The Blaus - South America and Europe

10 de Agosto, Iguacu Falls & back to Buenos Aires

We were so excited to return to Argentina after months of traveling around South America. It felt like going home, because we knew the culture, the language and the customs in Argentina. It is really easy to travel in Argentina and it is the best value in all of South America (you get a lot for your money here). We knew what to expect, and we welcomed the familiarity. Upon arrival in Puerto Iguacu (the small town on the Argentine side of Iguacu Falls), we were back in the land of mate drinkers, excellent and inexpensive wine, thick cuts of steak at parillas, late dinners, siestas, double ls that sound like js, waiting for hours to get the check after a meal, "bueno" being the standard response to everything.

We were dying to eat at a parilla and have a glass of Malbec, so we went straight to a tenedor libre (all you can eat) restaurant with two guys that we befriended in Rio who traveled with us to Iguacu. We had a great time showing these two guys from Michigan what we knew about Argentina.

The next day we went to the Argentine side of the Falls. Iguacu Falls straddles the borders of Argentina and Brazil, and upriver there is a hydro-electric damn that provides Paraguay and Brazil with a substantial percentage of their electric power. In Guarani, the native language spoken in Paraguay, Iguacu means big water...that is an accurate description. It was no surprise to us that Argentina managed to claim the lion's share of land around the falls, as we have seen Argentina do this with other natural wonders that sit on it's borders (like Perito Moreno the glacier that sits on the border between Chile and Argentina). The Argentine side of the falls was well organized for tourism, with a maze of paths and trails that allowed visitors to view the falls from various vantage points, a train for transporting visitors around the park, and boats in the pools below the falls that manuevered almost underneath the massive amounts of rushing water. We had never seen waterfalls of this size before. The width of the falls and the extensive area that they cover is breathtaking, and there is something so calming about watching water move continuously over the edge of a cliff. It's as mesmorizing as watching waves break at the ocean, but the sheer size of these falls makes this an indescribable sight. The air was damp from all the mist given off by the falling water. We happened to be there during winter, and it was particularly cold that week, so we missed a lot of the wildlife that flourishes during the tropical summers. It would be a completely different experience to see the falls in the summer. We got lucky with better weather the next day, and the sun shone on the Brazilian side of the falls. The falls were less spectacular on the Brazilian side, but the view of the Argentine side was fantastic. From Brazil, at this distance, we could see the falls in their entirety. We thought that this was an interesting analogy for the personalities of the two countries sharing this natural resource. Argentina owned more of the land around the falls, but Brazilians had the superior view.

That evening we headed back to Buenos Aires on an overnight bus. We were actually looking forward to this bus ride, because the buses in Argentina are so comfortable. They show movies, they provide meals, the seats are roomy enough for sleeping. We booked our tickets in advance to make sure that we could get cama clase (bed class) seats, and we were excited to make our last South American bus journey in style. Months before when we were in Argentina, Billy told me that he had seen an advertisment in the bus station for a bus company that served lomo and vino (steak and wine) for dinner. This was always a joke between us, because I never believed that it was true, and we had never been served steak and wine on any of the bus rides we had taken during two months of overland travel in Argentina. I had this image in my head of passengers gobbling up filet mignon and guzzling free flowing wine and it seemed too good to be true. We got settled on our bus from Iguacu to BsAs and out came the lomo and vino!

When we arrived in Buenos Aires, we were anxious to do all the things we hadn't done the first time we were there. First on the list was a trip to a tenedor libre restaurant called Grant's. We had heard about this restaurant from various people who knew Argentina well, and we had to see it for ourselves. On a week night you pay $16 pesos ($5) for a complete buffet dinner that includes sushi made-to-order, chinese food, gourmet cheeses and meats, salads and desserts. There's a crepe station, a parilla, a stir-fry station...basically if you can dream it up, they will serve it up. We went to town at this place, and practically ate them out of business. We also wanted to see a part of town called La Boca, which we had skipped the first time we were in Argentina because it was said to be somewhat dangerous. After getting around the rest of South America unscathed, we thought that we could handle La Boca. It was very touristy, similar to Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, except it was located in a seedy part of town. It was a commercial tourist trap at the water's edge dressed up in brightly painted corrugated metal. From there we hopped on the 152 bus (our old favorite) to Puerto Madero to a place called Sushi Club, where we had all-you-can-eat sushi for a steal. We spent afternoons wandering around Barrio Norte and Recoleta, getting lost among cafes, gelato shops, parks, and museums. We finally found Teatro Colon, the opera house in BsAs, where you can see an opera for a few dollars, but we just missed a performance of The Barber of Seville. An international tango competition was being held in the city while we were there, so we went to see some of the dancing. We had salads and cortados at our favorite cafe in Palermo. We had drinks and dinner with Italian friends that we had met the first time we were in town. We just wanted to wrap our arms around Buenos Aires and take it with us. It was hard to leave the city that brought us to South America in the first place.

Next stop--Trieste. From Italy in South America to Italy in Europe.

posted by The Blaus @ 11:29 AM