Iguazu Falls

 

22 March 2014 - Our plane dipped through the clouds and cut through the thick, dense rainforest and landed on a thin strip of concrete in Iguazu Falls, Argentina.  I enjoyed the shaky landing by promptly pulling out the white baggie that you hope you never have to use and vomited in it – I was feeling a bit under the weather from enjoying too much Malbec the night before…

On top of that, after buying flights to the falls on a moment’s notice, Mom and I were beginning to worry that it was not going to be worth the trip.  A few years ago, we took a train ride to Northern New York to see Niagara Falls and could not have been more let down.  It was such a puny disappointment – a smidgen of water dumping over the falls in a lackluster display.  I had seen better waterfalls on tiny side hikes in Costa Rica.  We were hoping that Iguazu Falls was not just another instance of hype and luckily, we were not disappointed.



This isn't my picture (photo by Chris Schmid), but I felt some aerial
perspective of the falls was needed.  If you look to the left, you can see
the footbridge that leads out to the the Garganta del Diablo

For those of you that do not know much about Iguazu Falls, this is a confluence of waterfalls that border Argentina and Brazil on the Iguazu River.  These are world famous falls that are notorious for the magnitude and sheer volume of water flinging itself off the edges at any given moment.  Local legend has it that a god planned to marry a beautiful native woman named Naipí, who upon hearing this fled with her mortal lover Tarobá in a canoe down the river.  Enraged, the god sliced the river in two, creating the waterfalls and condemning the lovers to an eternal fall.  Now if this is true, that God sure reacted in quite a fit of rage that left one incredible piece of natural architecture in its wake.

Walking out to the throat of the devil

Mom, Dad and I began the tour of Iguazu Falls by visiting the Garganta del Diablo or Throat of the Devil.  This consisted of taking a quick train ride up to the north of the falls and walking out on a footbridge that is atop the river.  It is a bit mind-blowing how they managed this engineering feat, but somehow they managed to construct a bridge and platform that leads you out to the edge of the falls.  Here, at the very edge of the falls, you can see the beginnings of the Garganta del Diablo… and throat of the devil it is indeed.  To your right, you can see this wide and peacefully flowing river that out of nowhere begins violently dumping water off the edge of a 269 foot long and 492 foot wide drop.   The sheer volume of water flowing over the edge at such a quick pace is a bit unreal.  For a bit of comparison, Niagara Falls are just a third in size.

Just at the edge of the Garganta del Diablo

After the Garganta del Diablo, we walked along a few other trails to view the many hundreds of other “smaller” waterfalls and to see the throat of the devil from below.  One of the more exhilarating moments was when we boarded a small boat to tour around to some of the falls.  We should have known something was up when they had us start loading all of our belongings into dry bags – before Mom, Dad, and I knew it, we were headed face first into one of the falls.  Even though this was one of the “smaller” waterfalls, the amount of water that beat down on your face was incredible.  Drenched and properly beaten by the waterfalls, I was humbly reminded how miniscule my place in mother nature is.

 



That's a lot of water right there.



Heading face first for the falls

 

The drenched aftermath

Buenos Aires

On March 18, 2014, I was just one quick travel day away from Argentina and seeing my parents.  Easy peasy! And quick it was…I got up at 4am to take a 45 minute cab ride to Quito’s new (and very shiny I might add) airport, checked in and then got to enjoy the luxury of waiting around for an extra two hours thanks to a delayed flight.  By the time our plane made it to São Paulo, Brazil, my connecting flight had already left.  I must have outrageously low expectations though, because all of my fellow travelers were pretty enraged by the fact that we had to wait around in the airport for three hours for the next flight.  I, however, was impressed that TAM Airlines had someone waiting for us at the gate and had already booked and printed out new boarding passes for our next flight.  She even escorted us through the airport terminal to our gate.  I sure haven’t had that happen in the states. 

Obelisco de Buenos Aires

I did learn the hard way though, that even if you haven’t eaten all day and are starving, you should take the time to figure out the exchange rate and prices of items in the airport.  I very foolishly ended up paying $55 for a mini bottle of wine and a slice of pizza.  Now I know airport food is notoriously expensive, but that’s a bit much.

By 2am, I finally landed in Buenos Aires.  Thankfully, I made some friends with fellow travelers and we decided to share a cab into the city (which saved me nearly $60).  By 3:30am I was home free, I had made it to the hotel! Well, not quite.  This was a small boutique hotel that had no registration desk, outdoor walkway areas, it was raining, and no one was up.  So I walked up and down the stairs, yelling, “Kim! Andy!...Mom, Dad!”  All the while getting drenched in water.  No one heard me and I saw no signs of a note from my parents telling me which room they were in.  I was beginning to think I was going to have to sleep at one of the tables until morning when I noticed a light on in the kitchen.  I gingerly knocked on the door and low and behold, there was a chef prepping food for the day.  I asked him if he knew anything about which room my parents were in – he did not.  He did, however, try calling the owner of the hotel.  No answer.  He suggested I go walk by each of the hotel rooms and call for my parents.  So, I tried again – still no response.  After that, he tried calling the owner again and this time he picked up.  Hoorah!  I now knew which room my parents were in and was in bed by 430am.  Not a bad 24 hour travel day.

Protests in the Streets

Standing in the Cemetario de la Recoleta

After that little adventure, exploring Buenos Aires was a wonderful treat.  Buenos Aires is everything a city should be – charming architecture, quaint boutique shops on every corner, wonderful parks and plazas, vibrant street art, and food that makes your mouth water and leaves you asking for more.  We enjoyed one especially memorable meal at an unassuming parrilla restaurant that had old black and white photos on the wall and red tablecloths.  Argentina is known for its parrillas or grilling/ barbecuing of meat.  So much so, that they have perfected the art of grilling a steak.  I am not much of a red meat eater, but our steaks that night were succulent, juicy, tender, perfectly seasoned and smoothly washed down with a splash of malbec.  It was truly a night of gastronomical proportions.

For the most part, my parents and I just enjoyed walking around the city and exploring the sites.  During our time we encountered three street protests (so very Latin American), made friends at an outdoor café with a man who had lived in Las Vegas for 60 years, enjoyed empanadas, walked along the river and  toured the Cemetario de la Recoleta.  The latter was one of my favorite stops.  Even though we only made it there 10 minutes before closing and had to cruise through the cemetery at light speed – it was incredibly fascinating.  The Cemetery de la Recoleta is home to Eva Perón, Argentinian Presidents and Nobel Prize winners and families spend 10’s of thousands of dollars on incredibly ornate mausoleums.  Wandering through this beautiful cemetery was quite special.

 

 

 

Cemetario de la Recoleta

Just a few mausoleums



Casa Rosada or Argenitna's "Pink House"

Enjoying some fine Argentian parrilla

Time to Slow Down

3 March 2014 - What happens when you are sick and tired of 12 hour bus rides and the last thing you want to do is endure another one?  Well, you hop on a 10 hour overnight bus and head for the coast of Ecuador of course.

Lovely Canoa

I had two weeks to kill in Ecuador before I caught a flight to Argentina, so I decided to pass them sitting on the beach doing as little as possible.  I know.  I realize how absurd that statement is.  Most functional adults are lucky if they get to enjoy two weeks of vacation each year, let alone on the beach in Ecuador.  I am one fortunate cookie and I am trying to enjoy every waking moment of hiking at 12pm on a Tuesday, having a beer with lunch (every damn day if I feel like it) and forgetting what day of the week it is or what month we are in for that matter as much as possible, because I know I will be hopping back on the hamster-wheel of life, doing the 9-5 before I know it.

I digress though, I was telling you about my two week stint in Canoa, Ecuador.  It was wonderful.

Canoa is a small, little beach town with an infectious tranquilo surfer vibe, that makes everybody – and I mean everybody – slow down and stay for a while.  There is one paved road and it is the road that leads you out of town.  There are no ATM’s and wandering around barefoot is highly encouraged.

The sunny streets of Canoa

Dozens of charming surfer shacks painted in splashes of color line the beach selling fresh ceviche, fruit smoothies and fish cooked just about any way you can dream up.

My ten hour night bus that I was positively dreading turned out to be the best bus ride I have taken this entire trip.  Funny how that works out, huh?  The bus was practically empty and I had a whole row of 4 seats to sprawl across and make myself comfortable.  I slept surprisingly well and the bus even arrived early!

The bus dumped about four or five backpackers off on a dusty street corner in Canoa at 4:45 in the morning.  I was wiping the sleep from my eyes and trying to find the directions to a few hostels that I had researched the day before when another traveler asked me where I planned on staying.  I told him Sundown Beach Hotel.  Even though it was supposed to be a 20 minute walk out of town, it was right on the beach and offered long-term stay discounts.  This is where the beauty of travel serendipity comes into play, Jan (as he later told me was his name) had already contacted them and they were booked solid for about two months straight.  That 20 minute walk in the dark on the beach with my absurdly heavy pack sure would have been lousy.  We decided to just wander through town and see what we could find.

The sunsets never got old

There were a few drunk Canoan men partying by their truck, but other than that the town was pretty much dead.  We found a hostel on the beach that looked pretty promising, but no one was around – it was beginning to look like we might need to sleep on the beach for a few hours while we waited for everyone to wake up.  Luckily, we decided to walk down the street a bit more and we found a security guard sleeping in a chair outside Canoamar Hostel.  He made us a reasonable offer for a room and we decided to share it for a day before we had a chance to find someplace better.

As it turns out, Canoamar was a great hotel – hammocks for lounging in, plenty of outdoor sitting areas, views of the beach, and a shared kitchen.  Jan and I ended up sharing the room for the entire time I was there.  It worked out great.  Jan is from Germany and was planning on staying in Canoa for a few months to learn how to surf and take Spanish lessons.  He rented an apartment just as I was leaving.

I passed my days doing yoga on the beach (it is quite sandy by the way), laying out in the sun for as long as I could manage, reading a great deal, watching the sunset, going for long walks, getting hit on quite incessantly by local surfers, and enjoying fresh fruit smoothies.

The infamous ceviche...

My first day in town, I did however get offered money for sex.  That was a first.  I was enjoying freshly chopped ceviche at a little shack on the beach, feet in the sand, sipping on a mango-banana smoothie thinking things just could not get any better than this when the guy running the place pointed to his cousin eating at a table nearby and said, “He thinks you’re pretty.  He will pay for you to leave with him.”  I am sorry, what?  I look over at the middle-aged man dressed in a polo shirt, quite not in line with the rest of the town’s fashion of flip flops and tanks tops I might add, he smirks and nods at me as he has a ten and some ones in his hand.  I quickly say no, look away, and feel sick to my stomach.  I also have to hope that the ten was for his bill and not for me.  I have got to be worth more than that.

The rest of my time in Canoa was, thankfully, quite uneventful.  I went on a hike to a private beach with a local surfer friend, took a surfing lesson, drank caipirinhas on the beach, made friends with a retiree couple vacationing from Canada (we shared a few delicious meals together), watched the sunset every night, won trivia night (a first!) and de.com.pressed.

Oh and if you are ever in Canoa, be sure to stop by Betty Surf and Yoga.  They are some of the coolest and nicest people you will come across, the yoga is top notch and they will get you standing on a board in no time.  Thanks for the good times!

 

Taking in the sunset with some friends



Hike to the private beach

 

I Bid You Adieu Colombia

-        This is what 2,000 Colombian Pesos (or $1 USD) looks like

-        This is what an average, budget-friendly backpacker accommodation looks like

-        I’ve said it before and I will say it again, Colombia’s bus travel times are a dirty, dirty lie

-        I despise Colombia’s speed bumps.  They are everywhere – all over the country, in the middle of a country road without a house to see for miles.  They are annoying.

-        I’ve always appreciated the EPA’s clean-air standards, but I have a newfound appreciation for them after growing tired of choking down the black exhaust of every vehicle in front of us.

-        The average, very water, beer costs $1

-        A plato tipical consists of fresh fruit juice, a soup (usually a vegetable or fish soup), some kind of meat (usually carne asada or fried chicken), rice, beans and if you are lucky a smattering of some lettuce and tomatoes.

-        Tourist travel maps cannot be trusted

-        Colombia has a true love for its old vehicles – especially old Willie’s and Land Cruisers.  Many are in pristine condition.

-        It is definitely the spoiled American in me (Estudaniese), but I hate paying to use the bathroom…even if it is only $0.25 and especially when there is no toilet paper.

-    Plantain chips were my go to bus ride snack

-        WiFi is everywhere.

-        Tejo is a fantastically fun corn hole/horse shoe-esque game that involves gun powder, loud noises and explosions.  I most definitely plan on bringing it back to Colorado for our sunny park days….I am sure that is well within the rules.

 

What Goes Up Must Come Down

Termales Aguatibias

Well, we departed Colombia. All in all, it was a pretty uneventful departure marked by hours of bus rides as we headed south to the Ecuador border.  Colombia sure has a knack for underestimating (lying through their teeth about) bus trip times – every trip was easily three to four hours longer than we were told it would be.

Lance and I did managed to squeeze in a day trip to some hot springs about two hours outside of Popayan, an old, bustling colonial town that we stopped in on our way South.  The Termales Aguatibias had three wonderful steaming swimming holes with lush, green mountains and misty, rolling fog as a backdrop.   After bumbling up a muddy, dirt road in an old WWII jeep, I was worried that the cold and rather persistent rain would spoil our fun, when in fact it merely added to the ambiance.  It made jumping into the steaming hot pools of water that much more enjoyable.

Aguatibias also had a big, long, blue concrete waterslide that wound its way down the side of a hill.  It was surprisingly fast and fun.  Thanks to the lousy weather, Lance and I practically had the place to ourselves and we enjoyed running up the hill and riding the slide again and again.

The final piece in our trifecta of fun for the day was taking a luxurious dip in a thermal mud bath.  I am not sure what I had envisioned, but this was not it.  Essentially is was just a shallow and rather slimy mud pit with mildly warm water in it.  We felt around and scooped up large handfuls of the “best” and gooiest mud and liberally slathered it on our bodies as if we were at some fine spa back home.  Whether or not it was all in my head – my skin felt deliciously soft afterwards.

After enjoying some rather satisfactory (and salty) carne asada, Lance and I were relishing in what a perfectly lovely day we were having.  Between the joyously relaxing hot pools, careening ourselves down the “Colombian water-luge” and giggling like school children as we smeared ourselves with mud, there was little to complain about.  Lest we start enjoying ourselves too much Colombia gave us the kick in the pants that it all too good at giving you.

The friendly chap who happily chatted with us as he gave us a ride up to the hot springs offered to return in three hours to give us a ride back to town.  So, after finishing our lunch, we dried off, I changed out of my wet clothes and we waited the 15 minutes or so until he was supposed to arrive.  Well, 15 minutes turned into one hour and there was still no sign of the old, red jeep.  Lance and I dressed like a couple of weekenders ready for a day at the beach – shorts, tank tops and flip flops and not for a day up in the cold and rainy mountains of Colombia.   My feet were freezing, it was wet and cold and I was quite frankly, growing tired of waiting.  So, we decided to try our luck flagging down a bus on the road as it drove by.  Armed with nothing more than my sarong to shield us from the freezing rain, Lance and I stood shivering under our lousy makeshift umbrella watching car and motorcycle after car and motorcycle drive by.  After standing there for over 40 minutes, feeling more and more dejected about our seemingly never-ending, lousy transportation luck, we could finally hear the rumbling engine sounds of a bus coming down the road ahead. 

We immediately began flagging the bus down as it rounded the corner – except it was not a bus, it was a huge cattle truck.  It slowed to a stop though.  They must have felt sorry for the miserable, soaking wet, sack of gringos shivering on the side of the road.  The front cab was full of bundled up Colombian women and children and we gladly began trying to squeeze ourselves inside when they opened the door.

Slathering ourselves in luxurious thermal mud

The truck driver hopped out and said, “No, not in here.  In the back, there are people in the back.”  There are people in the back?   I thought to myself how lousy my Spanish is and was mad that I did not understand what he was saying.  I did not question him though, because I was not about to turn down a ride and a way out of the rain, so I followed him around to the back of the cattle truck and happily climbed up inside.  Sure enough though, there were people inside (and thankfully no livestock).  Hard-faced Colombian farmers stood against the grates while children and women wrapped in ponchos sat perched on bags of rice.  They stared at us wide-eyed looking us up and down as we stood there gripping the side of the truck.  Without saying anything at all, their expectant stares screamed, “Why, what in tarnation are you children wearing in weather like this?!?”  That is a right good question my friends.

After dropping all of the locals off in the small town Coconuco, our luck seemed to work in our favor yet again.  The truck driver was driving all the way back to Cali that night and he offered to give us a ride back to Popayan.  We gladly climbed in the front seat of the cab this time and chatted him up about Colombia’s hot spots, futbol (soccer), the economy, and poverty in the US.  I was just so

All aboard the cattle truck

happy that we did not have to try and find a bus to catch back to town that when he offered to drop us off at our hotel I abruptly turned him down.  I told him just to drop us off wherever was easiest and said we would hail a cab the rest of the way.  Well, we ended up standing in the rain again for a good 15 minutes trying hopelessly to flag down a cab.  Apparently cabs in Popayan are not a dime a dozen like in every other city in South America.

After being pooped from the day’s events, I wanted to do nothing more than lay in bed and watch a movie, so I talked Lance out of going to dinner and instead running to the grocery store because it would be “easier.”  What a dangerous word.  Apparently all of Popayan does their grocery shopping at precisely 7pm on Saturday night.  The Megasuper was absolute mayhem.  What was supposed to be a quick trip to pick up a few things for sandwiches turned into an hour and a half ordeal.  Lines snaked down the aisles and looked like what supermarkets in the US look like the day before Thanksgiving (except the lines moved much slower).  I ended the night with a tasty sandwich and wine though, so all was well in the world again.

 Oh Colombia, I’ll miss your feisty sense of adventure!

 

 

 

 

 

Wax Palm Country

If you are in Salento, you are without a doubt there to go to Valle de Cocoro.  Salento is nice enough, but as far as charming mountain towns go (you just heard me rave about that in my last post), Salento cannot hold a candle to some of Colombia’s more charming and quaint pueblos.

Valle de Cocoro is absolutely stunning though.  Its main draw are its world famous wax palm trees.  While wandering through an amazingly green valley that is so lush it looks as though it is a backdrop…as though you could reach out and poof! it could just disappear - you crane your neck up sky high to peer at the sixty foot tall wax palm trees.  They are a sight to see – the wax palms are so spindly, tall and skinny that it is a wonder they can even stand at all.

Because why wouldn't a Willy be popping willies in the town square?