tour was really informative and it was really fun riding through the jungle. However, because it was rainy, most of the animals that we would have seen were taking refuge so we only saw vultures and one toucan. The tour guide had told us that toucans love rainy weather, but I guess they weren't feeling our company! lol! It started to rain towards the end of the tour and it began to get chilly.

The coaties were moving so fast that it was hard to
snap their picture

When we reached the end of the jungle, we walked down a path with several steps before we reached the boat. We would ride the boat up the river that would take us to the one of the smaller falls and then ride under the falls. I was not really looking forward to the boat ride because it was freezing cold and we had ridden through the jungle in the open air (which made us colder). On top of that I had no pancho. Luckily they had big plastic bags that you could put all of belongings into while we went under the falls and they told us that we could put our shoes in them too. I took off all my clothes and sat in my bathing suit so that at least my clothes would be dry when we got off the boat. 
         Even though I was freezing, the boat ride was actually pretty fun! The boat went so fast and we flew by several rapids that made the boat rise out of the water. It was kind of scary at some points, but still fun. We drove past several mini water falls before we reached the falls that we would be riding under. They were really beautiful and the driver let us take our cameras out and take pictures before we had to put everything in our bags again. Then he drove the boat "under" (more like next to) the falls a couple of times and we all were soaking wet! I couldn't really see anything at that point because there was a lot of wind and so much water was going into my eyes. LOL! Even though I was cold I enjoyed it. The adrenaline release from the boat ride and my dry clothes kept me pretty warm on the way back. When we were putting our clothes back on, Luciano was like, "everyone in this group is really white except for you Jackie. I don't understand why everyone is so pale." Then he lifted up his shirt to compare his skin to everyone else. LOL! We hiked up the falls, stopped and took some pictures along the way and hopped on the bus to come back to the hostel. We even saw some coaties, which kind of look like racoons, on the way to the bus. 

La garganta del diablo

        That night we went to a restaurant with the group and I had some of the best Argentine pizza! It had bacon, tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. Then we went to find a bar so that Aki could have her first "legal" drink (even though the drinking age in Argentina is 18). The first bar that we went to was really upscale and had amazing music. It looked as if they were setting up for a band to play live music too. However, they didn't have any of the drinks that was on the menu so we decided to go somewhere else. We found another bar that was a lot smaller, but so much more fun. The bar tender was hilarious. She was really vibrant and had a lot of energy and she was so enthusiastic that we were there. She started jumping up and down and squealing when we told her it was Aki's birthday. Then she made us all some minty drink (which tasting like you were drinking toothpaste, yuck!). We decided that we would go back there the next evening.

Friday:

La Garganta del Diablo

        Thursday night was really cold in the hostel. On top of that my clothes were still wet the next day because it was so humid. Friday morning we had to meet the group at 9:30 to spend the day at the park. We would be walking up to La Garganta del Diablo (the Devil's Throat), which is supposed to be the most beautiful part of the falls on the Argentina side of the park. [There are two parts of the park: Argentina y brasileña. Argentina's side is supposed to be really pretty because of the Devil's Throat and Brasil's side has a panoramic view]. Before we got to the park, we were able to buy panchos yay! & this time I brought my jacket and wore jeans so I would be prepared for the cold. When we got to the park we had to wait about thirty minutes for a train, but it was fun because our group decided to only talk in Spanish (when we're all in a group we have a tendency to only want to speak English). When we got off the train, it began to rain once again (and pretty hard!) We had to walk over a series of pasarelas (boardwalks) over the water, which were really slippery because they were made of steel. It was super windy and super cold and even though I was trying my best not to show it I was so miserable. If it had been hot, I wouldn't have minded being wet, but cold and wet is literally the worst possible combination. I was shivering and literally on the verge of tears when we finally made it to La Garganta del Diablo. Even though it was rainy and the river's water had become muddy, it was so beautiful! I was stunned by the beauty of the falls. There were big clouds of mist that would come up and cover the falls and then the falls would reappear. We took lots of pictures, of course even in the rain! It was kind of scary at the same time because the guard rails were so low. The kids in the program talk about how if you had wanted to commit suicide, it would have been really easy to do so here. I guess it would have been a beautiful death. In some places the boards of the pasarelas seemed a little flimsy as well. We took pictures at the falls for about 20 minutes before we headed back to catch the train. We had lunch at a buffet in the falls and then came home to change. 

The brochette that Aki and I shared!

           That night we took Aki to a parilla to celebrate her birthday. Aki and I shared a brochette (a kebab), which pork, chicken and beef. It was humongous! Then afterwards we headed back to the bar where we had been the night before. We had asked the bartender the night before if they could get a cake for Aki. Not only did they get a cake, but they also decorated the outside of the bar. It was really sweet and Aki was so surprised!

Saturday: 
    Friday night I was so cold and miserable that I slept in my entire outfit for the next day, including my peacoat. When we woke up, Saturday was our last day. Of course the sun was shining and it was probably about 65 degrees on the day that we had to leave. We had until 2m p to explore the city of Iguazu. That morning a new girl had moved into our hostel room. She told us that she was from Japan. Aki told her that she was Japanese and they began speaking in Japanese. It was hilarious, because the girl spoke English and Japanese but not Spanish. Aki had been so accustomed to only speaking Spanish for the past 4 weeks that she kept code switching between Japanese and Spanish, which was confusing to the other girl. LOL! Kassidy and I were trying not to bust out laughing. 

Hummingbirds!

        Iguazu is such a teeny tiny tourist town. They have a lot of boutiques and souvenir shops. Kassidy, Aki and I walked in and out of some of the stores and then went exploring through the city. We came across a street that was mostly residential. One house had about 5 hummingbird feeders that were filled with colibris (hummingbirds). I've literally never seen so many in my life. They were green ones and black ones and other little finches that were trying in vain to feed from the feeder. Then we came across a river that was really pretty and had a farm on the other side.  We grabbed something for lunch and then met up with the rest of the grab to get on the microbus.
       This microbus was really bumpy and kept making weird noises. About 2 hours into the drive, the bus broke down. I swear we have the worst luck with transportation. We had to wait about an hour and a half for the mechanic, who was working on another broken down bus, to come fix our bus. Then it took the mechanic another hour to fix the bus. By then the sun had gone down so we were stranded on the side of the road for nearly three hours in the dark. We kept ourselves entertained by playing card games. It was definitely a great bonding experience for the group. 
        
Although Iguazu was probably my least favorite activity in Argentina, I'm glad I had the opportunity to go there. We were told that the pasarelas were actually closed down this past week because they had flooded so badly that they broke. When I come back to Argentina, I will have to make another trip to Iguazu which will hopefully be more enjoyable.