It Takes Two to Tango

So, my 3rd day in the country I was robbed of my camera. The 3rd to last day in the country, I was drugged and robbed of $400 US. Yup. Sucks to be me.

Well, yesterday I hopped on the bus from Tilcara to Jujuy. I hopped on a bus from Jujuy to BsAs at 11am, a 24 hour ride. Anyways, the bus sucked like hell and was expensive. We had a stop at a comedor. I was by myself at a table. A girl from the bus asks to join me because she doesn´t like eating alone. I don´t mind. We talk during lunch. Then we end up sitting on the bottom of the bus (the top was all wet), and another girl was there, too. We chatted for hours and hours. Her stop was Tucumán, to visit a sick aunt. All was cool…or so I thought.

She drugged me with what I presume was a chocolate candy laced with something so potent to render me awake but paralized. I could not think, move, speak…It was like a dream state as I watched her dig into my money belt in my pants and take all of the pesos and US dollars. I could not do anything. Luckily, she left my passport, travellers checks, and bank card..it could have turned out worse. I got some movement back, and I had to throw up…I cupped my hand over my mouth, my movements were so slow, my feet weight so much, I spewed in my hand before I finally got to the bathroom and made a huge mess. I threw up and threw up and threw up. Anyways, when I got back, still in a semi unconcious state of mine, she left at Tucumán with my $400 US that I was going to spend on a shopping spree in BsAs. The bitch was gone.

Feeling sympathy for me, the other girl (20+ yrs old) on the bus asked me what happened. Our next stop, she took me to the infirmary at the bus station, but I was in no coherent state of mind. I barely remember it as of now, and I don´t even know what language I was speaking. She took me to the bathroom as well. This girl was my angel. I was rendered incapacitated. Word got around on the bus, and everyone worried about me, asking if I needed money. Luckily, she didn´t get to my wallet, which had enough to get to the hostel and then some. The people on the bus were the nicest, and would have given me anything. The girl, my angel, even let me borrow a sweater because it was cold. I didn´t report it to the police because I had to get to BsAs asap. Plus, I was really in no state of mind to talk, especially in Spanish.

I puked and puked and puked throughout the night. I just kept 3 plastic bags at my side, and when I needed to puke, I just puked in it. My angel sat beside me the whole time and took care of me.

At midnight, we were woken up because we had to switch busses. I puked outside the bus a few times, and my angel sat with me all the way. I passed out pretty well throughout the ride, waking up to puke a few times more. When we got to BsAs, I started to take the sweater off, and the girl told me don´t worry about it. Sadly, I´ve got remnants of puke on my shoes, my pants, and my jacket. Lovely, I know.

I got to Retiro terminal in BsAs, still in an awful state of mind. I caught a cab to the hostel, and started crying. The cab driver asked me what was wrong and I told him the story. He cut me a break on the cab fare.

Well, it´s 4:34pm, about 24 since I was drugged. I still feel like shit, haven´t eaten much all day. But feeling better.

In retrospect, it could have been much, much worse. I do have my passport. I do have my ATM card. I do have my travellers checks. Yes, I´ve cried over the incident. It sucks. But hey, $400 can be replaced. I´m fine now.

I ended up treating myself today to a shopping day. Heck, I deserve it. I bought a big duffel bag, stuffed it full with goodies. And I´m having a leather jacket and pants made custom fit, which I´ll pick up at 7pm.

Well, one thing for sure…I´m ready to go home….

Lesson of the day: Never take candy from strangers

Aug 8, 2005 – Mon

We woke up at 5 am and started walking to the road at 5:30am. We were going to try to catch the El Rapido that left Balcarce at 6:15am. When we got to the house, Mara greeted us, so excited to see us. We thought she would stay at the house, but rather, she followed us all the way out. She refused to go back and stood at our side while w weaited for the bus.

Catching a bus in the dark…is difficult. One El Rapido passed us up. A second bus, don´t know if it was El Rapido or not, signalled like they were going to stop, but went on. We waited a long while, and finally flagged down an El Rapido. We got on, Mara jumped on and Sean had to push her out of the bus (poor dog, probably felt so rejected!). It was standing room only. It must have been the Monday morning commute to Mar del Plata. We had to ride standing up for most of the way (about an hour), then got to the Mar del Plata bus terminal.

That was just the beginning of a long 31 hours of being in transit. We had a layover in Mar del Plata that allowed us to get breakfast and to go to a bakery.

We hopped on our second bus of the day, from Mar del Plata to Buenos Aires — a 5 hour journey. The bus was relatively empty — a few other passengers. Our journey was halted somewhere in the Pampas by police stopping traffic because a rancher was having trouble getting his cattle to cross the road. Yes, there were cows in the road. Some went across the road, and some wouldn´t. The rancher was able to corral them away from the road, and then we were cleared to go.

We had about a 4 hour layover in BsAs. It was a good amount of time to get a few things done, like change money, lunch, find batteries, and get ice cream (Munchis!). We were so hungry for meat after our meals of fruit, luna bars and clif bars, and prepackaged soups, rice, or pasta. Bring on the meat! We ate at a nice restaurant on Florida. We were so grubby — 8 days without a shower, everything dirty. My lunch was so good — chicken with mushroom sauce and mashed potatoes. I was in heaven! In total, our bill was only about 20 something pesos. Not bad for a fancy restaurant!

After internetting and finding batteries, which are really expensive here (9 pesos or $3 for 4 AA´s), we walked over to the Torre de los Ingleses, which was closed. So we headed back to the Terminal de Omnibus. We walked around and looked at the shops there. Cheap bags, cheap shoes. Now I´ve devised a plan…when I come back to BsAs, I´m going shopping! I may have to buy a duffel bag to put my new goodies in! Well, we´ll wait and see how much money I have left over in the end…

We hopped on the Iguazù Tiger Express (part of Via Bariloche) at 6:30pm. It was one of the most comfortable busses I´d been on. Next to us sat a German backpacker who was talking to German backpackers sitting behind us. This guy would not shut up and talked really loud. Sean was headachy, put in the earplugs and tried to take a nap.

The first movie we watched was Million Dollar Baby. I hadn´t seen it, but heard it was good. It was a good movie, but sad in the end. We had dinner which was a full on meal. Best bus meal ever! Then watched a pirated copy of Mr and Mrs Smith. It was a weird movie. But nevertheless was good enough to pass the time (no Predator 5 this time!).

They shut off the lights, so it was bedtime. The seats were amazingly comfortable. I put the earplugs in because there was a baby in the lower level of the bus and people talking several rows behind us. The earplugs worked great. But because I could hear some of the noises, I had weird dreams. At one point of my dreams, I heard clanking of wine bottles on the bus (some people were drinking), but in my dreams it became something else. I had a twilight zone-esque dream — you know the one where the alien thing is on the wing of the plane…well, in my dream, there was a man hanging on to the front of the bus while we were still moving, and he was hitting the front of the bus with a hammer (the clanking sound). Bizarre!

We were woken up to breakfast, which was boring — bread and medialunas. I´ve eaten so many medialunas since I´ve been here! And they put in an awful Argentinian movie. It was so horrible and cheesy. I don´t know what the name of the movie is, but the main character´s family owns a trucking business. Someone sets him up in the airport with drugs, he gets caught, runs from the law with a frenemie and a girl. All of them end up screwing each other and getting their chance to be seminaked on screen. In the end, the frenemie gets arrested, the main character gets applauded by the DEA, and the girl is happy she got to be with the two guys. Horrible, horrible movie!!!

The German guys behind us left at Posadas, so the guy next to us was pretty quiet. We started talking to him. His name is Sebastian from a town close to Hamburg. He was interning in Chile, and now travelling around for a while, but going home soon.

We arrived at Puerto Iguazù around noon — sooner than I thought. I never got a confirmation from Hosterìa los Helechos, so we were going to chance it. It was only 100 meters from the bus terminal anyways, so not that far at all. The neon sign (there are a lot of neon signs in Puerto Iguazù) pointed us in the right direction.

The hosterìa never got my reservation (seems to be a trend here in Argentina!), but luckily had room for us. It´s a 3 star hotel and was 50 pesos per night for the two of us for a double matrimonio room. We figure we could splurge, especially after a week of spending $5-day! Obviously, the very first thing we did was shower. The water was hot and nice. We both showered for a long time, but still didn´t feel clean quite yet. It was nice to have electricity, too. Oh, the creature comforts you miss when you´re away from them for a week!

After getting settled, we ate lunch at Charo (yummy!). We then went to the bus station, went to Agencia Noelia, bought bus tickets to Iguazù National Park (2.80 pesos each way), and got on the next El Practico bus. It was past 2pm already. The bus took us to a booth, where we got out and paid for the entrance tickets (30 pesos, or about $10), then dropped us off in front of the park.

I talked to the lady at the front of the info booth. She gave us an itinerary of things to do — the park closed at 6pm, so activities for today were limited. Upon first impression, Parque Nacional Iguazù seems like a theme park — nice paths, well maintained, souvenir shops and eateries there as well, and a train and boat rides.

A little info about Iguazù…The area of Iguazù was inhabited by the native Guaranì people. The name Iguazù is Guaranì — I = water, Guazù = big. The falls are on the Argentina – Brazil border near where the Rìo Iguazù and the Rio Alto Paranà meet.

The falls have an interesting legend — M´boy an enormous sname, lived in the Iguazù river and ruled with a heavy hand. The people owed M´boy sacrifices — every year, they had to sacrifice the most beautiful maiden to M´boy in the river bed. Naipì was the one to be sacrificed. She fell in love with Tarobà, who rebelled against the tribe and tried to persuade the tribe not to sacrifice her. The day of her sacrifice, Tarobà kidnapped her in his canoe. M´boy, furious, split the riverbed open to form the huge waterfalls where he trapped the lovers. M´boy punished the lovers by changing Naipì into a rock and Tarobà into a palm tree. M´boy dived into the Garganta del Diablo to make sure the lovers did not get together again. However, the rainbow was more powerful and joins the lovers once again. That is the legent of the beautiful rainbosy you can see at the various falls.

Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca was the first white man to see the falls in the 1500´s (I think). There are 275 waterfalls ranging from 40-80 meters tall. In the park lives toucans, jaguars, coatimundi, butterflies, tapirs, and brown capuchin monkeys, amongst many other creatures.

When we entered, there were not many people in sight at all. We hopped on the 3pm Tren de la Selva (free) to Estaciòn Diablo. And there, the people were (on the train and on the 2nd train stop). From there, we went at the crowd´s pace on a 1 km catwalk across the Rio Iguazù to the Garganta del Diablo waterfalls.

The catwalk is a well constructed metal walkway across the expansive river. Closer to Garganta del Diablo, we could see the old catwalk, a rickety looking structure that was destroyed in a flood in 1992. The Garganta del Diablo falls are amazing. No words can describe them. Beautiful, magestic, huge. Wow. The mist from the falls sprays really high. By the Garganta del Diablo — the biggest falls — are a series of many other falls. Across the gorge, you can see the Brazilian side of the park. It is absolutely beautiful and like nothing I have every seen before.

We took the train to Estaciòn Cataratas and walked the Circuito Superior, which goes above the waterfalls. We saw the Bossetti, Bernabè Mandez, Mbiguà, and San Martìn falls from above. We also watched the boats take people into the San Martìn falls. Along the catwalk, we spotted 2 toucans high in the trees.

From ther, we walked back to the entrance via the Sendero Verde, where we saw a few monkeys in the trees. The park was closing, so we had to leave. Everyone was leaving at the same time, so we all packed into the El Practico bus. We were squeezed so tightly, and Sean and I were standing near the front. I had my hand on a waist-level pole, and a guy was sitting on my hand. I just hoped that he wouldn´t fart on my hand. It was already akward enough!

Puerto Iguazù is pretty small, and there´s not much to do. We ate dinner at Pizza Color, which was more expensive than Charo.

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