Igassu Falls: The A Side

I pack up singing ''I am the gadget man / I come from far away / What can I play? / I can play with gadgets / Boompah dee boompah boom pah pah...'' and so forth, much to the distaste of my sleeping dormies. It's 0715 and I'm off to Argentina today! Yey! Fat juicy steaks, fine wine, tasty coffee, fat juicy steaks - bring it all on. Specially the steaks. I can more than merrily kiss Brazil's entirely mediocre rice, beans and salty meat goodbye.

Today I'm on an organised border cross, day at the Argey side of the Igassu Falls and a lift to my hostel gig. For a frantic few minutes before we leaving I thought I'd lost my bag of credit cards & dollars. A whiteningly scary thought being stranded without access to the greenbacks. Might have been donning the marigolds for my last 2 months to raise the bus fair to Rio. Turns out I hid the cards from myself down the back of my main pack and sigh with relief as I find em. Oh what fun one can have with no short-term memory.

As our old skip of a bus pulls up onto the bridge that divides Brazil & Argentina, the burly excentric driver stops singing 'Yellow Submarine' to himself, pulls to a halt, turns to us and in his best Engrish says 'Goodbye Brazil!' We wave off Brazil and he sets off again only to stop about two feet later. He turns to us again and deadpan, says 'Hello Argentina!' He pulls out and ties up two giant Argentina and Boca Juniors flags and sets off again, honking his horn and waving his Boca flag at any other vehicle, pedestrian and policeman. Everyone cheerfully returns his waves with a thumbs up.

Yey - a new stamp! Put your hands up if you get pissed off when you get an new, exotic stamp that's all washed out and undecipheable. Join me. Hands up if you also hate having a cool, clensing shower and being dripping with sweat 15 minutes later. Keep your hands up in you hate having some stranger pinch your towel off the washing line early in the morning and finding it wet with some mans wet crack shower juice. Leave your hands up if you smell of wee. Got you.

Igassu is the 3rd largest falls in't world. But like Rocky Balboa, while it ain't the tallest or the biggest, it's clearly the best (COME ON ROCKO!). Each side offers a different perspective on this mind stretching watery phenomenon. The Brazil side has infinite panoramical possibilities (or tight as close ups if you've got my 'big gun' paparazzi lens) and a crazy walkway up to the edge of the falls. The Argey side is all about close ups, with endless catwalks above and below the falls, getting one close enough to soak and render useless any electrical equipment on your person. Waves of tourbusses pile en masse along the narrow pathways, making it a bit agey bargey, but it's hard to take your eyes off the falls. Unless you're looking at the crazy butterflies that land on peeps to drink their salty sweat. It's butterflytastic (New word: ©). Being a sweatbox I end up covered in the badboys.

The electric blue butterflies that flutter by apparently turn that colour when they have five days to find a mate, chat em up & get it on, before they pop their colourful clogs. Tell you what, if I were on that kind of time frame I wouldn't waste my time drinking an englishmans sweat. One giant browny-orange butterfly the size of a small bird 'befriends' me for a good half hour on the stomp over to the giant 'Devils Throat' falls. I call her Mary (check the photosof her when I get round to putting em up). It was a wonderful relationship while it lasted. She hungrily gobbled up my bodily fluids, looked great to passers by and then pissed off when she'd had her fill. Much akin, I assume, to dating a model. I felt used. But in a good way. I can't put my finger on it, but there's something about Mary.

On the fairly lengthable (also ©) catwalk stomp out to the Devils Throat, the major mistmaker at the start of the falls, I pass a knackered bit of runway off to the side. There's a sign saying 'catwalk destoyed by a flood in 1993'. The old catwalk and the one I'm walking on look surprisingly similar. It seems Argentina and Brazil have more in common than they like to think. Health and safety being one.

While the superior and inferior trails are amazing for seeing the falls up close, The Devils Throat is the moneyshot. Depending on the wind direction, the mist created by the volumous (© ?), thundering falls can be like being caught in a monsoon storm. Spending a while watching the pulsing waves drop over the edge actually tires the motor neurons in your eyes, so that the next thing you look at appears to float upwards. Fortunately the wind is in my favour and I crack off a few storming photos looking down the misty backlit valley.

You cats have got to put this place on your 'places to visit one day' list. Seriously. Photos can't fit it all in. It takes the pisscuit. The surrounding forest harbours crocs, toucans, kidnapping jaguars, poisonous inch-long tiger ants, giddy monkeys and a feck load of butterflies. But you ony really see the butterflieses. Plus, for a whopping 15 quid, you can have the honour of having some fella with a speed boat drive you fully under a big old waterfall.

After all this overheated excitement I get dropped at my argey hostel, complete with the standard issue puppy learning to anklebite, meet a witty brit called Dave and head to a reccomended eatery for some cow. First impressions are that this digs is above our station (folded linen, free bread and multiple wine glasses laid up rig), but hey - screw it. My medium-rare 'Bife de Chorizo' (not the spanish sausage, a local name for a bovine cut as big as a guinea pig) is as fantastic as I'd hoped. Veggies must have nightmares about smaller steaks. And Black pepper... oh how I've missed you. Je t'aime le poivre. Brazilian's are strangers to the stuff, instead doubling up on salt. Ugh. Peppery steak, fries, half bottle of Chablis and good company, all in, for under seven quid each.

I might just get used to this...


Barns
MJ: 'I am the music man'
Beard: Close to an embarrassing abortion, but persevering. Fortunately no photgraphic evidence exists yet