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Hi All,
First up, don?t pay any attention to the dates on this as we left Paraguay a couple of days ago and are now in BA (Bueno Aires to you and me!). Just been a bit sloppy updating.
Anyway, last time we wrote we had just visited the Argie side of the Iguazu falls (amazing) and were heading off the the Brazilian the next day. The Brazilian side had none of the jungle that the Argie side did but the views were 10x better as you could walk and see the whole 2.7km of them. The photos are quiet surreal as there are rainbows everywhere and loads of individual waterfalls, looks like something from Lord of the Rings! The main part of the 2.7km stretch is called the Devils Throat. Its a semi circle ridge dumping a massive amount of water and there is a platform that you can walk out to so you are realy close to them. Going on the platform was like taking a shower and the force of the water made it hard to breath. Soaking wet we decided to go back to the hostel and along with Karen (the girls we`d met up again with) go over the boarder to Paraguay and head south to see the Jesuit ruins. Now according to the British Gov website, only around 250 Brits visit Paraguay each year and hardly any stay for more than a day or cros over from Brazil. When we got to the boarder we knew why!! The border between Foz (Brazil) and Cuicad del Este (Paraguay) is one of the most notorious in South America for drug smuggling and general shiftiness! Splitting the boarding is a massive bridge over a river. The bridge is around 200 metres long and around 80ft high from the water with only a leg high barrier stopping the fall! It?s also full of what looked like villans and crooked police with machine guns taking back handers! We got our exit stamps from Brazil after a bit of confussion and tried to find a taxi to take us over the bridge to Paraguay. Only problem was that the queue to get back into Brazil was massive so no one was willing to take us. As we already had our exit stamps we had no choice but to turn and cross the bridge via foot, something all the guide books advise against because of the general lawlessness of the place they call the Friendship bridge! It was full of people crossing back and forth upto no good so we weren´t too happy about the fact we had to walk across with our massive backpacks being eyed up by everone, police and all. I made the girls go infront of me so I could keep an eye on them and we waited for a clear run before we set off in single file. The crossing was scary to say the least. Eyes didn´t get off us the whole time, we had a number of comments from the locals and even the machine weilding police seemed to mence us. Anyway, we made it ..... just! At the Paraguayan boarder control they questioned us as the man in charge had not seen Brits cross at this point before which was quiet cool. After receiving our entry stamps we took a taxi to the bus station to get a ride down to Encarnacion. We got on the worst bus you could imagine, cramped, loaded with various bit of kontraband, no aircon, no heaters and broken windows! Still you can´t moan at 3 quid for a 6 hour bus ride. An hour into the ride you really noticed how poor Paraguay was, really run down, shacks for houses and crappy cars. Every now and then the bus would stop, someone would get on the bus and start a sales pitch. We had all sorts on offer, crayons, drinks, food, gloves ... porn dvd´s! After about 2 hours it started getting really cold (about 2oC) and as some of the windows were broke we could see our breaths. Not good when you have another 4 hours to go and you hadn´t taken the glove man up on his sales pitch. To keep us going all we talked about was what food we were going to eat when we got there. Steak and chips was the main topic so as soon as we got there, we dumped our bags at a hotel (they don´t have hostels as they have no tourists) got some cash out and headed to a resturant to treat ourselves. And treat ourselves we did. We had bread and paté for starters, steak and chips (which consisted of two large steaks that melted in the mouth, onions and a fried egg), wine, sangrea and coffees each. It came to a grand total of 96,000 Paraguayan pescos which after a quick calculation (move the decimal point 4 places) came to just under a tenner! Not bad!
THe next day we deceided to chill out and get ourselves together (pluck, prune, scrub and wash). We found this cool supermarket that had a bbq grill with all kinds of meat and loads of other food. You pick what you want and then weigh it at something $$$ per kilo. Me and Lee had more than we could eat with all kinds of top meat plus drinks and it came to just under 4 pounds for the both of us. Again not bad going. That night after a long nap we went to the same resturant and had Pizza (so good). The next day we decided to go and see the Jesuit ruins (Jesuits were 17th/18th bible bashers that came to South America to convert the world. They did a lot of good but at the end of the day they were still bible bashers!!). We jumped on a local bus which was amazing so old and knackered playing local music which is brilliant. So kited out with our flasks and Mate (we´ll explain máte at the end) we hit the ruins. There are 2 lots of ruins, one is at a village called Jesus (pronounsed hey zeus) and the other at Trinidad We were the only ones there which was strange considering the places are world heritage sites! They were impressive without a doubt, we explored the grounds of each, took loads of pictures and went back to chill out before we hit the ´per Kilo´bbq place. The bbq hall is in a supermarket but when we went they had karaoke on so it stayed open until about 00:00am. Karen (the girl we met in Ilha Grande and then Foz, the girl we couldn´t of done Paraguay without) is a bit of an addict when it comes to Karaoke, even though which she´ll agree to, her voice is no angels! Still she couldn´t resist launching herself up there (with our full support of course) to belt and act(!) out I will Survive. You can imagine, a Brit in full voice in front of biwildered Paraguayan nationals went down a storm. They were all singing along, clapping and even cheering on for an encore. Good on you Karen as it´s a moment we shall never forget (and keep your eye on YouTube)!
The next day w woke, went to the supermarket to get brekkie and shipped ourselves off to Argentina. We arrived in Pousadas, a boarder town where we were to take a coach to Buenos Aires and picked the nicest coach we could for the 12 hour trip. They have a seating class on these long distance coaches and we chose semi cama. That meant we had near full reclining seats (think lazy boys), a waiter with free meals and free booze (including champagne), pillows, a blanket and movies (300 was on and in English). Just what we needed for a 12 hour ride and all for about 25 pounds each! So we´re in BA now but haven´t done much to talk about although the city is so so beautiful.
We´re thinking of you all and are having an amazing time.
All our love, Lee & Rob ......... Oh, Máte.....
Máte (pronounced mar-tay) is the tradition of tea drinking in Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay with a caffine like high. You take a cup which can be wooden, metal, a hollowed out dried pumpkin, a hollowed out dried calfs foot (no joke) etc and fill it 3/4 full with a tea like leaf called Yerba. You then move the leaves to the side of the cup and place in a metal (silver coloured) straw that has a spooned end with tiny holes in so you don´t suck up the leaves. You fill up your máte cup with hot water and leave to soak for 10 minutes (whatever you do, don´t move the straw, thats a big no no) before filling it up again 1/2 way with hot water. You then proceed to drink the tea. Its a social thing so you drink the máte and then pass it on (unlike a similar social high you must drink all the máte before passing it). Everyone here drinks the stuff (even we have one now). Paraguay has been the worst so far. Policemen walk round with their Máte and flask of hot water, people driving cars drink it, people riding bikes drink it and fill it on the go. There are even people with massive pots of hot water on the streets filling up peoples flasks for a few bob so the Máte addicts don´t climb the walls. The máte culture is big and we´re bringing it home with us!!!
Ciao Chicos xxx
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