Dear all,
This entry shall be considerably shorter as it only covers a few days.
After arriving back in Ushuaia we had a night there, during which we slept, slept, relaxed and slept a lot more. Antarctica was full on everyday, so it was nice to do nothing. We caught up with another couple we did kayaking with and all went to dan’s favourite restaurant; the all you can eat bbq’d meat place.
We flew out of Ushuaia Sunday morning, had a stop over in Buenos Aires and then arrived in Iguazu late Sunday. There were two amazing things that struck Dan and I when we landed in Iguazu; it was HOT and it was DARK!!!! The sun had actually set and there were stars! On top of that it was hot and a bit sticky, but lovely compared to being freezing cold.
At the last minute in Ushuaia Dan had checked out the hostel I had booked for Iguazu..and luckily he did. Somehow I had looked at one website that had great reviews but Dan had found another that had some very nasty pictures about the actual condition of the hostel. Thankfully, we cancelled quickly and booked into a new hostel. Were staying at the Hostelling International “Hostel Inn” and it’s possibly the nicest hostel we’ve ever stayed at. That has a lot to do with the MASSIVE pool, huge deck with lots of chairs and lounges and the poolside bar that serves cheap beer and cocktails. Breakfast is the standard stale bread with butter and jam however our room is clean with airconditioning and there is a massive security guard that patrols around the rooms. He looks like a huge maori and yesterday we were sitting by the pool, he came up to us and placed a very dead and squished 20cm lizard on the table and then made the actions of taking a photo of it….like we would want photos of a dead squished lizard…we took the photos and thanked him immensely for such a generous gift…kinda felt like when the cat leaves a dead mouse on the doorstep looking very proud of itself.
The reason we are in Iguazu is the monstrous waterfalls that border Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. We spent the day there yesterday and it was amazing. The falls are huge and curve around like a huge bay. Everything is green and lush and the only thing you can hear is the water crashing down. We wandered around the paths and lookouts, one point called the ‘Devil’s throat’ takes you right to the edge of the falls with a spectacular view.
It was so hot and sticky though…It reminded me of when you step into the butterfly house at the zoo..when you almost can’t breathe because the air is so sticky, and then you just feel sticky walking around in it..eeewww…the only good thing was that as it was like a huge butterfly house, there were butterflies everywhere. And not just brown and orange ones, some of the most beautifully coloured and shaped butterflies I’ve ever seen. Tiny little purple ones, massive yellow and black ones with lacey wings and fluro green and yellow ones floating around. As we were so sticky, they land on you sticking out their long tongues tasting everything. Dan had a very ticklish tiny one land right on his nose.
There was lots of other wildlife too, we spotted a toucan! A real life TOUCAN! He/she was beautiful and posed for a few pics. Also met some very confident coatis, which are kinda like raccoon-ish with really long tails. They all had babies and were very cute running around…however there are problems with people feeding them and then they get aggressive, so they were cute..from a distance. There are jaguars in the park but we weren’t that lucky.
We are relaxing by the pool today and flying to our last stop; Rio De Janeiro, tonight.
Much Love, Jess and Dan xox
