Ciao Argentina, Bom Dia Brazil

We spent our last two days in Argentina in the tropical border town of Iguazu, the base point for trips to the magnificent 2 km stretch of jungle-forrested waterfalls in Parque Nacional de Iguazu. As soon as we stepped off the plane we liberated our bodies from the fleece and our feet from the confines of closed-toed shoes. So happy to be out of the cold weather, we wandered around town with perma-grins on our faces. There is not much else to do in the town of Puerto Iguazu besides see the breathtaking falls. The town is like any other in the tropics - slow, hot, and full of toucan tsotchkes.

We shared a cab to the falls with a mis-matched British couple (he was nearly 40 and she was maybe 18 and had the look and demeanor of a Russian mail order bride) and decided to skip all the Disney-esque excursions (jeep trek and boat ride that sticks your face right under a booming waterfall so that you come up soaking wet like Roaring Rapids at Magic Mountain) and walk around on our own. The falls are stunning and really do-able in a single day by hiking along numerous well, maintained, easy to follow paths and trails. They stretch across the corners of 3 countries - Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay - and viewing opportunities (e.g., opportunity to suck tourist $$) are available from all 3 paises. But most people agree that the Argentine side offers the best views, and by the end of the day, we had seen enough pouring water for a lifetime and so skipped the more arduous than necessary border crossings and bus rides to see the falls from the Brazilian or Paraguayan point of view.

The real highlight of the falls is the giant El Gargantua Diablo (or something like that...we happily tossed our outdated Encyclopedia of Lies Argentina (a.k.a. Lonely Planet) on our way into Rio). This is the biggest waterfall in the park and it has to be seen to be believed. The sheer power of the water plummeting to indeterminable depths below is both breathtaking and a little horrifying. You view Diablo from a platform that you know in your mind is safe, and yet on first glimpse of the enormously powerful waterfall, your first instinct is to recoil with fear. But then with the cooling spray of the fall on your face, you become mesmerized by its size, and the raw gracefulness with which the water surges and plummets over the rock face. Watching the water carefully, you notice a brief moment as it passes over the lip of the falls where the water looks weightless and seems to pause - almost as if in a moment of prayer in anticipation of its upcoming fate - before regaining its heft and thundering furiously down, down, down. It´s like that small, gravity-defying instant at the top of a rollercoaster when you are perfectly poised between the upward and downward slope of the tracks, and you feel just a second of weightless, tranquil freedom. But you know that drop is coming, and then it does and you lose your breath and your stomach and then bye-bye. El Diablo was awesome. Don´t miss seeing it if you are anywhere close by.

Our plane leaving Argentina the next day was at 6:00 am. We ordered a cab to come at 4am and take us over the border into Brazil. That sucked. The Gol Air flight was cheap ($120 US), but made 3 stops on its way to Rio. It was pretty much a flying bus.

We made it to Rio and took an air con bus (Real Bus, $2 US) to our hotel in Ipanema. The favelas (slums) we witnessed as we were leaving the airport were enormous and we understood the reason for so many tourist muggings in this country. The beach in Ipanema is gorgeous and exactly how you picture it from movies and postcards - lively and packed with umbrellas and chairs and volleyball and vendors sweating up and down the sand selling everything from fried cheese to ice-cold coconut juice to brightly-hued sarongs, and all the people in tiny Brazilian bathing suits and tan, tan, tan! The Noodles gave everyone something to gossip about with our bone white bodies. But if we are persistent, and carefully follow the instructions of the Brazilian masters, we may end up coming home a lovely shade of off-white. Success!