Add the fact that we got cafe (with chocolate covered cookies), a complete dinner (wine included), a nightcap (champagne or a nice glass of whisky), a breakfast and 5 movies, I'd say that it was worth the whole $110 round trip price.
Now where would I travel to that takes 16 hours in a bus? Iguazu falls, thats where. Check out the facebook album for pictures. It was the most amazing thing I have ever seen, and if you anywhere near the area, you must go. It is one of the 7 wonders of the world (on one of the lists) . (for more info)The biggest attraction is called devils throat, and puts Niagara falls to shame. Its amazing that the must water can be falling all the time...Crazy water cycle. We hiked the whole day, getting different views of all 275 waterfalls...I could stop taking pictures. The wildlife was pretty cool too. Its a subtropical rainforest, and was very humid, but not to hot. The soil was red because of the high iron content. The most interesting wild life we saw was a crazy animal called a coati (looks like a cross between a racoon and an ant eater). They act like racoons, but with less fear of people. Example: it jumped up on our table and stole half of my friends sandwhich. Apart from that, there were pretty butterflies, and pretty colorful birds.
That night we went to a nice parilla(steakhouse) in town and ate amazing steak, drank about a bottle of malbec each, and had various appetizers, all for about $15 us dollars. I never was a red wine drinker before, but now its all I drink. We stayed at a hostel for $10, that had a billiard pool table and a swimming pool.
The next day we woke up at 7:30 to start our jungle adventure. After some small money issues, we were on our way to a very action packed day (maybe should not have opened that other bottle of wine...). It started with a 30 minute ride in an openair tour bus to the zipline/hiking trial. The road (if you could call it that) was very bumpy and wet from the rain the night before. The guide had us fill out a form with our names and passport numbers to give to the military, which im sure they could not read because we had to write it while we were driving through a mine field they called a road. As we passed the "military", which consisted of two teenagers holding rifles, I began to wonder if the forms we filled were actually volunteering us for military service.
The hike was informative, and the ziplining was exhilarating. After we hiked some more and repelled down a cliff. With every mosquito bite I got, I thought, was that one carrying yellow fever?
On the way back, we passed through by the local people's village. The tour guide explained to us that they spoke a mix between spanish and an indiginous language. they live off the land, and their houses were made out of mud, rocks, and a thatched roof.
As the other people of the tour bus all took out their cameras and pointed it at the few houses in the fields, I caught the gaze of a young man standing in a door way. I looked in his eyes and saw what I took to be contempt. It really made me reconsider what I was doing in this foreign country. I am playing the role of a tourist, taking a picture of this alien environment to show friends and family back home, saying look what I have seen. I wish there was a way for me to get off of this tour bus and experience what I am seeing on a different level.
This past weekend I was given that chance. Saturday I went north of the city, about a 40 min car ride, to a smaller town. When I heard I was going to the plan techos brick factory, I pictured a warehouse with big machinery and a lot of workers. It turns out it was a half empty 30 by 60 foot dirt lot, with a make shift pavilion that covered the bricks that were made.
I spent the next 4 hours helping the 6 people who work at the factory move anything of value onto a semi truck. 2 of them were guys my age, whose house was built by plan techos. I ended up working with George, a 21 year old who was also a boxer. I actually did alright communicating. We started by talking about music. 50cent, akon, and eminem were the americans that they idolized, he even had a D12 tatoo on his arm (eminems band). It was kind of humorous what they were influenced by from america: i doubt eminem knows he has a fanbase in a small town north or Buenos Aires.
After we loaded about 500 cmu blocks, we drove to the new "brick factory". I met Georges family and introduced myself as a student from michigan who is striving to be an architect and wants to build houses with them. the one guy who spoke english told me that they all loved me and wanted me to take my picture with them (the girls were the ones he was referring too). It was a really fulfilling day, I felt like I had actually done something constructive with my time.
Next post: my trip to Uruguay and Mendoza. That is if I survive the skydiving :p Love and miss you all.
Dave
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