That´s a lot of water!! --- Iguassu and Curitiba

Buenos Dias!

We are now in Buenos Aires and can start speaking Spanish!! This is actually excellent news because at least we can communicate a bit. In Brazil, we were on little islands of our own without knowing Portuguese. Anyway, this post will cover Curitiba and Iguassu Falls and Gina is writing another one about our overall observations about Brazil, so you will get two posts for the price of one.

Curitiba
This is a city that is south of Sao Paulo just about 100 kms inland from the water and is at about 3000 feet in altitude. Its well-known in the world because it has acclaim as one of the best planned cities in the West, which is actually true (i never trust those proclaimations!) There are parks every few blocks, public transportation everwhere, pedestrian streets, and public art on most corners in the city. The city has a beautiful historic district with a Sunday arts fair that covers most of the historic district. I have learned that they use the term "Art Fair" pretty loosely as there is a lot of crap that is sold under the guise of art, although one can never get too much of beer cans turned into clocks. Anyway, Curitiba is not the normal stop on the tourist trips in Brazil, but we thought it could be fun to see how a real city in Brazil acts and it would be good to be in a place with CNN to watch the election (yahoo!!!)

We spent a lot of time doing some of the touristy things around town and saw a really unusual museum called the Oscar Neimeyer museum. Imagine a normal builiding, but in front of it is a pond with a 5 story tower coming out of it. At the top of the tower is a giant glass room shaped like an eye --- that was the museum. A little creepy, but very striking and a great place to display contemporary art. On the other end of town, their contemporary art museum is a bit odd also as you just walk in the open doors. No real security. No bag check. No admission. Just walk into a gallery and see some off-the-wall art from the state of Paraná. Some of the art was beyond offbeat and indecipherable, but there was some other pieces that were pretty amazing.

And dont worry....we did have our share of misadventures in the well-planned city. Despite the abundance of maps and buses, we managed to go on a death march for italian food even though it is available on every corner of the city. There is a zone of the city where a lot of the original Italians immigrated and there are supposed to be lots of old buildings and amazing food. So, we looked at the map, saw it was no farther than the distance we walked earlier in the day, convinced ourselves this was a good idea and set off. We walked for a bit and really enjoyed the early evening. People were coming home from work or were off to the gym and we were keeping a brisk pace off to ItalyLand! After a few hills and a mile or two, we thought we should be getting close as our trusty Tourist Map indicated. Now, it is important to say that this isnt a real map but a tourist map, meaning that there are big cartoons of the key tourist locations superimposed on the map where one should go. Also, I get the feeling that they only showed a few of the roads and didnt pay attention to silly details like scale. Soon we realized that the map underestimated the distance we needed to travel. After another mile we got to the big Italian gates that show the entrance to the area and were joyful. Soon we realized this was still pretty far from where we need to go, so we started to make little deals with ourselves. One more hill and we will be able to see our goal. Well, after a few hills we decided to catch the bus.

Ten minutes on the bus and we reached our destination and there really wasnt much there. One very large Italian restaurant and a few pizza places. We laughed a bit and decided to try the large Italian restaurant. We have a routine when we enter a restaurante to first ask for a menu, compare notes on what we understand, and then either enter or leave. This restaurant had no menu. They said they serve traditional style. You just sit and food comes. We thought we understood the price (which was reasonable) so we took our seats and waited. Immediately 5-6 small dishes come out with potato salad, two types of chicken wings, gizzards (or something like it), salad, and one or two other items. We thought to ourselves, "We did good!". Then the food started coming. The waiter arrived with some spaggheti and put a portion on our plates. Pretty mediocre. Next came gnocchi. Really oily. Next came ravioli. Pretty mediocre. And so on, and so on. We looked around and there were lots of families and little playground in the back. At that point we realized that we walked 3-4 miles and took a bus to go to the Brazilian equivalent of Sizzler meets Olive Garden!

Luckily we found a few really good places to eat in town, so it was not such a catastrophe. We stumbled upon great some great Natural Foods places, which are like salad bars with more food and are very, very good. We also found a unique spot in the historic district that looks a lot like a beer cellar, but has phenomenal pizzas and pasta. We ate there on election night so we could be ready for a long night of watching. Brazil is 3 hours ahead of the east coast, so the earliest results didnt come in until after 10 (thank you Kentucky). CNN International was showing our good friend Wolf and the Situation Room, but they went to local commercials and there were only 3. So by the end of the night we had all of the commercials memorized. Anyway at around 2:00, Obama was declared the winner and it was well after 3:00 before the end of his acceptance speech. Perhaps it was that we were tired and exhausted, but Gina and I teared up more than once watching the victory. The next day we took a flight to Iguassu for the next phase of our trip.

Iguassu (or Iguazú)
The next day we boarded a plane to Foz de Iguassu, which is the Brazilian town closest to the falls. In the air, we got a brief glimpse of the falls when we saw a large amount of mist coming from an enormous hole in the rain forest. The next morning we took the bus to the falls and were amazed. You start to walk down a footpath towards the falls and when you turn a corner, they are there. It is unbelievable! Apparently when Eleanor Roosevelt went to the falls she immediately exclaimed, "Poor Niagra" and that is the truth. Igassu puts out 15 times the amount of water as Niagra and has over 270 waterfalls. Imagine an enormous canyon that bows out with a bend in a river, like we have a lot of places in Colorado. Now put a waterfall through every place in the canyon. Then take the Mississippi River and put it on top of the canyon, increase its speed, and let it come crushing through. That will give you a brief insight into Iguassu. Gina and I said over and over again that we had never seen anything like it and no pictures can really do it justice.

The Brazilian side doesnt really have much of the falls, but great panaromas so you can see the breadth of the falls. It does have a walkway that allows you to get close to the Boca del Diablo (mouth of the devil), which is a waterfall in which water comes from 3 sides and crashes together. The platform is a major soaking spot and you can really only see one side of the waterfall, but is still an amazing flow of water.

The Argentian side has most of the waterfalls, lots of trails going over and under the falls, and most of the Gargantua del Diablo. When we first arrived in Argentina (after a quick border crossing in a taxi), we went straight there. You get off a train and then walk on steel catwalks that cross seemingly endless rivers. Those catwalks go for about a quarter mile until you see mist rising from beyond the rivers. When you get close, you see that the river was flowing but then the earth seems to have fallend down and in the middle is the enormous waterfall. Water flows from all sides and then slams together throughout the fall. It is amazing and terrifying at the same time. At the intersections of these collisions, huge explosions of water erupt from the surface and then, through all that mist, a rainbow is formed. We sat for a while and watched this waterfall with true amazement. You can try to look at pictures but unless you are there and you can see the falls, hear the crashing, feel the vibrations, and absorb the entire scene, it is impossible to understand. What is truly amazing is the infrastructure around the falls that allows you to discretely get within a few feet of the drop. When you look down, your feet are mere inches from the water and that gives amazing perspective.

The next day in Argentina we explored the trails throught the rest of the falls. There are hundreds of falls, but the trails take you to at least a dozen. You first hike above them, then below them and get to see each from a variety of angles. You also start to appreciate how enormous this is. Everywhere you turn this is a waterfall. Across every clearing, there is a waterfall. Its scary and inspiring.

We did a longer hike later in the day and then went to recover back at our hotel. We explored the city of Puerto Iguazú and had a large meal, which gave us our first exposure to the Argentine parilla, which is a mixed grill of lots and lots of meat. This seems to be a theme here.

Anyway, we woke up, flew to Buenos Aires and are now in this beautiful city. Our apartment is great, the weather is nice, and all is well. Im sure we will have more tales to tell before we leave here.