Catching Up: March/April

Once again I find myself behind in catching up, let alone blogging along. So once again, it's mostly pictures and captions today. On Easter weekend, Belu and I headed north to Misiones to visit the famous Iguazu Falls. Despite being ridiculously crowded, it did not disappoint. Here are the photos! Click on any to embiggen (many are worth the click!).

The day we arrived, our first excursion was on the Rios Paraná, and Iguazu, the rivers that divide Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil. An easygoing journey with really lousy pizza.

The only real destination of this river journey was pretty darn heartbreaking. The boat stopped near a sandy embankment and some natives played primitive music and danced. It was a meager show for the tourists. Belu and I would have rather just not seen it. All these people were watching and taking pictures, and clapped politely when it was over, but the whole thing just had a freakshow feel to it.

At least the ride home was peaceful. We talked with one of the boat's workers as the sun set behind the trees. Well, Belu talked to him. I did my best to understand his accent.

OK, enough river cruises. THIS is what we came for. The view from above La Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat).

Me and Bels above La Garganta. No water pours on you here, but everyone gets a fresh shower every time the wind picks up.

So we jumped in a boat and cruised around the river. But this time we had a real purpose. We're going to follow that boat in front of us - right under the falls.

The boat after ours. I don't believe the boat actually went directly under the water flow, but I have never been more wet in my life - even that Stevie Wonder concert in Detroit was a desert compared to this.

Belu - post shower.

And me, post shower. People have asked me if this picture is fake. It is not.

Another place to get soaked. These cascades have names but I can't remember them now. I think it's like the three sisters or something.

When standing above, the water races calmly by, and it seems like it would be a good idea to jump in and go for a ride. But the deafening noise is a reminder that there are violent collisions below.

The place couldn't have been more crowded. Finding space to get a picture of just us was nearly impossible. No wonder we look so happy!

There were gorgeous butterflies everywhere. Many were freaking huge. We named this guy Ralphie. He did us the favor of sitting still for a bit.

I thought that Ralphie was chewing on a piece of grass or something. But now I believe that green line reaching from his mouth is his butterfly tongue. He must have been digging for critters.

The photo doesn't do justice to how cool these birds were. They looked like cartoons.

Speaking of cartoons, these Coati come right up to you hoping to be fed. They are practically domesticated by now. Also seen, enormous spiders, toucans, walking sticks, and various other critters.

Can you see it? There's a butterfly in the sunlight just over this waterfall. Give it a click. I love how he is just fluttering along, meanwhile this water is raging..

They say that the best falls are on the Argentine side, but Brazil has the best views. Obviously the lady here is gorgeous (she's an Argentine on the Brazilian side -not sure how the math works on that one). They're not lying about the view. We could have stood here all day.

Just one small part of the view from Brazil.

Because it was Semana Santa, the whole world was here on vacation. Getting through customs to get to the Brazil side took us well over an hour. That unfortunately really cut into our time in the park. But even with that headache, the journey was well worth it.

Now on the other side, the Devil's Throat is behind this wall of water.

We had to race through this part. Kind of a bummer.

On the way back, we stopped in Iguazu Forest for some adventure. Here, Belu steels herself for some rappelling. After that and some decent hiking, we finished with a series of zip-lines strung between trees 70 feet off the ground. That was unnerving AND a blast.

Belu, taking the express elevator and only a couple nicks to show for it.

Posing at tres fronteras.

Tres fronteras. On the left you see Paraguay, on the right Brazil, and under your feet, Argentina (hence the white and sky-blue obelisk). We had an excellent dinner just around the corner from here as the sun set on our trip. Then it was off to the airport to wait for a severely delayed flight. This may be the last time we go away on Semana Santa as it's always insane. When you move to Argentina, people ask if you are going to visit Iguazu. Obviously it was on the list of "to dos." Waiting to have the Brazilian visa was a good idea. We will surely be going back, just not the busiest week of the year.

Other writings from March/April:
Top 50 Albums - #25 Tapes 'n Tapes
Top 50 Albums - #26 Kings of Leon
Top 50 Albums - #27 Idlewild
Top 50 Albums - #28 Common
Top 50 Albums - #29 The Futureheads
Top 50 Albums - #30 The Black Keys
Top 50 Albums - #31 Wolfmother

Jetskis to Brazil

When I first took this gig, I figured it would provide the opportunity to travel for work all around Latin America. Of course the financial crisis made quick work of such notions, but thanks to an urgent situation with one of our biggest clients, I was afforded the opportunity to fly to São Paulo to participate. Unfortunately for me, such a journey required obtaining a visa (thanks Dubya!). This process brought to mind the incredibly high stress levels I endured when originally moving to Argentina. Four times I had to go to the embassy and deal with the same dour-faced clerk. He insisted that it would take three business days to obtain the visa (after costing me one due to his general unhelpfulness). Luckily, my compañero Juan Carlos was able to sway him, using the fact that we were literally talking about a million dollars worth of Brazilian business. On the last day of March, and more embassy delays, I packed in about fifteen minutes and was on my way.

Ever since seeing City of God, I have found Portuguese completely impenetrable. When someone speaks Portuguese, it sounds like a language from another planet. I can't even hear the sounds, let alone the words. Belu happens to be fluent and tried to give me some lessons in advance of the trip, but they only served to confuse me all the more. Spanish is my "other language", so by default that's what I spoke. But many people understood English better. I was consistently confused as to which one to use, but not nearly as confused as the people listening to me. Thank goodness my company had taken care of nearly all the arrangements.

This is the bus line we took. It's pronounced "Happy-doo." Really? Really.

The Onion's "Our Dumb World" describes Brazil as, "People at their most beautiful, humanity at its ugliest: 'Boasting some of the sexiest people every to be stabbed repeatedly at night, Brazil is home to perhaps the most attractive victims of carjacking, robbery, and violent assault in the world.'" That's certainly an exaggeration on several fronts. São Paulo is a "thick" city. It's the fourth largest on the planet, and I found it very hard to get a feel for its character or even where I was at any point. To me, it was just an endless sprawl of buildings and traffic. Again, I wasn't a tourist and there was little time for exploring, but the sense that I was caught in an obtuse maze was always there. A couple excursions to Vila Madalena gave me the chance to see SP's version of Wicker Park, but it didn't really win me over.
Yet, there were some welcome signs of home. The power outlets and voltage are the same as in the US. I could charge everything all at once! Brazil is apparently a nation where they actually believe in recycling. Along those lines, there was also a much greater emphasis placed on general cleanliness. Everyone washed their hands before eating (there are special sinks in the company cafeteria for this!), and food preparers always used gloves and wore hats or bandanas. Also, despite what the Onion had to say, in many cases the body types resembled those from the US. More on this in a little bit. All of these things are completely the opposite of Argentina. Until this trip, I hadn't recylced a damn thing since my November excursion to Chicago. My frequent illnesses are likely due to the fact that the overall cleanliness of restaurants here are subpar to say the least.

I certainly ate well. I loaded up on mangoes as they are hard to come by in BsAs. Seafood was plentiful, a welcome development. There was a curious obsession with banana that worked really well sometimes (a delicious grilled salmon dish in my hotel) and failed miserably others (I believe I'm the only one of my friends who can say they've had a hot McDonald's Banana Pie - don't be jealous - it was rather disgusting).

The highlight of the trip was clearly that I was able to get away for a very short weekend in Guarujá, a beach town just an hour and a half away from São Paulo. Even better, Belu came up for the weekend (no visa needed for an Argentine). That meant I had a translator, tour guide, and arm candy. The bus ride passed through the lush Brazilian countryside which gave me two major thoughts. 1) It was gorgeous. The hills we climbed reminded me of my trip to Clemson, driving up over the Smoky Mountains. Belu said it was reminiscent of a rain forest she visited in New Zealand. Just beautiful. 2) They have built an incredible amount of hideous structures in that lush greenery. There is no concern for aesthetics. This was the case all over Brazil, but particularly stark in this area.
I get restless on a beach. Sitting around ain't for me. So I convinced Belu that we had to take a jetski out. It didn't take much arm-twisting. After the trip, a friend of mine claimed, "You can't ride a jetski without kind of looking like a douche," to which I said, "and yelling like one!" But really, who cares? There are few things more thrilling than trying your hardest to flip the sucker even though it's impossible. Needless to say, I can't wait to do it again.

Still, the peaceful action of eating corn on the cob followed by árroz con mariscos on the beach and washing it all down with a fresh coconut has its merits. Of course, I figured that the "scenery" would be as impressive as The Onion described. However, the real unique thing about Brazil is that its citizens have no shame about their bodies. This applies to the perfectly toned dancers at Carnival, but also to the majority of beachgoers who were far from fit. We only saw about five or six bodies worth looking at and a heckuva lot of this:

This is probably the wrongest thing I've done in the blogosphere - whatever, you're getting the full tour

Not that it bothered us. I'm sure my pale torso had people scrambling to purchase bonus sunglasses.

This coconut was rendered blind from the glare

After the brief, sunny day, it was back to São Paulo for some more work and further failed attempts at understanding Portuguese. One last story before I end this long ramble. One night I found myself briefly seated at the hotel bar next to a New Yorker who was in São Paulo on business. He had been there at least a dozen times. He'd been to Buenos Aires twice, but said he didn't like it and couldn't find any food worth eating. "I can get a better steak in New York," he declared. He was that kind of Ugly American. This is a guy who gets to travel all over South America on business and isn't taking advantage of the opportunity at all. He prefers to stay in his New York condo and "watch hour-long detective shows." Ugh. There's a verb in Spanish that doesn't really exist in English: aprovechar. It basically means to take advantage of the opportunity provided you. I love this word and wish we had something in English that could sum it up so succintly. It might be my favorte Spanish word (well, after helado, of course). I consistently feel blessed to have my time down here, and a trip to Brazil is just one example of something cool I get to do. Ron lives in NYC and thinks every other place can't measure up. He wouldn't know how to aprovechar if he sat on it. After such a successful trip, I feel lucky that I'm here, and lucky that I'm not the kind of person who would prefer to spend his time watching the TV. Now I just need to start exploring the rest of Argentina. Starting the day after I arrive from Brazil. We'll get to more aprovechando in a near-future post. Until then, tchau!