Brazil or not Brazil, That´s the Question...

There we were in the Jorge Newberry Airport of Buenos Aires, ready to fly to Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil. We had to wait quite a while for our gate number to be announced but that was fine with us... We were just glad to be flying at all! A lot of people that we had met couldn´t travel to where they wanted to go as a lot of flights had been cancelled over the last week. This was because of the volcanic ash cloud that was floating around South America, catching eager travellers unaware. Luckily for us our flight hadn´t been cancelled and we were on our way. We were so excited to be flying to a new country and spent the whole journey talking excitedly about Brazil and what we were going to do there. Alice wondered if she would be able to read and understand any Portuguese and Nyree dreamed of hot Brazilian men walking around with their tops off - standard.

Plane to Brazil...

We landed in Brazil and walked through passport control with relative ease, they didn´t even stamp us into the country. We thought this a little odd at the time, but didn´t dwell on it as Alice frantically began trying to read all the Portuguese in sight. "Oh my god!" she shouted, "I can understand everything, this is fantastic! Portuguese is basically the same language!" Nyree paused for a moment and thought back to something she had found curious before their flight - all the signs had said ´Domestic Flights´which in Britain would mean ´within Britain´, but maybe that worked differently in South America...? Just then Alice stopped and slowly turned round: "Nyree, I´m not sure... but I think we might still be in Argentina." Oh shit. It was 10pm and our hostel was in the next country. On the verge of asking a fellow passenger "Excuse me, what country are we in?" we walked quickly to the taxi-men and asked how much we´d have to pay to cross the border at this time of night. It wasn´t SO bad, so we jumped in a taxi and headed for Brazil. For real this time. When we tried to enter Brazil the girl behind the desk disappeared with our passports for about half an hour (wtf?!) but brought them safely back after grudgingly giving us an entry stamp.

We arrived in our hostel and got ready for bed. We had planned to do the Brazilian side of the Falls first but were told that tomorrow would be a beautiful day so we should visit the Argentina side which would take a full day. That meant an early start (damn!) so we made sure we got some rest. In the morning we had a delicious breakfast complete with exotic Brazilian fruit and multi-coloured cake, yum! We then headed for the Iguazu Falls in a mini-van and crossed the border for a second time in less than 12 hours. When we arrived at the park we walked around in amazement as the Falls were spectacular, massive and we´d never seen so much water before. The park was also full of monkeys, butterflies, and possums called ´Coatie´s´ which were stealing everyone´s food. They were so cute that Alice took another hundred photos of the fluffy animals and forgot to even look at the water fall.

Morning View of the Falls - Upper Circuit.

SO CUTE!

For lunch we had Empanadas (shocker!) and then decided to walk up to Devil´s Throat. It was a lovely day and we didn´t want to only get the train, and to be honest we needed the exercise after so much Dulce de Leche! We saw millions of butterflies en route, with loads of different colours and sizes. Needless to say, the walk took about twice as long as it should have done as we so desperately wanted the butterflies to land on us.

Butterflies!

Devil´s Throat was incredible as we were able to get up very close to the water. The Fall was so loud and we got soaked every time the wind changed direction and the vapours were blown towards us. After a long day we headed back to catch the bus home again and then chilled at the hostel for a while. There was a member of staff there who reminded us of someone. Thinking long and hard about who it was, we figured it was Hugo from Made in Chelsea! We told him this and he insisted we call him Hugo for the rest of our stay. Alice also had a slight headache, so he massaged her temples and this made it slightly better, even though it was pretty painful having him put enormous amounts of pressure on her head. Hugo also insisted that we come behind the bar and learn how to make the traditional Spanish drink, the Caipirinha. We were naturals, of course, and got to drink the ones we had made. WIN! We had an amazing barbeque at the hostel, as much as we could eat, and it was some of the tastiest meat we´d ever eaten.

Hugo´s Head Massage.

Nyree working the Barbeque like a pro!

The next morning was a little later than the first and we went to the Bird and Butterfly park before the Brazilian side of the falls. A girl from our room, Magdalena, came with us, as well as a Canadian/Guatemalian guy called Marcelo. They were both really nice and we had a lovely time walking around with them. At the Park we saw all sorts of exotic birds, parrots, humming birds, snakes, butterflies etc. etc. We were able to enter the enclosures with them and Alice and I held a parrot, yay! Nyree also felt an intense stinging pain on her wrist at lunchtime which turned out to be a fire-ant biting her. It was very, very sore and burned for about an hour.

Alice and a photo-loving toucan.

Nyree and her parrot friend.

Just across the road was the entrance to the Brazilian side of the falls. We´d heard the Argentinian side was much better but we had a great time here. It was different as you saw much more of a panoramic view of the Falls, but we were also able to walk right up to the waterfall getting soaked in the process. Of course, we were too hardcore to bother with the ponchos that we had specifically bought for wet weather and ended up looking like a pair of (cute) drowned rats. It was an amazing experience though, so totally worth it!

Getting Soaked!

Our toes peeking over the side of the Falls.

That night we had another barbeque at the hostel and chatted with Marcelo and some American guys who had just arrived that day. We both drank more Caipirinha´s than was wise, but they were so delicious and came in a variety of flavours - lime, strawberry, pineapple, etc. Surprisingly Alice remained very sober and managed not to die. Nyree did well too, but got slaughtered in the drinking game which seems to have become a bit of a recurrent theme on this trip - when will she learn?

The next day, our last in Brazil, was to be a relaxing one where we chilled and strolled around, going to the market and buying Alice a new bag. We had received an email from the flight company saying that our flight time was an hour earlier, which was fine, so we booked an overnight bus at 22.30 for Mendoza which we would have just enough time to catch even though we were flying into Ezeiza, the International Airport of Buenos Aires. When we got to the airport it turned out the flight had been delayed by an hour to its original time. This was slightly worrying, as we would then be reeeeeally tight on time when we arrived. A wee while later, it was delayed by another half an hour which got us panicky. Getting to the bus station on time was looking impossible. We met two New Zealand girls that had been in our hostel and tried to chat calmly with them for a while, while inside we were secretly FREAKING out. We ended up seperately running to two different members of staff there demanding to know what we should do as we had a bus to catch. They told us that they had a mistake and we weren´t flying to Ezeiza after all, but to the domestic airport again. Phew! However, we celebrated too early as it was then delayed another half hour and we grimly sat in our seats to face the worst plane journey of our lives. Not only were we looking at our watches every 2 seconds and tapping our feet nervously in an attempt to speed the flight on, but the turbulence was incredibly terrifying. It lasted pretty much the whole second half of the flight, one hour, and had Alice gripping Nyree´s hand for dear life until both hands were numb. Other people remained calm, and even threw their hands in the air as if they were on a rollercoaster. We were not amused.

Another weird thing on the plane: smoky vapour came out of the vents for about 30 minutes... slightly worrying...

When we landed (thank god!) we had approximately 20 minutes to catch a bus which was at a bus station about 15 minutes away. While Nyree waited for the bags Alice ran to ask someone behind the taxi-desk who was extremely unhelpful and basically told us to give up now as we would never get there on time. Challenge Accepted! Alice dashed off while Nyree gave the man the finger and a death stare, and when the rucksacks finally arrived on THE WRONG BELT she grabbed both and sprinted through the airport like superwoman. Spotting Alice in her bright pink hoody and red harem-pant combo, jumping up and down, they both bundled into the taxi and screamed at the driver to go RAPIDO! He ran a few red lights for us and got us there with about 3 minutes to spare.

Cue two white girls running through the bus terminal, rucksacks flying all over the place screaming at everyone to get out of the way (Nyree yelled at a mother and child in desperation, sad times). We demanded of strangers where we were meant to be and took none of their advice as they told us to stay "Tranquila". Alice eventually skidded to a halt in front of our Bus Company Desk and banged on the glass to get help. The man told us to relax as the bus was delayed for an unspecified amount of time. Could he tell us where to wait? No, he could not. That would be too easy. Nevertheless, we found our way to a ´waiting room´and stared at the board until our bus appeared. Never had we looked forward to a 14 hour bus journey so much. On the bus they gave out some food which Alice immediately inhaled before it became clear this was our breakfast. We popped some sleeping pills and settled down, feeling the heavy weight lifting off our shoulders. Despite the fact that we had come prepared for the cold, with sleeping bag liners and numerous layers of clothing, the bus turned out to be hotter than the Sahara and we fought to strip down to the bare minimum. In the morning the Andes appeared on the horizon and we saw Mendoza lying at the foot of the mountains.