A Trip to Pandora

To continue with my travels, this past weekend, I went to the famous Iguazú Falls in the northeast tip of Argentina (border with Brazil & Paraguay).

Honestly, I did not have high expectation. Everyone kept talking about Iguazú, but I have been to Niagara Falls upwards of 5 times, and eh. I thought it would be some nice waterfalls, it would be warm outside, and then we'd go home. Boy, did I not understand what I was in for.

This was one of the trips organized by my program, ISA. After coming back from a week of a trip organized by Rachel, this weekend was looking like it was going to be pretty relaxing. Our group left from Buenos Aires on Thursday night, to take an overnight bus ride to the city of Posadas in the province of Misiones. On the bus ride we watched the movie Jumper (I am only putting that in because I am 98% sure that it was the worst movie that I have ever seen, and I caution anyone who thinks they want to watch it to stay far far away) and after that I slept like a baby until we arrived at 8 am the next morning.

We went directly to Jesuit ruins. These ruins were pretty elaborate, and quite frankly, it kind of reminded me of the types of large stone ruins that I saw in Israel. It was walking around these Jesuit ruins that our group became acquainted with the red clay-like earth of the region. Red that stains clothes, shoes, and anything else that gets in the way! Our tour guide was very amused that no one in the 30 person group was paying attention to him. He remarked that we should probably work on our Spanish so that we could understand him. Little did he know that we did understand when he said that, and that had he been speaking in English, I'm sure the same ADD-esque behavior would have occurred.

After our Jesuit ruins tour, we went to a quaint estancia to relax for the afternoon and to eat lunch. There was a pool, a place to play volleyball and many reclining chairs that alluded to the fact we were about to overeat. Lunch was delicious, salads and MEAT for the carnivores, or pasta for the vegetarians. After eating way too much, we relaxed and then were sheparded to view a yerba mate plant on the same property. Once we got back from our little mate-plant tour, it had been about an hour since we had finished eating, and of course, more food was in order. Freshly made tortilla frita, or fried pieces of tortilla with sugar on top was the death of me, and everyone else. This dessert put us all into a food coma, which we slept off on the three hour ride to Port Iguazú, where our hotel was located. Once we got to our hotel, it was obviously time to eat again. We went to the buffet of our 4 star hotel and ate to our heart's content. It was an early night, since we were all resting up for visiting Iguazú National Park the next day.

Sadly, the next morning brought a cloudy, misty day. But, we were still super excited to head to the falls. After a delicious buffet breakfast (we did a lot of eating on this trip) we headed to the park. We entered what, at first, seemed like the entrance to a zoo- you know, pavilion, paved pathways. But soon, we were walking on bridges in what seemed like the middle of a forest. There are kilometers upon kilometers of these bridges that take you to the hundreds of water falls present. Its such a natural, beautiful, tropical environment. Suddenly, there were these powerful waterfalls before us, and it was absolutely incredible. Seeing all of the falls, the mist, the tropics, the flowers, and the wildlife, I knew for sure that Iguazú was the closest I would ever get to being on the Avatar-land of Pandora. The beauty was just unreal. To finish up the day, we took a small speed boat ride up to the edge of a couple of the waterfalls. We got soaked and had a lot of shriek-inducing fun.

We came home soaked, and exhausted. The night included another buffet dinner, and a rounding up fellow midwesterners for a nice Euchre game by the hotel's outdoor pool.

The next day, Sunday, it was already time to leave. Our last activity of the trip was to stop by a Guaraní (the natives of the region) village, to see how they lived. The Guaraní "tour" felt a bit like a human zoo, as we watched a group of them do a small song and dance to "welcome" us. Nonetheless, it still exposed me to the different groups living in Argentina, more than just the Caucasian-looking Italian and Spanish descendants in Buenos Aires.

After that, we headed to the airport, to fly back to BA. The flight was uneventful. With a laughably low level of airport security, we boarded the plane, watched the mist from the falls shrink in the distance, and the saw the city lights of Buenos Aires welcoming us home.