foz do iguaçu

sunday march 1 - tuesday march 3

We arrived in foz do iguaçu sometime after four I think. We were on a small plane and landing at a small airport, so we got parked outside and walked off the steps of the plane. The weather felt wonderful and it was a beautifully sunny day. We caught a cab to our hotel and it was nice that it was only a few minutes from the airport. Honey said he picked it because of it's perfect location and it really was so convenient for the places we needed to get to and from.

First thing at the hotel after checking in, we went to the information desk and had a nice girl help us with arranging our next two days. The lady was nice and reminded me of McKaylee who was one of my laurels when I was in young women's. I think it was her round face and the way she smiled. Anyways, between waiting for the older Indian couple in front of us from New Zealand and our own planning, we were sitting at that desk for an entire hour. Then we made our way to the room, the pool (honey swam while I hung out on my phone), and dinner.

Dinner was either buffet or a la carte (at the restaurant since its a small town and everything is closed on Sunday night anyway) and since I never eat enough to get my money's worth out of a buffet and they never look too appealing to me, we opted for a la carte and took a seat at a table. Little did we know we'd be there for over an hour and a half. Ha. We made it fun though. The waiter was a polite, quiet guy who reminded me of Sorham for no reason other than his hair probably. Honey said the guy didn't make him think of Sorham at all but I know by now that my people resemblances I see are frequently not based in any fact.

We both ordered penne pasta but honey got a meat sauce and I got the four cheese white sauce. It was clear after a few minutes that our service wouldn't be prompt and I think our server was the only server working a la carte and even then, it seemed he was sometimes helping with the buffet. After a while, he came back to us and said it would be twenty minutes until our food was ready and that we could help ourselves to a plate of the buffet from the table on our side of the room that included salads and breads etc. So we each filled our plates with food and I got fruit and bread and I made a little ham sandwich with a French roll. And of course after that we weren't hungry but continued to make jokes about how the good news was that we probably would be hungry again by the time our pasta was done cooking. Meanwhile, two French ladies sat at the table behind me and we started jokes about how they, plus all the people from the buffet side of the room, must be confused why some of the a la carte people are helping themselves to parts of the buffet. Also, one of the French women brought her touristy Brazil guide book with her to dinner and had it on the table next to her. I literally laughed out loud when honey motioned towards the book and made a comment about how this lady must be a veteran a la carte customer since she brought some reading to pass the time while she waited for her food. Maybe you had to be there, but it was too perfect for the situation. I loved it. We also kept saying "leisurely" because when honey was checking our flight to come here, he looked online and our flight said something like "no change" or whatever that Igor had said meant it was on time. But apparently all the other flights had some sort of word that honey googled and it translated to "leisurely."  What it means for your plane to be leisurely... who knows. Ha. Anyway, we decided if our pasta was on a flight board, it would likely have a "leisurely" status update next to it. Eventually our pasta did come (just a bowl of penne with what seemed like jarred sauce poured directly on top. No side of a salad or bread or even sauce stirred in. Just noodles and sauce. Ha. It wasn't bad but we weren't too hungry at that point (despite being at least 45 mins from the initial "it'll be 20 minutes" comment) and so I ate half and honey actually finished his, just because. We ended up leading close to 9:30, despite having arrived before 8pm. Part of me is surprised we're not still there actually. ; ) Anyways, my favorite part of dinner, besides hanging out with honey and cracking jokes, was my fanta. Mmm how I was loving that fanta.

Monday morning we set our alarm to wake up early enough to get a good start on our day. I was sooo tired though because honey had set our room temp at 18 degrees and the only covers on the bed were a sheet and a thin waffle knit blanket. So I think I was asleep but I must have been dreaming that I was just shivering under my covers all night. Once we got moving though then I was alright. We did the breakfast buffet since it was complimentary and there was a nice variety of breads. They had a lot of things available to eat but most of them didn't appeal to me. I had eggs, watermelon, orange juice and the little bread balls filled with cheese which quickly became a favorite for honey and myself. Also, we enjoyed looking at the English translations of the food and got some good laughs. Mainly the little sugared twisty bread called "underwear tuner" and there was also some ant bread or ant hill bread. I can't remember. Even at public places though, there are some pretty horrible English translations of things.

Anyways, we took off walking to the bird park and it was like four minutes away. I was expecting it to be cool because the tourist desk lady said it would be, but it was definitely beyond cool. It was like they carved out pathways in the jungle and then built some wire cages for the birds. There was nothing cement or zoo feeling about it and the birds were all so close and easy to see. And while there were tons of birds to see in cages, there were also three huge areas where you could go in and hang out with tons of birds too. Like a butterfly pavilion except with a bunch of big tropical birds. They also had a butterfly pavilion and a spot where you could hold a huge snake (we opted out) and we took advantage of the opportunity to hold a mccaw. The whole experience was really awesome and we stayed for several hours. 

We headed over to the waterfalls around noon I think. We took the bus that takes you part way up, where the pink hotel is, and started the hiking trail that goes along the river. The first view is gorgeous and you think you're going to see more views like that, but you're completely wrong. Because each lookout point gets more intense and more beautiful. And as you make your way closer to the main falls, you're making your way around corners that allow you to see even more huge falls that you didn't even know existed. It was awesome. When we got to the endish part, we went out on the walk way that takes you into the mist of some of the falls and it felt so good and was so breathtaking. Words seriously can not describe the natural beauty of this place. Honey took a million pictures, mostly panoramic, trying to capture it all. On our way back off of that walkway, we ran into two groups of elders and we were excited to see them. I totally thought we would see tons of elders on São Paulo and was surprised we didn't see any. And I wasn't at all expecting to see any at the falls, but we saw two sets just out enjoying their p day. We got our picture with them. 

Once we finished the trail, we headed up for lunch and got burgers and fries and a drink. As always, the drink was the best part and the burgers were a little tough to choke down, but the fries were actually not too bad. At this point in the day, the bottoms of my feet felt bruised and my lower leg muscles were still sore and easily tired from our previous days of walking and wearing heels and my left ankle was still swollen (I think from bug bites? Not entirely sure) so I told honey that I would take the bus part way down while he went back by way of the trail and that I'd meet him at the pink hotel at 3:30. I got to the hotel at 3:07 and explored a bit. It was really nice and old fashioned and it had the feel of a southern plantation. The parlors were decorated like the 1930s, I loved looking at the miniatures displays of men designing rings in the jewelry shop windows, and then I plopped my pregnant self down in a comfy shaded lounge chair by the pool. Several of the pool attendants came by to bring me towels and glasses of ice water but I declined and just enjoyed the scenery and passed the time until I met honey in the lobby at 3:30. We explored some together and went in that jewelry shop to look around. It was one of the crazy expensive ones but I always love looking. And they offer you free guarana so that was a bonus. I like that stuff. 

Eventually we took the bus back down and walked back to the hotel. On the way back though, we stopped at a roadside blanket and bought a turquoise and hematite necklace. The lady initially quoted and 20 real and I wasn't obsessed with it, but then she dropped to 15 and quickly to 10. I decided if she was that willing to sell, maybe she needed my 10 real and I needed her necklace. Hopefully it lasts longer than my precious turquoise necklace. Although not such a big deal when you're only paying $4. We got back to the hotel and put on our swimsuits and headed to the pool. Once again, my honey got wet and I stayed dry and inherited a few more big bites on my feet and arms from some atrocious gnats. The pool bar closed at 7, so we decided to try our luck ordering dinner out there at 6:30 so we could choose from a more hamburger and hot dog type menu and so we wouldn't have to wait as long. I ordered the hot dog because I thought a hot dog would be hard to screw up but I was sooo wrong. It came with tons of ketchup sauce all over. And it was open faced with a huge bun and each hot dog cut in half and strategically placed on each side. And sprinkled with corn and canned peas (I struggle with canned peas because of their specific green color) and smothered with crunchy little fry things. It was revolting. Honey got a pizza and we shared both (that was the agreement when we ordered... I got the better end of that deal). The pizza was your traditional pizza that seemed like a frozen pizza cooked in a microwave but it tasted wonderful compared to the hot dog. Honey ate his entire hot dog first since he knew it would be easiest to eat it when he was most hungry. I tried that but quickly got too grossed out and switched to the pizza. And when I finished my pizza I tried my hot dog again. I ate like three bites before I had to give up for good because I was almost gagging on it. But we did order a coconut water which was delicious and after we drank it all, I told honey to bang it on something to crack it open. The server guy came back out and took it from honey as he was banging it and he came back out of the kitchen with our coconut nicely sliced in half and offered us two spoons so we could dig out the meat. It was so good. Tricky, but worth it. Then we headed to our room to shower and go to bed since we knew we had our longest day of the trip ahead of us... The Argentina side of the falls.

After another crappy night of sleep, we woke up at 6:45 to get ready, eat breakfast, and get our taxi at 7:30. There was a cheaper option with the tourist booking lady to take a shuttle with other people staying at the hotel but then you're with them all day on a tour. Normally I love tours, but mostly because I like the extra info that a guide provides. Well, since this tour was going to be in Portuguese and we were afraid of the group going slow or spending too much time doing worthless crap like eating lunch or looking at shops, we thought it was well worth it to pay more for a private car and stay the entire day doing everything just how we wanted to. The Argentina side had a lot more hiking trails and more options as far as what you can pay extra to do so we mapped out what we wanted to conquer and the best way to do that. 

We'd planned an hour to get to the falls but even with stopping twice (passports and the Argentina reciprocity papers), we were there by 8:20 and immediately took the train to the top to do the devil's throat trail. It's less like a hike and more like a walk along a metal bridge that leads you over all the water and stops right at the top of the major waterfall. It was so misty that if we had stayed longer, we would have walked away dripping wet. As it was though, we were perfectly damp and it felt really good and kept us cool on the wall back. One of the things we'd been most excited about doing was the water motorboat raft ride that takes you along the river and into the falls but I happened to see on a brochure the night before that pregnant women were not allowed. We remained hopeful though that they wouldn't be strict about it or that I could sign a waiver or something. Well, fail. Once again, these people take pregnancy very seriously and no amount of our convincing could tempt the guy at the desk to sell us a ticket. He said everyone in his company (that did these rides and excursions throughout the park) was trained very strictly on not letting pregnant women on the rides and we're all very aware that they would get fired if they knowingly turned a blind eye. Sad. But I convinced honey to still do the full excursion (motorboat ride plus jungle tour) and that I could just wait and then meet him at the end. So we bought a ticket for honey's excursion, and then we bought tickets for a gentle rowing raft ride down a pleasant river (the "ecological tour") that was approved for pregnant women. The funny part of this was that the guy wouldn't take our credit card but he would take our US dollars for the converted real amount... And then he gave us an overly positive exchange rate like 11 or something. Honey gave him 55 dollars or whatever but didn't have change for the 45 cents and the guy wouldn't accept any less but said he could give us change in real so we did that and honey gave him an extra five (total $60 for the $55.45 amount and got back more real than what five dollars is even worth. We were so confused by this (a similar thing happened at our hotel with a super high exchange rate... I think the Internet said an even exchange was 8.7 maybe) and came to the conclusion that maybe they have more people that convert dollars to real and so they can rip people off and make a profit when people are trying to get their money back to their initial type. All very strange. Anyways, the guy said the ecological tour would leave in five minutes and I got a happy surprise when I realized that my honey and I were the only two passengers. It was kind of like Brazil but a little like Venice as we sat in our private raft while someone rowed us under bridges and through the jungle. It was beautiful and so pleasant. I think they said it was 40 minutes long but of course time flew by way faster. 

We hung out and killed a bit of time as we headed in the direction honey would need to go to the meetup spot for his excursion. We got me a popsicle (strawberry slice) and rested my feet a bit too. After we set up our meetup plan (life is different when you can't just rely on calling or texting to meet up), I went to kill time by myself wandering around, finding spots with AC where I could put my feet up, looking at gift shop stuff, and eventually getting another Popsicle because those things are so delicious. Then I started out along the path to make sure I had plenty of time to get to the meeting spot. The path was along the metal grates walkway that led through the thick of the rainforest trees. I slowed down when I saw a group of people gathered around and then saw the bright orange of a toucan bill. It was like it was posing for all of us because it just kept getting closer and closer, hopping on branches and eating stuff and looking this way and that. I was probably the only person not taking pictures (my phone was at the hotel and honey had his with him), but it was great to just soak up the moment. The map I had was more of a drawing illustration of the park and less of an accurate map and the signs were inconsistent and not too informative so I tried to use both of those things combined with asking an employee for directions and eventually I knew I was headed in the right direction and got to the point where I felt I could abandon everything else and just follow the soaking wet people. With each wet person I passed, I felt my confidence grow and I waited at the top of the steps until 1:20 when my honey came up. 

We walked down the stairs to where the motor boat raft docks and took pictures down by the rocks. It was really pretty... as was everything else, honestly. We decided to find upper trail to hike, but using our inaccurate map and signs, we ended up taking the wrong path... which we didn't even completely realize until it spit us out at the Sheraton hotel. It ended up being such a happy mistake though because along the path, we saw this family of at least ten monkeys and they were not at all shy. Several came within less than a foot of me and same with Chris. And we saw multiple babies that would ride on their parents' backs and it was adorable. We were running ahead of schedule at the time (we set our taxi to come get us at seven) and they had a bench right there, so I plopped myself down and honey said I could watch however long I wanted. ; )  Which we totally did until a park person came and shook tree branches to scare all of the monkeys away. Not sure of the purpose of that though. Avoiding too much interaction of humans and monkeys?  Or maybe there were other people watching the monkeys (a large group had gathered) that were being too forward with them or something. Anyways, I'm glad we accidentally happened upon that monkey scene because it was awesome. 

Once we realized that we'd taken the wrong trail to the Sheraton, we decided to at least go in and check it out. We sat in the AC and rested (I needed lots of rest being pregnant and with it being so hot) and honey filled up our water bottle and was checking some emails using the free wifi (we were in Argentina so he had his phone on airplane mode the whole day) when all the sudden, it started to rain and then it turned into a downpour. So we watched out the window for a while while honey kept checking emails and charging his phone. After an hour, it was still pouring down rain and didn't look like it was going to let up anytime soon so we went upstairs to the Sheraton bar and ordered one of the most delicious hamburgers I've ever eaten. They gave us a plate of potato chips while we were waiting and then served the burger with fries and so even though we shared, it was the perfect amount of food and we finished eating right at 5:00 which was perfect timing because that's exactly when the rain stopped. Then we weren't ahead of schedule anymore since we'd just spent two hours at the Sheraton while it rained. 

So we took off for the last trail that we hadn't hiked yet. It was great and we were living seeing everything and taking pictures and it was so nice since it was less crowded because the rainstorm probably drove most of the people out of the park. And it cooled everything down really nicely so it was so pleasant. Then around 5:30, one of the park workers found us and told us the park was closing (we knew it closed at six but we thought we could stay in the park until 7... apparently they start kicking you off the trails sooner than that though) so we hurried along the trail as he followed behind us and informed everyone else he came across that we all needed to hurry and finish the trail. The good part is that we were able to still see the entire trail and the funny part is that towards the end, there was the whole group of us people moving along with the guy just watching us and shuffling behind us all. Then we came across another family of monkeys and it was awesome. The park guy didn't even push us along, he just let us stay and watch them for 5 or 10 minutes and take pictures and everything. It's crazy how they'll jump onto the fence railing like a foot away from you and aren't even phased by it. They're so much more active and fun to watch than seeing monkeys at the zoo who are limited by their cages and do a lot of sitting around. These monkeys only stop long enough to put food in their mouth or scratch their leg or something. They are always moving and jumping and it's so awesome. And then we walked just a little bit more and saw two toucans who were also not shy. The toucans just kept hopping closer and closer and never got scared. But eventually the park guy moves us along and roped off the end of the trail. 

So then instead of taking the train, we walked down the green trail which wasn't along metal grates through the forest, but more of a dirt path that probably runs pretty parallel to where the train takes you down. Then we sat and waited for the train which took us to the main entrance. It was probably around six at that point, so we looked in a few shops for 15 or 20 minutes and then headed out to the curb where our cab was already waiting for us. Even with the two passport related stops, it was only 30 minutes back to hotel and we played pool in the entertainment room for a bit (honey whooped me, although I was significantly better than I remember being back in high school) and then headed to our room to shower and get to sleep since we had to be up so early in the morning.