An Emmerous Adventure

I just noticed that the blog has actually had over 1000 unique visitors apparently, how odd. Thought I´d better finish updating before I reach my next destination,where I´m pretty sure there is no internet. That exciting and mysterious location IS…Ilha Grande! If you want, you can check it out at
http://www.ilhagrande.com.ar/
So I´m psyched about that.
I think i need to tell you about Foz de Iguazu onwards. For those of you whatare slightly confused, that´s the Iguazu falls. They sit on the bordar of Brazil,Argentina and Paraguay, though it´s mostly Brazil and Argentina,I never heard of a Paraguayan side.

ba ba baaaa
I´m now writing later and the situation has changed, I´m pretty much being deported… very…. very… slowly.
BUT back to the falls.

The first day we went it was cloudy and dreary, but the falls were still amazing. To my vague knowledge, they´re bigger than Niagra but with less water, butimay be completely wrong. We went to the devils throat and did the upper track as we wanted to leave stuff to do the next day. We also saw many guinea pigs and a tall French man.
That night we had a lot of fun with a German-English couple, an American guy and another British guy. We played pool (which is how I won the single bed with my super skills, because of a mix up at the hostel and we were in a double room with an extra single bed instead of a dorm, so we played pool for the single) which then deteriorated into Killer with Beer which then deteriorated into our own vengeful brand of Killer where you gambled whether you thought the person after you would get it in by pouring the drink they drank if they didn´t get it in and you drank if they did. Hope that made sense. We all get very drunk as we are NOT that good at pool, a lot of beer also went to the floor and there was atime when the gambleddrinks were a mix of red wine and beer. It was a really good night though, good people.

So the next day we left later than planned and had to go into town to get money to go back to the falls. After this taking ages,Nik decided not to come to the falls for a second day, but Henry and I powered on. It was good that we did as
a) It was a beautiful day and everything looked amazing and very different to the day before. I think some sections of the falls look like Never Never Land, that sort of fantasy pretty.
b) I ran into Stefan who I had been hanging with in La Paz and Cuzco.He´s the one who looked a little like Charlie Chaplin when dressed up. He was with another guy from his hostel and we all arranged to meet up that night for some chow.
c) I saw a bunchof there funny hairy ant eaters.

I also took billions of photos at the falls that you will get the pleasure of seeing when I get accesstoadifferent computer that doesn´t have crazy virus software.

So a bunch of us went to dinner and then got ONE drink at a nearby bar as we couldn´t let a night like that go uncelebrated as it was a rangeof ´last nights´ for people who were heading home or to different countries. It was in fact the last night that Henry, Nik and I would be hanging together as they were off to BsAs and I was heading into the wild unknowns of Brazil, plus I actually got to say goodbye to Stefan this time as last time he had left before I woke up.

Sothe next morning the boys were off to the airport and I wasleft to make more friends, which feels like a daunting prospect when you´ve been with some people forover two weeks, but is actually less of a big deal when youremember that that´s exactly how you felt before meeting the people whojust left. And it wasn´t, I almost immediatly met David, a guy from Sydney who had onced lived one block from me. So we went to the Brazilian embassy together.Instead of all the hoohah of the La Paz consulate, this consulate literally look half an hour with nothing required except a new form and my passport. I was very happy and all the more angry at the La Paz people. So now I could go to Brazil,which meant leaving Argentina, which was sad. I spent the rest of the day wandering and shopping for Argentinian things (like a mate cup and mate,but i think i lost my straw which sucks) and having some cheese,salami and olives from the cheese salami and olives market.

That night I hung with a bunch of Europeans, lots of Germans,a french guy and a swiss guy, which was interesting. As a note, there are heaps of Europeans in Argentina.
In the morning i packedmy bags and was off to the bus station to get a bus to Foz de Iguazu, the city on the Brazilian side.
Here´s where things went wrong. We stopped at the Argentinian Immigration post, but not the Brazilian for some reason. WHich meant that Ileft Argentina but never went into another country legally. I was a bit tired and kinda sick with a bit of a cough and just thought it would be easier to go to immigration in Sao Paulo.This was probably a silly decision, but hell to that. I was on a bus to Sao Paulo half an hour later with an english language magazine and Harry Potter (which I had swapped with David for).
The bus journey really gave me an idea of how beautiful Brazil is.It´s all green and open spaces and has a very good vibe. Plus, all Brazilian people seem to be friendly and willing to help you, I think they´re the friendliest people I´ve met so far.

In Sao Paulo I got confused, got some help, got on the metro (I was very impressedby my mastering, or at least using of the public transport system), got to the centre of town, got on the internet, got a phonecard, called Marianna, got back on the Metro, got a bus, got thoughful about how nice Sao Paulo is and also how big it is, got to Santos, Santos is 40 minutes from Sao Paulo and on the beach, this is where Marianna lives. It has the longest beachfront park in the world and is in the guiness book of world record for this.
Marianna is a friend of mine from when I went to deepest darkest Canada on exchange and we bonded over our confusion.
In Santos I´ve been staying at her place with her family. Santos is a nice place to walk around, it has canals.
I´ve walked along the beach, been to Guaruja, the island next to Santos where we had lots of fun hanging with some of Marianna´s cousins and friends. i´ve bought some things, which made it even more urgent that I send stuff home.
My living conditions are drastically different to the rest of my trip. I have my own room with a TV (they have what about Brian here and i keepon feeling compelled to watch it, darn you Luke) and hot water and homecooked meals (no more Pollo Spiedo!). It´s very comfortable and a good break before i head straight back out there. Well not straight back out there, I´m now not going to Rio or Ilha Grande and instead I´m going to Ilhabela and then flying from Sao Paulo to Lima for a night, then onto Columbia. This is because when I finally went to see the federal Police they gave me only 8 days more in the country. I Felt this was strange,good for me but strange; they give illegal immigrants 8 days to leave the country of their own accord. I could stay, but then would get a fine.
I´m bummed about not seeing Rio but psyched about Columbia, so all is good and I feel quite badass; an outlaw fleeing from the country to a place where my kind are more welcome.

Today we went to Sao Paulo to go shopping for things and I got an excellent belt and a sarong with the Brazilian flag on it. Tomorrow I go to IlhaBela, and probably back tuesday to fly out on wednesday. I´m a bit worried about Lima after the earthquake, but I´ll check it out.
I´ll probably next update in Columbia when I have more of a tan.
Again, sorry for spelling, still struggling with keyboard.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 16th, 2007 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.