Christina Goes to Paraguay! Iguasu Falls (Part 3)

 Iguasu Falls

We crossed into Argentina to visit Iguasu Falls, one of the natural wonders of the world and among the largest water falls on the planet. Iguasu is the widest high falling water fall and has a record of 452,000 cubic feet of water falling over its edge per second. That is like 3,380,960 gallon milk jugs being poured out every second.

Or 5.12 Olympic swimming pools emptied per second. (50m by 25m by 2m holding 660,430 gallons each). 

5 of these.

Hella water per second.

To be fair, the average for a year is only 461,217 gallons falling per second or 70% of 1 Olympic pool per second. 

Still a lot of water.

Iguasu was featured on the Planet Earth program and it was indeed truly impressive. The falls are high enough to create a mist cloud that rises as high as 150 meters and allows for the creation of many rainbows.

Double rainbow guy.

Double rainbow Iguasu

We spent 2 days at the park, exploring the water falls, the nature. Here are some of many photos. 

And, thanks to Christina's suggestion, we got to get soaked under some of the smaller falls. (You can pay to be taken in a boat to get closer to the falls and experience some of its wetness. It was awesome and totally worth it.

On boat

Looks like in nervous but really just biting skin off dry lips

Excitement face?

Yup, going under that.

YAY!!

Soaked after boat ride.

Then there were these guys.

My own picture

The park was also teeming with these Coati. Unafraid of humans after decades of tourism, they boldly loiter around the food vendors and walking tourists, clawing at bags and snatching up anything edible.

Kinda like huge cute Meerkats... that can maim you.

The park warns tourists not to feed or play with the Coati because of sharp teeth and claws but people feed them all the time.

GIVE US YOUR FOOD FILTHY HUMANS.

Its only a matter of time...

Look cute. When he opens the window, bite his head off. 

We passed our nights at touristy nice restaurants where great food, especially beef, was sooo cheap. Meat plates that would have cost us 40 dollars in the US were usually under 20. We took advantage. 

To pass the time we also played the Whose Line is it Anyway game,“film dub” except with other table's conversations. There were couples on dates, beautiful young women with unattractive older men, a peculiar business man who ate alone.

Now role play "I'm old, ugly and rich, you're hot, young and poor."

 It was fun. After a dip in the Iguasu waters it was back to Paraguay to finish off the vacation in the capital of Asuncion and the epic 5 star and historic Hotel Guarani. 

Christina Goes to Paraguay! Part 2

AMAZING RACE PART 1.

Christina and Richard, today's challenge is to cross the border from Paraguay to Argentina before midnight.

 Word around Peace Corps had said that the last ferry or bus into Argentina crossing the Paraguayan border left around 5 PM at the border. Christina and I were at my site in the department of Misiones meaning we had a 4 hour bus ride to the capital followed by a 5 hour bus ride. Factoring Paraguay's notoriously unreliable, so much worse then America but way better than rural Africa transportation system, we left our site at 5:30 AM intending to get into Asuncion around 10 or 11 and leaving to Ciudad Del Este arriving at the border at around 3 or 4 latest. I figured I included enough extra time to account for slow buses, wait time to board the bus to CDE and a little extra time to figure out how to cross the border. We made it into Asuncion in great time arriving at around 9:40 and booking a bus leaving at 10:40. At the window I told the lady that I needed a bus that got to CDE before 5. I asked about 4 times if she was sure that it got there before 5. She told me yes, it was a semi direct bus and would get there before 5. We boarded the first worldy-looking bus and headed out.

 At 4:10 I began to worry that we would not get to CDE in time. I asked the driver who promptly said oh, we wont be there until around 6:00.  

It promptly starts raining as we get closer to CDE, slowing us down even more.We arrive at the place to stamp our passports to leave Paraguay at 6ish and I ran into the building panicked that we would be stuck in an unfamiliar city until morning. What were we going to do? Luckily the immigration people said there would be more buses until 8 ish passing through. I had seen a bus that ended up being the right one pass by us when we had gotten into the customs building so I figured maybe it was a bus line that passed through every 10 or 15 minutes. After waiting 15 minutes I realized I should know better and went back in to ask when the next bus came. It was only then that she said it would come an hour or more after the other one that passed. I ate up the time talking to a government tourism dude who spoke some English. Cool guy. Christina sat on a chair waiting and after my talk Christina and I spent the rest of the wait critiquing what looking like a pair of pretty, prissy, rich Brasilian girls and their boyfriends or brothers with like 7 suitcases for the 4 of them.

Anyway at around 8 its getting dark, its still raining and our bus finally arrives. We run out into the street and manage to lug our stuff into the bus and clamor on. The bus crosses the border and arrives in Argentina easily enough. 

After telling the driver our hostel, he affirms that he knows it and proceeds to drop us off on the corner of a cobblestone street in the pouring rain in what I can only describe as a fitting set for a horror movie involving teenagers being gruesomely murdered one by one in the night. 

Like this minus the lights, buildings, and first world-ness. So not like this...

More like this, plus rain, plus jungle.

To be fair to the driver, there was a sign that showed the name our our hostel and an arrow pointing towards the darkness. So, I ran around finding small hostels and asking where ours was until success.

Posing after arrival

Posing after arrival

The truth.

We must of finally arrived and settled in at around midnight after waking up at 5 am, riding 4 hrs to Asuncion, being lied to be terminal staff and riding 8 hours on a stuffy bus to CDE, panicking and waiting about 2 hrs at the border, catching the last bus across into Argentina and frantically running in the rain searching for our hostel on darkened horror film streets... NICE.

Christina Goes to Paraguay! Part 1

Normally you plan your vacation with your States-side girlfriend who you haven't seen in 6 months to go something like this:

luxurious romance... (Not actually Paraguay)

romantic dinners... (Not Paraguay, no ocean)

Nice hotels.... ( Yes Paraguay, our actual hotel!)

I planned a wonderful vacation, including exploring the capital city, celebrating Christmas with fellow volunteers at a nice beach, experiencing my house in my rural site, visiting Iguasu Falls, one of the New Seven Natural World Wonders and celebrating new years in one of the nicest hotels in the capital. It all began with a personal pick up from the airport in a nice car, driving to a quaint historical hotel for the night and then heading to a volunteer's site to celebrate Christmas... on the beach.

Kinda like these guys.

  Cool right?

Actually its a giant river but still pretty cool.

Us on the beach.

 There were about 20 volunteers and we passed the time eating delicious homemade food (including homemade chicken wings which, by the way, turned out to be delicious) chilling at the beach, imbibing quality paraguayan beer (Brahma FTW) and enjoying our homey rented room with airconditioning. Talk about a volunteer being classy.

Mac and cheese, potato salad, stuffing, chicken, and other yummies.

 Highlights included the a fore mentioned chicken wings, my beautiful girlfriend breaking out some baller dance skills I didnt know she had, no photo available and her picking up some new dance moves, photo available below.

Is this the part I shake my booty? (not an actual quote)

  After that it was off to my site where Christina was to experience my own life in the scorching, torturous heat of the Paraguayan summer.

Christina on Paraguayan heat....

As if Christina had been blessed, somehow, during the hottest time in Paraguay, for the 2 weeks Christina was in Paraguay, all we had was cool, windy, cloudy weather. It was like God was like, oh %^^* guys, Christina's coming stop scorching the planet till she leaves. The day she arrived was hot as hell and had she been in site it would be the type of horrid, paralyzing weather you might imagine in a concrete prison in the Ecuadorian jungle, the heat so suffocating you cant do much more than lounge around with your shirt off thinking how insane you were to voluntarily leave air conditioning behind. 

What was I thinking??

2 minutes later...

Damn It.

 As such I told her to be prepared for it. Instead we lounged in t shirts and even some thicker things when the wind picked up.

I was even wearing a jacket.

She got a pretty good glimpse of my life, trying Paraguayan food,

Chipa, Empanada and Sopa, pretty much all the same ingredients, oil, cheese, corn flour .

walking around the community, meeting families and living in my house. She met the frog family that lives in my bathroom (not so pleased at that meeting)

Toilet's a pretty sweet gig bob, you sure you don't want in?

 and greeted the variety of ants, beetles, spiders and other crawly things who I share my home with (also not so pleased). Yet all and all she was the trooper I hoped she would be and after a short 3 days we made our way to Argentina.

My House the Terarium

Last time I talked about farm animals but living in the campo also means that the house I am living in isnt exactly sealed up to building codes. The real landlord of my house is a gigantic colony of black ants. They live everywhere in my house. Along side them include all sorts of spiders, beetles, moths, and all sorts of insects. Here is a little sample.

Pile of dead ants on my table that fell from the roof and various extermination efforts.

Spider webs on one of my lights. This part is really cool. During the day i leave my door open and flies sometimes fly in. They buzz around annoyingly until they lead towards the light where my spidee friends catch them and return my to blissful silence. It also doubles as a nature show because I get to watch the catch and kill in action.

Cool spider that is almost completely flat, allowing it to hide under anything.

My prize possessions in my terrarium is a family of small frogs that live in and around my toilet.

Spider home at the bottom of one of my windows.

Deceased specimen of the beetles that frequently get caught in my house.

Farm Animals

So one of the disadvantages or advantages, if you like it, of living in the farmlands is that you get a plethora of animal life. Apart from your chickens that tend to cluck and call out right outside your window (rooster calls at 3am when its not even %^&ing light outside) there are the cows, dogs, pigs, horses and oxen. To be honest, its kinda cool seeing and touching these animals up close. Most of the eggs and milk in my site are straight from the animal. I see horses and oxen used to carry loads and work the land. Its pretty cool. I also learned that pigs can look awesome like this:

Cant... not.... say... awwww.

Or like like this:

Plz come try and eat me.

Unfortunately, pigs come with one huge disadvantage. Any time they are hungry or bothered they sound like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq_dN7ipdqE

This one is already fairly tame. Sometimes its like a dozen little girls shrieking in agony, fear, horror and desperation all at the same time.

Fortunately, my neighbors are not that close to me and don't own many pigs. 

In order to get the above horrifying thought out of your head here is a picture of a cool ox cart that is like one i see all the time in my site.

BALLIN!