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| The Pacific Ocean.. er Atlantic! |
September 10, 2012
I woke up to the reality that in Buenos Aires, this was not the Pacific Ocean off to my west, but is actually the Atlantic ocean off to my east. That was the easy part... the tough part was re-programing my internal manly man GPS that north and south had flipped.
I was up at 5 am and being driven to that airport by a couple of grumpy "taxi drivers". I have seen this twist on several continents where you take a government certified taxi from the airport but when you want to go back, the man at the desk calls his brother-in-law and he shows up with his uncle, who drive you to the airport in old Toyota Camry's. One time, when this happened in Mexico, the driver got cornered by some real taxi drivers and we had to outrun them by escaping over a hill and through the local garbage dump... anyway I digress...
One question...
Argentinians are a little mixed up.. notice that they put the drain between the toilet and the fountain thingy. Yes yes I know.. its a bidet and it's kind of fun to play with but never poop in it! But if you look to the right you will note a half shower door which does a fine job of deflecting the water, except that water cascades onto the floor and floods the bathroom everytime I shower. I literally sweep it into the drain with my feet! Why don't they just use a full sized shower door? Strange but true.
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| Buenos Aires Airport (Domestic) |
Anyway, our crew arrived at the airport, managed to check in and caught the 11:15 flight to Iguazu right on the Paraguay/Brazil/Argentinian border. As we came in for a landing in the pouring rain, I looked out my window and spied a lucious green jungle canopy, quite unlike the forests of Canada where you can see the earth between the trees. The earth was nowhere to be seen and if it was, it was far far down below the canopy. We caught a bus to a beautiful hotel in downtown Puerto Iguazu where we are staying in what they call the Panoramic Hotel. I am here just one night, unless of course I can't get over the border to Brazil tomorrow and fly on to Sao Paulo and Brazilia and then on to my final destination by Wednesday.
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| Off in the distance... thats Paraguay on the left and Brazil on the right divided by the river. Taken from Argentina side! |
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Bougainville
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Very good! And I also stopped at the market and picked up a bag full of colourful fresh vegetables. :)
And now it's 6 pm and I just got back to my room. I am completely soaked to the skin... not from the incessant rain which keeps coming down in cascades, but from the humidity UNDER my rain jacket.
The latest plan for tomorrow is to meet the travel agent at 9 am, go apply for a Brazilian work visa and then book a group tour of the world famous Iguazu water falls and motor right up as far as we can up the "Devil's Throat". If all goes right, we will get our work visas, cross the border and fly out around 7 pm tomorrow. Stay tuned!
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| Iguazu water falls which intersect with Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil |
