Argentina & the falls from the other side

The tedious border crossing was lightened by Daves comedy big hands. But not by the massive (tacky & expensive) duty free in no mans land. Bought some Earl Grey and left muttering in a truely British fashion.
After 3 hours of customs malarky we enter Argentina, sorry to leave Brazil so soon but too pricey to do more this trip.

Our new home, Dave thinks, looks like the set from Beauty & the Geek, it´s certanly has elimeants of club 18-30 about it (Casino in a previous life). Welcome to Hotel Inernational! They have a habit of pumping out happy house but its ok because we will live in the wonderful pool & you can't hear it underwater.


We have to dorm (too pricey for privecy), we share with a northern couple our age so all good.

Its Halloween (thats how out of date the blog is Im afraid), & a Parilla (BBQ) & free Caipareanas night is on the cards. We draw spooky fake tatoos on each other ready for our beef and sweet limey booze fest. The good news is we get to play pool & ping pong, the bad is we have to do it whilst our ear drums are violated by yazz.

Later, pissed, we have wacky races in the floodlit pool scrabbling over the middle platform, diving in and swiming round under water, most enertaining.

angel of the south

This fine establishment have a treat for us, our attention is drawn to the stairs by a tambourine man. Out pops a woman in scantily clad carnival gear. I should have guessed as her headdress was in the toliet, I`d tried it on earlier (looked pretty good) pink & feathery. Anyway the place turned into a cheap lap dancing club for half an hour. To try and restore some decencey to our evening we played drunken chess...... stupid game.

Torrential downpour in the morning, (of couse doesnt stop Dave swiming) we put off visiting the falls and take our hangovers to town. Stray dogs and beautiful indigenous children wait for leftover lunch. Its a familiar story, when the falls became developed for tourisum the indigenous people suffered. Restaurants are generous when they come for scraps and they leave with bags full of left over pizza, no doubt this eases conscionceses.

The falls part2:

map of the falls

Back at the falls its all spectacular! spectacular! There are 3 diferent walks to do. We did the inaptly named inferior walk first, it was v nice!!!!!!, & quiet & wound its way round the bottom of many (of the many) falls. Little lizards scuttled over every other rock. We crossed over to the Island (chunk of green left in below pic) & found our favourite spot in a buttercup meadow with a peachy view & lots of swifts.

At the edge of the Island they have cordoned off such a small area for swimming we decide against it. While waiting for the boat back to the mainland Dave chats to the ranger who's been working here 15 years, though unsurprisingly he says its not really like work.

We decided to go on one of the boats that takes you under a fall to get a propper soaking (top left pic). It was a bit gimicky really with one of the staff getting in the way of the view while filming us. Refreshed and wringing out our gussets we move on to grander things.


The Cleaner (becoming quite fond of these vulture fellows)

They used to do trips in a dingy from the top to the edge of the falls back in the 30`s. The inevitable happened & a boat of Germans got too close & paddle as they might went over the edge never to be seen again.






An innocent tributary

The superior walk was very busy, it wound its way around the top of the falls and was an easy option for the old, infirm or plain lazy & fat tourists. Here they are....


tempting isnt it?

Interesting to be above the cacophany of sound, but difficult to believe this silent & calm water is capable of such violence & noise.

The final walk was the `piece de resistance', devils throat. As we aproached it from the top walkway it resembled a giant sink plug, harmless enough. Up close & looking down though was a totally different story, incomprehensably vast amounts of water pour down with gargantuan force. Cant see the bottom its just a white haze, 30 meters of mist. Difficult to put into words the emotion of seeing so much water in one place.


this is us looking over the edge


view of the walkway we went on when at the Brazilian side.

We smile into the spray & feel small while the swifts gather as its nearly time to roost.


aptly named 88 butterfly

Liked the park so much we went back the next day for a queiter walk through the jungle to a small fall with a natural swiming pool at the bottom. When we arrived there was a wild toucan on one of the info booths pulling straw out of the ceiling. A guide said he had never seen one as close to humans. Along with fruits and berries they are (Im afraid) partial to other birds eggs and chicks, no doubt what he was after. He swooped off eventually into the trees empty beaked, so cool to see one flying.

Also saw a snowstorm of tiger swallowtail butterflies flying around & in the mud collecting minerals. Movie to follow if we ever find a fast connection again!!


mineral hunters


the walk



At the entrance to the walk we got the fear, there was a sign saying we might meet dangerous animals. We tried desperatly to remember the top tips if confronted by a Puma & practiced manouvers such as putting our bag above our heads so we looked bigger. I wondered if you yawned at a big cat it would realise you weren't a threat (you can do this with domestic ones) but Dave pointed out this could backfire if it was desperately hungry as you would look like an easy meal.

On we tentatively walked singing "lions and tigers and bears, oh my!", there really was not a soul about.

And those big Lizards make a right racket in the undergrowth and made us jump fairly often, heres one.



we saw the biggest ants we had ever seen and I spilt up a fight , I know you shouldnt intefere but sod it.

Met some strange electric butterflies that made a crackelling sound when they collided with each other.



It was a pleasant 3 hour walk though the tall sunlit jungle.

The waterfall at the end was pretty small fry in comparison to what we were used to (we are spoilt & spoiled now you see) but a refreshing swim was reward enough. Heres a scary photo of Dave underneath it, it quite hurt his head which helps to put into perspective how powerful the larger ones really are.


smeagel?

On the way back we were fortunate to get up close to a family of brown monkeys that were jumping from tree to tree along the path edge. They were quietly churping to each other reassuringly as they moved through the canopy. All using the exact same tried and tested route through the branches until they finally reached thier destination and started feeding in a large fruit tree. movie hopefully to follow

No Pumas sadly.

Someone has frustratingly stolen the charger for my new camera, I've only had it 4 days. Footprint on the loo perhaps a clue to how they got in. Anyway its going to be very hard to replace, time to leave wethinks.

The next day before heading out for some city action in Benous Aires we went to visit a bird sancturay. Its a buffer zone between town and the national park around the falls. They do some great work in a country not renowned for supporting its biodiversity. They take birds from poachers, run a sucessful release program, confiscate them from family homes and also plant rare trees back into the park. Its a wonderful site with huge hardwoods and large aviaries, often filled not only with birds but wild blue morpho butterflies that like to dine out on the bird food. Stars of the show? the toucans ofcourse, 3 (orange billed ones like dasiy & luke)looked well ajusted considering they had survived a suitcase in which 17 others died, people can be do some really nasty stuff. There were also 2 other types of Toucan here we haven't set eyes on before, there are an unbelievable 40 variations, I wonder if you can do a masters in Toucanology?

photo from the internet

We also got close to some of those elusively shy howler monkeys, . One was brought in with a stress skin problem (like bernard our cat had) but was getting better. We learnt how to tell what type of green parrot it was by how many were flying togther, great experience & good a cause. Lets hope Argentina can up the stakes like Brazil have and invest in & premote their biodiversity better. The Brazilian side of the falls get hundreds more visitors even though the walks and views are so much less extensive. Our guide said the pay for biologists in Argentina was so poor he had had to go into tourisum as a trade, tis a shame.´

So time for one more swim before we leave and get on our super cama (very posh bus) for the 15 hour drive to BA. Heres a picture from the bus, in case you just cant get enough of those silly photos of Dave, I obviously can't!