To Jujuy (it's just fun to say)

Although it is Tuesday, I'm going to write about last Thursday. Can't have you missing out on anything.

Day two of excursions and today on the agenda was Tilcara and Humahuaca in the most northern province of Jujuy - pronounced choo-choo-ee for the Jews out there (for the non-Jews, its not like a train). Today I was on a tiny tour of four people. I was one of the four. There was a couple from Santa Fe and a guy from Buenos Aires. Even though I was totally of a different generation, they were very sweet and we got along well enough for our day long excursion.

We started in Purmamarca, where I left off the day before. The colors are way more brilliant in the morning sun. Now I could actually see all of the seven colors in the seven colors hill. We even drove through the hill (well not through it, but through the valleys behind it). The red rock is really soft, it crumbles like clay at the mere touch of it. It's just crazy to think that rocks (not gems) can be purple or pink.

We journeyed onward towards Tilcara, stopping many times on the road to take pictures with the monstrous mountains we were casually driving around. My favorite part of the drive was seeing the mud brick houses and one room houses randomly spattered in the hills. People hanging laundry and sweeping their front step just off the road where Middle of Nowhere meets Beautiful Mountains. We paused in front of one of these houses to take pictures of the hills in Maimara. My tour guide was this old old man named Jorge with broken teeth. But he was so excited to have young blood on his tour. He was my personal photographer for the day and was spouting ancient knowledge about the mountain folk all day.

As we continued on to Tilcara I got excited to see the Incan ruins. Until Jorge told us that they were all reproductions. The only original is in Tucuman - a town not on the agenda. Despite the blow to my expectations, the ruins were cool. It was interesting to see how the people would haved lived in these tiny little stone huts on the height of mountains with no vegetation but forests of cacti. They must have been a resourceful people.

After wandering the ruins for half an hour we made it to the Archaeological Museum of Tilcara. If you are an archaeology nerd, Salta and Jujuy are for you. I am not so much an archaeology nerd, though I appreciated how important the recovered objects are to the history of Argentina and its people. I appreciated that the sun had come out and I removed one layer without being cold!

Back in the car, we drove onwards to Humahuaca - the northernmost point of the day. We stopped at the Tropic of Capricorn on our way. It's kind of cool to think that I was on a major line of latitude. We ate lunch in Humahuaca at the most meager little 'restaurant' that only exists because Humahuaca has become a turist stop. I think it was the only restaurant there. The town is about three blocks big. And this city made me decide that Salta and Jujuy are very much like Mexico.

The people have similar features, rounder faces, darker skin and they show their age. This one woman, I just loved her face. Her wrinkles were like folds in a well worn bedsheet. She wanted to sell me some earrings she had made. Just like in Mexico, the mall comes to you. All of the little artisans (and I mean little because they are a short people) hobble up to you trying to sell you silver bracelets or wood carved mate cups or hand-knit ponchos. Ponchos are not back in - not outside of the mountains. The men are also like Mexicans. While South American men are aggressive, the men here are just gross. The cat-calling the whistling and the kissing...I eventually ended up yelling at this 15 year old boys that I was not a dog. That's what I felt like. I mean you whistle and make kissing noises for a dog. Not a person. Ew. But anywho, I wandered around Humuhuaca amidst the vendors and up to the massive stone monument as the sun was setting.

We took a long drive to the capital of Jujuy, Jujuy. Here we stopped at the government building and saw the Salon de las Banderas where the origianl flag of Argentina is kept. Then we also visited La Catedral de Jujuy. That's another thing. Salta and Jujuy are very christ-y. I mean that in the most non-offensive way possible. It's just very Christian. Not spiritual. Just crosses and replicas of the Virgin Mary and churches everywhere. I think that may have to do with why I didn't dig the vibe there. The sites I saw were lovely, and the people I met were great, but I suppose I prefer Mendoza to Salta.

The best part about Salta was when Kristian taught me how to play pool. Do yo know that I have been trying to play lefty my whole life? Newsflash: I'm not a lefty. It went like this. I shot horrifically - which I had warned him about. Then Kristian went to shoot creating a bridge with his left hand. So I said, you're a lefty? And he goes, no. And then I learned how to shoot pool for real. Turns out I'm not that terrible.

One day left in Salta. About half of my trip had been on the anthropological/educational side, so I decided to end my trip with a bang.

Friday I went bungee jumping. Yup. My long-awaited dream of jumping off a bridge over a river (thank you Mandy Moore in Chasing Liberty) was finally going to happen!!!

BESOS!!!

To the Clouds!

I'm getting used to this rising-when-it's-dark-outside thing. It was my third day in Salta (Wednesday). Kristian and I looked like the walking dead at 6:30 in the morning, but we were excited for our trip to the clouds. We boarded the van at about 7:30 (once again Argentina never runs on time) and started off our drive into the mountains of the province of Salta.

We followed the path of El Tren a Las Nubes (the train to the clouds). The train was originally built to facilitate imports and exports between Argentina and Chile. But by the time it was finished, it was economically inefficient. So now, it's a tourist train through the mountains. To their credit, it is a very pretty drive. Our first stop was the Viaduct. Being winter, there was basically no water beneath it, but the mountains were beautiful even in the overcast morning weather.

The tour was a lot of stop and go. We hit three main points past the Viaduct and on the way got our every so often to take pictures of rocks. Sounds boring, but with rocks that pretty it wasn't. Our first official stop was in San Antonio de Los Cobres. I was told I had to go there. To be honest, I'm not sure why. We took some pictures of the tiny tiny town over a desert-like hillside and met some of the locals. They were only interested in selling their wares. They live off of tourist visits. Then we ate some lunch - well the meat-eaters ate lunch, I had what they called soup (hot water and barely). What I will tell you about San Antonio is that I have never seen a bluer sky in my life. You don't realize how blue the sky really is until there aren't any clouds in the way. And since we were above the clouds, I now know how blue the sky is.

Back in the van we had our first mate circle! Mate is the international drink of Argentina. It's basically tea, but the act of preparing it and drinking it is practically a ceremony. But we had time in the van, so Omero (our guide) passed around the mate. The first time I tried it here, I thought it was bitter. But it's amazing what you can learn to like when you are really really cold. Despite the cold, Kristian and I were having a great time. We were taking silly pictures, enjoying the views, and napping when we could in the van. AND next stop was the Salt Flats. Las Salinas Grandes are the third biggest salt flats in the world. The biggest are in Bolivia and the second place winner is in Chile. These salt flats were pretty huge, so I can't even imagine the others. The salt flats are the result of surrounding volcanoes that produce mass amounts of salty lava (or was it salty water) and then drying up, leaving behind huge plains of white salt. The volcanoes didn't know it at the time, but they produced a harvesting ground for the salt we all eat. They also didn't know that they created the perfect backdrop for silly pictures without depth perception.

I stood on Kristian's shoulders - like a shoulder angel. I squished him under my foot. He squashed me between his hands. We both went surfing on our little toy llama - a figurine we had bought for 5 bucks just so we could mess with it in our infamous photoshoot. We had the best time manipulating photos. Oh the easily entertained children that live in our souls.

After a 40 minute photoshoot, we got back in the bus for our ride to the highest altitude of the day and on to Purmamarca. We hit an alltime high of 4,170 meters. Everyone warned me about altitude sickness. I didn't feel a thing. Our guide Omero said it was all in our heads. So I chose not be sick. Pretty cool, huh?

We then continued on this massive sloping, winding highway. In a distance of 35 kilometers we descended 2000 meters. Thats a pressure change for you.

Finally, we made it Purmamarca. A beautiful little town by El Cerro de los Siete Colores (the seven colors hill). I loved the old-fashion nature of the town: the little old woman molding clay into a pot, the old man leading the horse who was dragging the plow through the fields. And in the backdrop, a mountain of seven colors. Purples, pinks, reds, greens, yellows, greys, browns. They weren't as vibrant as I had hoped, but they were there. Like a rainbow trapped in the mountainside.

That was our last piece of natural brilliance before the long drive back to Salta. But I spent the day above the clouds. It was well worth the trip.

BESOS!

(p.s. I am back in the land of no laptop internet. I will post pictures soon!)

Salta: It's a small city after all

Day Two. Kristian and the gang went to Cafayate for the day. I chose to stay behind and explore the city of Salta, which Kristian said would take all of ten minutes. Well, he was close to right. A few hours and boom. Done. But I had fun on my own anyway.

After booking tours for Wednesday and Thursday, I walked around the city of Salta. The city square is beautiful, with pastel-colored buildings on every side. There's a pink church, a pale yellow museum and some sky blue buildings, too. I went to the MAAM which is an archaeological museum featuring the Incan/Andean culture that predated the current state of Argentina's Northwest. It reminded me a lot of my Anthropology class from college. I'm not an archaeology person, but it was cool to see old fabrics and quilts. The coolest part of the museum is the rotating exhibit of Los Ninos de Llulliallaca.

These are the famous mummies of the children from an Andean village known as Llullaillaca. Apparently, the custom was to preserve bodies extremely well. So now there are certain museums who showcase these children. It sounds really creepy, but honestly the 15 year-old girl I saw didn't look like a person. She was dressed in a lot of layers of clothing, so it more looked like old fabric on a clay replica. Kind of gross that that is what you look like if you are mummified, but a lot harder to imagine as a real, live person. That was the highlight of the museum for me.

Then I wandered through the city center to the Teleferico of the Alta Montaña. The cable car takes passengers up to the famous viewpoint of the city (as opposed to the less famous but even more beautiful one in San Lorenzo). I took the cable car up to the top. It was cold up on that there hill. So I only mosied around for a tiny bit before looking for the walkway down. One thing about Argentina: there are no signs for anything - and when there are they are wrong.

So I walked in circles for a solid period of time trying to find the way down. Finally, I found the stairwell and began the very cold and very long descent. At least it took up some of my day. When I finally reached the bottom, I was in a really swanky little neighborhood for such a poor mountain city. Stone walkways, gated driveways, front porches. If I lived in Salta Id live here.

And by the time I got back I had time to snuggle up by the gas heater in the lobby and watch a movie. An uneventful day compared to most of my others...but at least I engaged with the city I had traveled so far to see.

BESOS!

Salta: Getting lost makes for a better story

After another crack of dawn flight, I made it to my hostel in Salta at 9:30 am. I plopped down on the couch and immediately met Kristian, my new buddy from Bristol, England. He was so friendly and invited me join him and a friend "doing whatever" that day.

Doing whatever was great. It happened so fast, too. Yay spontaneity. We left the hostel at 11am to take a random bus to San Lorenzo, the next town over. Everything is closed on Mondays and we hadn't booked an excursion, so hiking in San Lorenzo was pretty much the only option. When we noticed we were the only ones left on the bus, I asked the bus driver how much long to San Lorenzo. He laughed and said that the next stop was the last stop, so we better get off and enjoy the part of the town we landed in.

So we got off the bus and ran into an old villager of Salta trying to sell us a horseback ride through the hills up to the "Mirador" (viewpoint). Kristian and I had been joined by Carina from Denmark and Bruno from Brazil. Bruno was insistent on using his new GPS to navigate our trek through the hills, so we passed on the horses.

The thing about GPS is, it's useless unless you have a map of where you are loaded onto the device. Bruno hadn't paid for that software. So we knew that we were a little black arrow on a blank screen and we followed our little black line showing us where we had walked. If all else failed, we just retrace the little black line.

So we climbed down a little hill and crossed a river by stepping stones. We started hiking up the hill on what seemed to be like some sort of path. Following the path we came upon a random herd of cows. I don't know if you've ever seen cows just randomly in the wild, or not in a pasture. It's pretty cool. I never thought of cows as wild animals until Monday, especially when I saw the MASSIVE bull just cruisin through the thick brush of the hills. Those were some big, threatening horns. It's a good thing they appeared calm.

After some photos, we chose a path that appeared to lead upwards - since we were looking for the viewpoint to look over the city. We passed a stone wall and found a real path. Success! We also decided that since guided horseback riding tours come up on the hill all the time, our best bet was to follow the horse poop. Kind of like Hansel and Gretel, but with shit. Soon this real path had led us to a plateau where the view was blocked entirely by trees. "Oh look! A really nice view, if only I could see it." After that plateau, there wasn't really a path. So we wandered and stumbled upon a fork in a lesser path. We chose the one with horse poo and trekked on. Dead end. We went back and followed the other path. Excellent, another viewpoint with shrubs everywhere.

We backtracked on Bruno's GPS and took a different turn. We ended up with three options: right, left, straight. LEFT Bruno said. Left should take us down to the city according to the one other dot on his GPS screen that said City Center. We descended for a while and came upon.....a barbed wire fence. GPS didn't say anything about that.

I mean, come on! How could it not tell us there would be an impenetrable fence? And why hadn't Kristian remembered his wirecutters?

So we backtracked again. Bruno had been fired. Carina picked right when we got back to the three-choice point. Incorrect. So Kristian led the way straight. Eventually on this straight path I could see the stone wall from before. I voted that we go back and follow it the way we came. But where was the sense of adventure in that?

So we followed Kristian, down through the spiky, thorny brush, threw the pool of mud, weaving through the trees, down a steep gravel hill and finally back across the river. We made it!!! It was actually a really fun little trek. We didnt see much but the hills themselves, but who cares?

We were adventurous! We were daring! We were HUNGRY! So we stopped for lunch. Guess what we found on our table? A map. A map of the trail we should have taken. The trail that started about 50 meters up the hill from where we were. Yup. That's irony for you.

So we fueled up and went on the actual trek to the actual Mirador. This was a harder hike. Crossing bridges, smaller pathways (though pathways nonetheless), steeper hills, rockier terrain. But bright sunshine and a clear view at the top. We could see all of San Lorenzo, Salta and the town beyond (its name shall forever be a mystery). I also took a nap in the sun at the top, since I had been up at 4:30 that morning and we had hiked quite a bit.

Somehow we didnt get back to the hostel until after 9. Where does the time go? Oh right. I guess when you walk paths and backtrack and walk another path and backtrack it takes double the time. But it was a GREAT day. And I found out that going with the flow and getting lost and having to find your way out of the hills with a dysfunctional GPS is a lot of fun.

BESOS!

Weekends in Buenos Aires

The one perk about going out so late at night/early in the morning is that even though my flight was delayed 5 hours from Iguazu to Buenos Aires, I still arrived in time to meet up with friends and have a fantastic night out. We went to Kika (aka Old Faithful) and the dj was great this time around.

I planned to go on a hunt for leather products Saturday afternoon. After waking up pretty late, I did make it out eventually and I walked around Barrio Norte (where I live) for the first time since moving there. I happen to be on the border of Barrio Norte and Palermo - I spend all of my time in Palermo.

Barrio Norte is like the upper east side of Manhattan. It's quiet and clean and the buildings are older and well-maintained. I walked to Avenida Alvear, the 5th Ave of Buenos Aires. There are beautiful stores of Argentine origen, but there's also Louis Vuitton and Hermes etc., which I thought was interesting. There are so many American imports in Buenos Aires: Starbucks, Staples, McDonalds, Burger King, and now these major designer labels.

The television shows are all American, too. People LOVE Friends and The Office. I would think that the irony of The Office doesn't really read in Spanish, but they eat it up. There's also House and The Simpsons. And so much of the music in the clubs is from the States.

When I first arrived to Buenos Aires, I remember that I was watching television and I laughed that even things that aren't imported or translated are very similar. For example, a commercial for 'women's products' here in Argentina still has the same girls dancing around in white clothes looking all smiley, even though the product is Argentine. The messages are the same. I thought it was funny that despite many cultural differences some things are just the same.

Anywho (after that little tangent) I meandered through the high end shopping district. Found a gorgeous bag that I could never fathom paying that much for. But it was nice to look at. I also passed through La Plaza San Martin, El Palacio de San Martin and El Palacio de Paz. I think I'll go back to El Palacio de Paz since the pictures of the interior architecture look beautiful.

After a couple of hours of browsing (I do so much of that without purchasing it's almost absurd), I headed to my night of tango. First I took class. It was hard. My teacher accused me of dancing alone with someone else. It may have been the case at the time, but that's only because my partner wasn't guiding me. I mean...I know I often have trouble following since I prefer to lead (in life), but really since I have almost no clue how to tango, it's easier to follow. After a bit of a frustrating class (its ok frustration means I learned) we had a Club Tango 101 party.

We had snacks and just a running backtrack of tango music for all of the beginner students to practice with each other. Apparently, this is similar to a milonga setup. Buenos Aires is full of milongas - little tango houses where dancers go to practice their skills amongst each other. This was supposed to be lan atmosphere with ess pressure since we were all among beginners, instead of potential professionals that frequent actual milongas. Well, I don't know how they qualify a "beginner" because there were some pretty impressive students there. It made me feel like I haven't learned much...although I hope thats not true.

I did have fun though. Met some great people and my tango skills improved slightly by the end of the night. But I was STARVING. So I went to my new favorite kosher restaurant and had a delicious platter of chicken stuffed with plums. Wow. Where do they think of this stuff?

It was 12:30 am by the time I was done so I went home and decided to get a little bit of rest. (And my friends were being lame and decided not to go out.) But I guess sleeping is ok.

Sunday I woke up early to do some "real shopping." By real shopping I mean I planned to buy things. It was not my lucky day. I dashed back to Plaza Serrano to buy the hat that I really loved and didn't have enough money for the previous weekend. But when I got there, the woman laughed at me because she had already sold it. It almost made me glad that I didn't support her business. Do you believe she laughed at me? Sigh.

I really liked that hat, too.

But nearby was another store that had a shirt and a vest that had been on my mind since I tried them on. I waited half an hour for her to reopen (stores often close for an hour in the middle of the day for "lunch" or something). The shirt was gone. At least I nabbed the vest!!

I was feeling a little lonely on this Sunday, meandering back around through streets I have strolled on a few too many times. Wandering back towards the high end district, I passed a restaurant where a man and a woman were sitting together and each reading the newspaper. I wanted to bang on the glass and scream at them. ENJOY EACH OTHER'S COMPANY! YOU CAN READ THE PAPER ALONE! I'm kind of done with eating meals alone. Alone time is good, but I like talking during meals. On my path to self-discovery, this I have learned about myself.

The thing about being alone is that sometimes its great to be alone with your thoughts and do what you want in your day without bending around someone elses plans or expectations. The thing about being alone is that sometimes it's redundant to be alone with your thoughts. You don't realize much conversation you have with yourself until you are alone for a day and then you come across a friend at 10pm and say "hi" and it dawns on you "wow, that's the first thing I've said out loud all day." Haha.

I think, in general, all of this time alone has been good. It's a once in a lifetime thing. To just get up and go at your own whim. To just do what I feel like doing. And I'm learning how to listen to myself and determine what I feel like doing, instead of doing what I think I should do.

At the same time, I was feeling lonely Sunday night. So I went to yoga to cheer myself up. Yoga can always put a smile on my face. I think the more I really want to go, the more I enjoy myself and the better my class. I have fun in the 105 degree heat - especially since it's the only reliably warm place in Buenos Aires.

Then I got home and packed for Salta. I was SO excited! As much as I love the nightlife of Buenos Aires, and as much as I loved the city day AND night during Week 2, I much prefer the time I have in other cities. They are more exotic. It's easier to fill my days exploring and trekking and feeling out the culture. Most importantly, I meet AMAZING people outside of the city. Bring it on Salta!!

(More about Salta soon! I'm having a blast!)

BESOS!!

Food for Thought

The Argentine diet. I know I've spoken about it before. But at this point, I think it deserves its own post.

Desayuno (breakfast): Practically non-existent. Coffee or tea. Toast with butter. Medialunas. I don't understand how a sugar-covered pastry can be enough to start your day. Or how, if you eat enough of them to fill you up, you still stay skinny. Because people here eat sugared pastries all day and it doesn't seem to reflect. I have managed to find cereals in most of my hostels, but they eat the smallest tiniest bowls ever. Breakfast is tiny, but they build throughout the day.

Almuerzo (lunch): I still haven't figured out WHEN they eat lunch. There is no lunch time. Mostly I see people lounging in cafes having a repeat of breakfast. Though many tourists find large slabs of meet or sandwiches of breaded meat (milanesas) to keep them going for their busy days. Sometimes pizza is an option, too.

Cena (dinner): Famously eaten past ten o'clock at night, this is the biggest meal of the day for Argentines. At the same time, you pretty much get one course. There is no salad and then your meal. In fact, I don't think they believe in salad here. Their version of a salad is lettuce. Sometimes you can get tomato or onion (they are BIG on onions here). But really, its all about the huge portions of meat. For us "vegetarian" folk, it's pizza or pasta.

That's what I've found. The Argentine diet consists of four food groups: Coffee, meat, pastries, Italian (pizza and pasta). How these people don't walk around obese is beyond me. I think maybe it's because they smoke so much. Speeds up the metabolism, burns the extra fat. EVERYONE smokes here. Or maybe its genetic.

Either way, my dad knows that the first thing I want to do when I get home is eat some pancakes or waffles or french toast - maybe all of the above.

BESOS!

Iguazu: Nothing else can ever be beautiful

Ok...well maybe I won't go that far. On second thoiught, maybe I will. Because I'm not sure that anything on this earth can capture the meaning of beauty the way these falls can. They are simply beyond. Beyond anything I have ever seen or experienced.

This is the shoddiest post ever, but I wanted to post a few pictures before I have to board my plane and Lord knows if Ill ever have internet on my computer ever again. Immediately below are Las Cataratas (aka the falls). ENJOY!

I PROMISE to add more to the dialogue of this post, but while I have internet on my computer, I want to bring you the pictures. (There are also pictures added to my Mendoza post!)

La Garganta del Diablo (the Devils Throat):

As promised, I bring you the details of my Iguazu adventure. Wednesday I decided to seize the day and go straigth to the falls for the afternoon. After all, that's why I was there. I hopped a local bus and took the 15 minute ride to El Parque Nacional de Iguazu. I arrived to the park at around 3:30 and the last train to La Garganta del Diablo left at 4pm. So I figured, why not see the Devil himself right off the bat? The little train to La Garganta squeeked into the station (think of those little kiddie trains at Six Flags) and we teetered out of the station. On my 25 minute ride, I got a little nervous. There was a lot of jungle, but it wasn't as rich as I had been expecting. It was more forest-y and less rain forest. But I kept my hopes up.

I vacated the train and followed the catwalk towards La Garganta. It was so quiet and the river was very smooth and calm. I wondered how deep the water was. It looked pretty shallow, but then again the pig pillars holding the catwalk up were pretty massive, so perhaps I was steeped in deeper water than I thought. As I continued walking I saw ahead what looked like a little whirlpool. NOT a little whirlpool.

The closer I got the bigger it got until it was a full blown hole in the middle of the earth.The cascades of water just plummeted into the abyss of mist. I couldn't see anywhere near the bottom of the chasm, so I have no idea how high up I was. I can only imagine. Water was just gushing at an ungodly speed (haha, get it because it's the devil's throat). I was overwhelmed by the power of this spectacle. Especially since at first I thought it was a whirlpool. But it was just an endless amount of water pummeling the earth, pouring into the emptiness of La Garganta. I was sprayed with a decent amount of mist. You could say the Devil himself spit on me. Extremely powerful. Not really paradise, but powerful.

After spending an hour just staring wide-eyed at it, I had to head back on the last train out of the park. I couldn't wait for the next morning when hopefully I would see the magnificence that had been hyped up.

I woke early on Thursday morning and met two American girls, Laura and Kate, who are currently living and working in Santiago, Chile teaching high school English. They are awesome.

We took the bus into the park and immediately signed up for our Gran Aventura. We took a 25 minute open-air van ride through the jungle. We saw a lot of trees, I mean a LOT of trees and two tucans from afar. Apparently there are over 300 species of trees in the jungle and most of the wildlife was not awake at 10 am. So we got off the van and got prepped for the nautical part of our adventure. I'm an idiot and forgot my bathing suit, so I stripped down to the bra and jeans and threw on a life jacket. We started down the Iguazu river. Just the cliffs around us were pretty. And then we saw it: Las Cataratas.

A rainbow arching from the river up over the falls, the lush greenery of the jungle and 2 million liters of water pouring out of the earth into the river per second (at least that's what I think our tour guide said). It was absolutely stunning. We rode up really close to the falls and the sound of running water filled my ears. Amazing. Then we rode into the falls. It's not as impressive a view since it's kind of hard to see when you're being doused with water, but basically I swam IN the falls. I was IN the falls! When they said get ready for La Ducha, they meant get ready for La Ducha. (For those of you who don't know La Ducha means The Shower.)

We were sopping wet. So we decided it would be worth the 15 minute hike to the sanitarios. One hour later we arrived at the bathrooms. You see, it may only take 15 minutes at normal hiking speed. But on our way up the rocky mountain path we stopped every five steps. The view just got better and better at every turn. What's amazing is that the falls actually looked different at every turn. We couldn't put our cameras away and we kept adjusting to get the most picturesque photos. But let's be honest, none of them do these falls justice.

I thought to myself, "What was G-d thinking when he created this place?"

"I think I'll put 500 waterfalls in two layers, one cascading over the other, with rainbows at every corner, the most lush greenery in the universe and top it off with a hole in the middle of the earth GUSHING with water. That'll do it."

I swear, now anywhere without a rainbow just seems unimpressive. Arching over the falls, catching the sunlight perfectly, reflecting on the most pefect pure blue sky with specks of black birds swooping over head. Sigh. We made it past Salto Bosetti (for the first time), which is one of the grandest and longest of the falls that you can easily get close to. We sauntered past Las Dos Hermanas, two twin falls in the middle of the jungle. They were more elegant in this secluded little area. We made the final bit of the trek and got to the bathrooms to dry off. Climbing and maneuvering around the rocks, my pants are apparently not as flexible as I am. I had a huge hole in the buttox area...hmmmhmmm. At least no one noticed, haha. Luckily I came prepared and changed into leggings. I went to Iguazu and lost a pair of pants. Not many can say that one.

Then it was about lunch time so we grabbed some sandwiches. Well, Laura grabbed two. The little animal that 10 minutes before we were gawking at ("oh it's so cute") stole her sandwich. Just hopped up on her lap and tore open the plastic and had at it. I ate standing up.

We decided to go back down the way we came and actually stop at Salto Bosetti and continue on to La Isla San Martin. I was just in awe. I honestly have never been so taken with anything in my life. It took my breath away. This place is out of a fairytale or Never Never Land. Never never can you imagine this place until you come here. You can't even fathom it while you are here. I was in awe of the beauty on this earth. Paradise. Using that word to describe anything else is just wrong. I could barely bring myself to leave. I almost cried when I did.

La Isla is incredible. It's kind of like a jungle gym of forest. You hike up a gajillion stairs in this bubble of jungle and come out the side and the falls are just striking. It's also a bit more gentle, I wanted to hop over the stantions and play in the rocks and falls. And there's a view called La Ventana where there's a natural cutout in the cliff that you can view La Garganta from far away. Spectacular. We decided we had to make it to the Upper Circuit before the day was out since that was supposed to be the most beautiful.

It's true. The Superior Circuit is even better than the lower. You stand above the falls and and look down over the beach on San Martin and over the Iguazu river and stand eye to eye with the DOUBLE rainbows. Incredible. Simply inexplicable. By 4pm the girls were wiped, but I stayed behind to trek the bit of thet Lower Circuit we had skipped earlier. After seven hours in the park, I was wiped and headed back to the hostel. The three of us had a delicious dinner, played some pool (which I am terrible at, but learning) and went to sleep to start over on Friday.

Fridays are apparently lucky. If last Friday was the BEST DAY EVER in Mendoza, this most recent Friday was my happiest day ever. I was just filled to the brim with joy. I started off the day with a trip into a jungle conservatory called Guira Oga which is guarani for La Casa de Los Pajaros which is spanish for House of Birds. I spent about 1.5 half looking at gorgeous birds. The Tucan was six inches from my face. Its feathers were velvet I swear.

Then I rushed off to the falls to absorb them one last time. I booked it to the Superior Circuit since I only had about three hours today. The park was so much emptier, which was surprising since it was the beginning of the weekend. When I reached the first bridge I just couldn't handle it. You'd think that the second or third time around you would be less impressed or more accostomed to the sight. But I was not. In fact, I just started singing. It's like the music just rose from the pit of my stomach. Music was the only way I could express the emotions running through me. And so I sang.

And then I ventured back to the Island to relax for a bit. I just sat on the beach taking it all in. It was the perfect ending to a beautiful three day getaway.

I miss Iguazu. And the rainbows.

BESOS!!!