Waterfalls and Arms Smugglers

On Monday night (around midnight) Chris and I took a bus into Brazil to the town of Foz do Iguazu. It’s at the border of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina and the site of Iguazu Falls, which, according to our guide book, are the most impressive waterfalls in South America. Our bus was an overnight six hour trip with fully reclining seats. This would have provided for great sleeping, but a giant fat guy in front of me snored the entire time. I wanted to smack him.

To get into Brazil, first you have to cross a bridge at the end of a town in Paraguay called Ciudad del Este. Apparently, this is the spot for all sorts of illegal smuggling into Brazil. Stolen/illegal items pass down through Bolivia into Paraguay and over this bridge (it’s called the Friendship Bridge) into Brazil where they are distributed into Brazil and shipped to the USA. Bootleg DVDs, arms, drugs, electronics, and money make the trek over this bridge everyday with the border cops not paying much attention. Before we went, Seth showed us an article about Ciudad del Este, and it’s a good read, you can find it here.

We got to Ciudad del Este around 6am and because we were on a bus, we had to stop and go through customs (normally they waive you through). And I must say it was an interesting border stop. Chris and I had to run across six lanes of high speed traffic to get over to the office, and then run back. I always feel like I’m in the midst of an advanced level of Frogger whenever I have to cross the street in South America, but this took it to a whole new super advanced level. We only stayed at Iguazu for that one day, and took the bus back at 6pm. On the way back at the border, there was no Frogger challenge (we were on the right side of the street) but the bus decided to pull way up past the border check office. I have never clutched my passport tighter, and Chris and I kind of ran/walk past taxi drivers offering rides, past the main market for smuggling that was shut down for the evening, and past random guys selling random junk/food. It was very interesting.

As for Iguazu Falls they were very impressive and it was cool to see. We saw them through the Brazilian side and the Argentine view is supposedly better, but I still thought it was cool. You only need about an hour or two in the park, and then we decided to go to a Bird Zoo/Sanctuary place across the street. We had heard from an Australian couple that it was a good stop to make, and I’m glad we did. Besides the awful noisy Argentine tour group that was behind us for a good portion of the park (I swear, when traveling, the Argentine motto is “Scream and Throw Food At It Until It Notices You, No Matter How Long This Takes) it was very cool. We saw toucans and monkeys and giant snakes and dive bombing parrots.

There was one aviary (where you and the birds are together in a giant cage) with a ton of Macaws (giant parrots). Before we went in, we saw some of the awful Argentines getting dive bombed, the birds screaming, and one woman screaming with two parrots on her back. There are signs before you enter saying ‘Enter at Your Own Risk’ and ‘Remove All Jewelry and Watches’. I don’t think this exhibit is allowed in the USA. Anyway, we went in with the intent of getting some good parrot pictures. We were the only ones in there and the parrots got very quiet and started watching us. Then, one started screaming, and the others followed with beating their wings and screaming in unison. Then, they began to take flight and Chris and I put our heads down and ran out the exit. Not very brave, but those things have talons and giant wing spans and are scary in groups. You can see all pictures

Iguazu

(in case you’re too lazy to scroll down to Brazil on our Photos page).

After that, we had a nice cheap lunch outside the National Park and spent the remainder of the day speaking our bad broken Spanish to a group of people that actually speak Portuguese. Our bus ride back into Paraguay was on a bus without reclining seats and lots of stops and noisy people with noisy cell phones. We arrived in Asuncion before midnight and slept for about 10 hours when we reached Seth’s house. We also have some Paraguay shots, which you can see here.

Yesterday, Chris and I had our day of beauty and went to the fancy salon down the street from Seth’s house. We both had hour long massages ($7 each, I swear) and haircuts with shampoos and blow dries. When you get your hair shampooed here, it turns into another full on head and scalp and face massage. For everything, including the massages, we paid $50 for both of us. It was so nice and cheap that I’m going back today for a facial and a pedicure.

On Saturday morning we head to Montevideo and need to figure out where we will be staying and what to do and all that stuff. And that’s us!

The Road to Bolivia is Paved With Red Tape

It’s been really great here in Asuncion, but soon we will be moving on. Tuesday we are taking a five hour bus ride that leaves at midnight to Iguazu Falls. We’ll spend the day there and then take the bus back to Asuncion and arrive around 11:30 that night. Then, on Friday the 18th, we will fly to Santa Cruz Bolivia. We probably would have stayed through the weekend, but Seth informed us that he couldn’t possibly tolerate another weekend with us.

Actually, there is an election on the 20th and for the first time in a long time the Colorado party might actually lose. This could lead to events unforeseen such as the closing of Paraguayan borders if the people take to the streets to protest the opposition. Or, if the Colorado party wins again, there is actually enough support for the opposition that they might take to the streets. Somehow, I don’t think that a stolen election and recounts are handled as calmly here as they are in the US. So anyway, in case the borders get shut down or the place goes into riot mode after the election, we are going to skip town before all of that goes down. While it would be interesting to witness, we don’t want to be stuck here for an indefinite amount of time.

As of about four months ago, Bolivia is requiring US citizens to obtain a visa to enter Bolivia. It sucks that we have to pay another $100 bucks that we weren’t planning on, but it seems fair enough considering the fact that the US makes Bolivians pay to come to the USA. What seems odd about the whole thing are all of the hoops you have to jump through to get the visa. There is the typical application to fill out and passport photo. Then we have to show proof of a place to stay, proof of financial ability to support ourselves while in the country and proof of continuing on out of the country. Do they really think that a couple of American tourists are going to show up in Bolivia to live on the streets and become a drain on their society, suckling at the Bolivian welfare teet? We do have a hostel reserved for when we arrive and I can print out a copy of my bank statement, but we don’t have plans yet for how to get out of Bolivia. We are hoping that showing our flight info out of Rio in July will be enough. If not, I guess my dreams of becoming a coke dealer on the streets of La Paz will have to be put on hold while I figure out another way to sneak in and take jobs away from the locals by working for less wages at jobs nobody wants anyways. I’m sure they are just copying similar requirements from the US visa process, but the whole thing seems a bit unnecessary to me. Hopefully they won’t scrutinize our application too much and will just be happy to have some more tourists spending money there.

We are flying to Bolivia, which is nice. I would not be looking forward to a long bus ride to get there even though I’m sure we will have more of those after we get to Bolivia. We have to fly because it is just too dangerous to travel there by land from Paraguay. The western half of Paraguay, an area known as the Chaco, is ruled by drug traffickers and militant groups. I guess the odds are pretty good that we wouldn’t make it through there in one piece, so we’ll just fly over it. We’ll run into similar situations going from Ecuador to Colombia and possibly in areas of Peru, which means more flights and less bus rides.

Viva El Paraguay or Give Me Back My Wine Key

We arrived in Paraguay yesterday and the last 24 hours have been more than I could have hoped for. Seth lives in a presidential palace compared to what we are used to on this trip. Actually, it’s a presidential palace compared to what I’m used to after living in Hawaii for 4 years. We now have air conditioning, a real kitchen, a nice house, a swimming pool and all of the amenities I had come to take for granted in the US. We can even flush the toilet paper down the drain here. The bed doesn't slope in the middle or have a spring sticking into our backs. And the shower has a steady stream of water that stays the same temperature throughtout the whole shower. On top of all of this, we get chauffeured around by someone who already knows all of the places to go. Thank you, Seth.

I plan to spend a good portion of my time here doing as little as possible beyond the scope of lying in the hammock by the pool and trying to avoid contracting dengue fever. There have been recent reports in Asuncion of some people contracting this disease, which I’ve heard causes the people who survive it to wish they hadn’t. I’m sure worrying about this is as unnecessary as worrying about contracting West Nile disease in the States. It happens, but the odds are slim. Besides, it’s probably too hot here even for the bugs to work in the daytime. And that is precisely when I will be letting my guard down as I lie by the pool inside the fortified compound that is Seth’s estate.

I’ll also be practicing my Spanish as much as I can. The two weeks of Spanish school definitely helped, but obviously I have a long way to go. I am able to talk to other people and somewhat get my point across, but their reply may as well be in Chinese, or any other language besides English for that matter. When people speak to me in Spanish they almost always receive the standard response of ‘Qué?’ or ‘como?’ Now, if they don’t know me yet, they might think that I didn’t hear them and repeat their question, statement, exclamation or command. This in turn, will result in my reply of qué or como, or possibly no entiendo, if I have given up. By now they have noticed my pale skin, blue eyes, American clothes and accent and have likely figured out that there is no point in attempting further communication with me. They will either use their best judgment and make a decision, or bring in someone else that speaks English. The latter is usually not an available option. This can achieve varying results ranging from angry customers waiting in line behind me to receiving something not quite resembling the item I had tried to ask for to both parties shrugging their shoulders and walking away without a clear resolution.

I don’t know if I will ever be able to understand anyone else speaking Spanish, but hopefully I can learn enough to say what I need to completely enough that there will be no need for questions from the second party. If not, I can always point at what I want until I get it and plead ignorance when I do something wrong. This usually works except at the airport (my wine key was confiscated going through security in Santiago). It was made out of plastic and more harmless than the ball point pen in my bag or the lighter that they didn’t seem to care about, but no amount of ‘no entiendos’ or puzzled looks on my part could save my wine key.

Paraguay Bound

This weekend Chris and I took a bus to the coast and spent three nights in Viña del Mar. In the summer months (January and February) the place is boomin’ and we caught it on an off time. Our hostel/hotel was pretty close to the beach and we spent a lot of time wandering around. It was too cold to go to the beach and the water was too cold to even touch, so we had a lot of time to walk. I think in the summer months, the water is pretty cold too (probably a lot like northern to southern California).

Viña del Mar itself is a little run down and kind of dirty. I’ve never been to Atlantic City so I don’t know if I can compare it to that, but I have been to Cocoa Beach, Florida, and I got that same vibe; the kind of place that used to be ritzy and then got a little trashy. But since I’m in Chile, ritzy and trashy take whole different meanings and from what I’ve heard, everyone still has lots of love for Viña del Mar.

We arrived on Saturday after a two hour bus ride through some wineries. The next day we used the local bus system to take us to a small fishing village called Horcon. All of the fisherman line their boats up on the small harbor and use horses to pull the boats back in. It was Sunday so we missed the horses, but we did have a pretty good seafood lunch with shellfish soup, fried white fish, potato salad, and tomatoes and onions for around $3 each. After that, we wanted to take another bus to a town called Concon that’s closer to Viña, but we missed our bus stop, our Spanish is too crap to argue, and ended up back in Viña del Mar.

On Monday, we took the train into Valparaiso. Valparaiso and Viña del Mar basically run into each other but Valparaiso is a much larger town. It has the most important harbor on the entire west coast of South America. It also has the illustrious history of getting raided by pirates a bunch and destroyed by several large earthquakes. After Chile won their independence, Valparaiso got super popular with America and we used it as a major trading port. But then we started using steam ships and used the towns that produced coal, we built the transcontinental railroad and then the Panama Canal, and after that, America stopped loving Valparaiso. A few giant earthquakes completely leveled the place and it got poor and dirty and sketchy.

Presently, Valparaiso is the official cultural center of Chile (don’t ask me why) and UNESCO declared it a world heritage site. Along the hills that line the bay, there are huge collections of brightly painted shacks, stores, mansions, and homes all jumbled together on cobbled stoned streets and narrow alleyways. You can take little trains (ascencors) up the hills and wander through the neighborhoods. Apparently at night, everything gets a bit dangerous, hence Chris and me staying in Viña del Mar.

Today, we took the bus back to Santiago and tomorrow fly to Asuncion, Paraguay. From what I’ve heard, going to Paraguay is like going to the US to visit Kansas, while places like Rio and Buenos Aires are the Disneyland’s and New York City’s of the bunch. So why Paraguay? Well, my friend Seth from college lives there and works at the US embassy. He has enticed us with the promise of a free place to stay with a pool. He probably also has a bathroom with toilet paper and I won’t have to wear sandals while in the shower (this is a big deal down here). I plan on taking a vacation from my vacation. My feet are disgusting and in need of some serious TLC by someone willing to give them a pedicure, I need a haircut, and I need to get caught up on TV and movie watching. Plus it’s so nice to be in a place where someone knows what’s up. We won’t have to spend the time finding a place to eat or a place to do laundry, all of the scouting has been done. And I like the off the beaten path places (the Nebraskas of the world) because the people are usually a lot nicer.

Seth also has a new immunization card for me that states I have been vaccinated for yellow fever. When my backpack was stolen in Buenos Aires, I lost my immunization card and I can’t enter Bolivia or Brazil without it. My doctor mailed a new one to my parents and they sent it to Seth’s fancy APO address at the embassy.

So it’s off to Paraguay. We’re even flying and not taking a 45 hour bus ride. I feel so fancy.