Day 84 and 85: Argentina
We met back up again at 7:20.
Because we hadn't been able to the bird park the day before we started out a little earlier so that we could go there.
Not everyone was impressed but I thought the bird park was awesome. The coolest part was that you could walk through areas where the birds were not caged. The weirdest part was that they had some of the same types of birds in cages and some in the open. I wondered if they switched them out so that the birds can get a break from people. There was a sign on the Macaw cage that said that it closed periodically so that the birds could have a break, but none of the others said anything like that. I liked the toucans the best. They are just such beautiful birds. And the butterflies and hummingbirds. I brought my zoom lens with me and took awesome pictures of the butterflies and hummingbirds eating. They are just such graceful creatures.
I learned that toucans mostly eat fruit but are also predators and will attach other birds nests to get the young. We actually saw this happen. Two toucans started going after the nest of some black colored birds. Those birds build multiple nests and only keep their young in one to confuse predators so we watched the toucans attack the area multiple times.
I was walking around the bird park by myself and eventually I stopped seeing other people. I didn’t have a way to tell time on me and it was at that moment that I figured it was getting close to when it was time to meet. It took me so long to find my way out of the park. I didn’t see anyone right outside the exit and ran into Chino in the store. They were waiting on me. I was 7 minutes late and found out later that they hadnt actually counted heads until after they had already started driving away. So they actually left me there and had to come back for me.
Fantastic.
I may or may not get dock time? You can get dock time for being late during a field program and our liaison either said that I was getting it or that anyone who was late from now on will be getting it. Guess I will find out.
We then traveled back into Argentina and went into the national park on that side. It was about 11 o'clock in the morning and most of us were hungry but Chino told us that most of the restaurants would not open until later so we were going to the first walk along the top of Devil's Throat before stopping for lunch around 1.
We found ourselves at a train station with a snack shop. While I had opted to use the bathroom in the short time we thought we had a few other people had gone in the snack place and bought empanadas. One of the girls offered me one. It was so good, I wanted some for myself. Kimmy and I decided to risk the time crunch and ran to buy some. We bought six in a variety of flavors and shared them. It also came with a giant box of juice. We didn’t think we wanted it but I randomly picked the one with the peach on the front and it turned out to be the most delicious thing ever. We ate them on the train, which took us up to the top of the falls.
The pathway that we walked on was metal, and was supported by large cement cylinders in the water of the river. It was weird to walk right across the river, knowing that the falls were right past the trees. The river looked so calm. How could it look so calm when right beyond was when it became huge, powerful, and destructive.
Devil's Throat was terrifying. I understood why it was called that immediately. The water came from three sides so it looked like the earth was swallowing the water. We were able to stand and look right down at the flowing water. Once it went over the initial crest it hit a shelf and then continued down. We couldn’t see the bottom, there was too much mist.
We spent about 20 minutes looking at Devil's Throat and made our way back over the metal pathways. I saw a huge catfish trying to swim upstream. Besides him there didn’t seem to be much else in the water.
We took the train back down and then walked briefly to the larger rest area where we finally stopped for lunch. Kimmy and I were both still satisfied from our empanadas but we knew that we wouldn’t make it to when we would probably eat dinner. Usually its closer to 9 then to 6.
There was another buffet and a place that advertised sandwiches. We discovered that they also had fruit salad and that sounded perfect. Because she bought the empanadas I said I would buy lunch. We got in line. At the front of the line the plastic bowls of fruit were put on trays and juice was pulled from the fridge.
“28 pesos.” The man said to me.
“I am paying for both of us.” I said, gesturing to Kimmy. I handed him the 100 peso bill. He handed it over to the man standing at the cash register.
He handed me back a 5 peso bill and three candies. I stared at the items in my hand and then looked up at the guy. His broken English let me know that they were out of coins. The other man chimed in, “94 pesos.”
I was being paid in candy? Not only that but was being jipped almost 40 pesos? I stood there staring at the man for a while. I was too confused by the candy to realized that I had been overcharged until later. And they weren’t even very good candies.
That was a really weird moment. But the fruit salad was good, so that was the good news.
I bought real stamps from the little shop there and managed two send my postcards. I was so relived when I saw the post box, the ship was not offering postage service and that was nerve-wracking. I had important things to send. I was only able to send two postcards, things in Argentina were expensive, so I hope that post box was real and those people get their postcards.
It was upsetting how expensive things were. The buffets were 22 USD. All of the food just seemed more expensive than it needed to be. It was really annoying.
We spent the rest of the afternoon hiking the lower trails. We were walking along the falls that we had been looking at the day before. The most amazing thing were all of the falls had permanent rainbows from their mist. Every smaller fall that we would talk by would have a beautiful rainbow coming out of it. As you walked past them they would turn into double rainbows and then disappear. We walked from the bottom, towards Devil's Throat and ended up at the bottom, right near the river.
As we walked Chino told us that the first person who discovered the falls came upon them after six months of walking through the jungle and said, "Holy Mary, that is beautiful." But it was probably a worse word than Mary…
At 4:30 we took a boat ride. A boat ride under the falls. We were all given bags to put our belongings in and life jackets before we piled into a huge speed boat. They took us around to one side of the falls and under one of them and then around to the Devil's Throat side and under one of the secondary falls there. We were absolutely soaking wet.
I had brought Molly's waterproof camera with me and managed to get 8 seconds of footage before the camera died. I was very upset. That is what I get for using it during the helicopter ride. That is the one thing that my moms DSLR doesn't have: video taking capabilities.
You really felt the power of the falls when you were underneath them. That was my favorite thing about being at the falls, seeing the violence of nature. Watching the falls go from a calm, bubbling river, to a vast, terrifying, wall of water.
The boat took us down the river and dropped us off closer to the entrance of the park. We dried off the best we could and climbed into open jeeps and road through the jungle. We had a guide, Mariana. It was like a flashback to South Africa and our safari. She told us about some of the wildlife in the national park. There are jaguars but she had never seen one. There are wild toucans, we actually saw one of those. There were also wild guinea pigs. I never even thought about the fact that guinea pigs are wild things, I only think of them as pets. But they were just scampering around on some grass. She also told us about he trees. One of them, whose name means umbrella because it had a large, canopy like top, is loved by sloths. Its leaves act the an anesthetic , which probably makes the sloths lazier. We were also shown the tallest tree in the park. It was a cedar tree and is used to make instruments. It was huge.
We were dropped at the front of the park, which was about to close. But we were able to get the most delicious ice cream that I have ever had. I got dulce de leche and mint together in one cup. It was heavenly. I wish it had gone on forever.
We headed back to the hotel at that point. My plan was to not really eat dinner, since I was full from ice cream and didn’t want to spend the money, use the internet, and go to bed early. But on the bus ride Chino offered to make reservations for people at the restaurants in town and Colin convinced me to join them for dinner at 10:30.
In between when we got back to the hotel and when we left for dinner life turned into a suspense movie. A huge storm rolled it, thunder and lightning and the whole works. I was sitting in our room on my computer when the power went off. We were plunged into darkness. It flickered on a few moments later but about 10 minutes later it went off again, just as it became time to charge my computer. This time it stayed off. I opened our bedroom door and found nothing but a pitch black hallway. I made my way to the lobby to see if anyone else was out and about. It was creepy sitting in our room in the dark. While I was in the lobby talking to a few people the lights flickered on and off another 6 times. And the roof right outside the door of the lobby collapsed.
It was a crazy storm. We found out then that an airplane had slid off the runway at Buenos Aires airport that morning and the airport had closed the rest of the day as a result. The shorter Patagonia trip's flight had been canceled and they were stuck there.
We piled into a taxi around 10 o'clock and arrived at Aqva. It was an al la cart restaurant that had a little of everything. When we got there the group that had eaten at 8:30 was still there. They were there until we left. They may have won the award for longest meal.
We got wine, a bottle of red and a bottle of white for the five of us. I drank only the red and shared it with Colin and Nick. When we ordered our drinks I was in the mood for a cocktail and asked the waiter if they had a menu for them. He said no, they don't have cocktails, only beer and wine. Their bar had a giant wall of liquor so that was confusing. Apparently only I wasn't allowed to have a cocktail. That became a running joke throughout the evening.
Another running joke involved bread. Our waiter places two bottles on the table and I asked what they were. Colin said they were for the bread but I thought he was telling me that the bread was bread. "I know that's bread, what is that?" I said. This happened twice and then everything became bread.
Occasionally someone would go, "Wait… that's bread." And point to the bread. And then everyone else would follow, "No wait, this is bread. That's bread and that is bread." Bread everywhere!!
I had the Caprese salad. It was delicious and I will be eating it in normal life. Such a fantastic flavor combination. For my main dish I had beef covered in a sauce with some stuffed potatoes. The whole meal was fantastic.
At the end of our meal the other group was finally leaving. Rex came over and asked if any of us were going back. They were going out and he didn’t want to carry his rain jacket. Haley said she was going back and he pawned his jacket off on her. Someone must have noticed Rex no longer had his jacker because three more followed suit, leaving Haley with 4 jackets. We were discussing what she should do with them, pee on them, charge them to get them back, make them smell weird, when she said that she could use them to make a fire if she got cold. My response:
"Wait…why don't you just wear them?"
She was going to burn the jackets instead of wearing them. I am laughing as I type this. It was absolutely hilarious.
We were going to go out with Colin and Nick after, there was a new club/bar opening that night, but it was one in the morning at that point so Kimmy and I decided to join Haley and go back.
Our flight back was at 11:40 the next morning so we didn’t have to leave until 9:30. The airport was crazy small. There were only three or four terminals and you went through a little security area at your individual terminal. I found the one thing I wanted at a small shop at the airport, a jar of dulce de leche.
You know what I noticed as we boarded the plane? That most people's carry-ons were backpacks or duffle bags. In the states most people carry hard sided rolling suitcases. Do people here travel lighter? Or just not require a rolling piece of luggage? Is it a business thing? Or maybe I was just looking at all of our luggage and we carry exclusively backpacks.
Our flight there was nothing special and our flight back was the same. Although everyone applauded when we landed and we didn’t slide off the runway like that other plane did.
We were back on the ship by 2 where I ate lunch on deck 7 with Molly, watched Game of Thrones, ate dinner, got Glee and Modern Family episodes from Amanda, and watched them as I unpacked. I went to bed pretty late because I started blogging but I didn’t mind, the next day was a study day.
Overall I enjoyed the trip. But I think that was just because of the beautiful waterfall. The girl I sat next to on the plane was filling out a review of the trip and some of the complaints she wrote were things that I hadn't noticed until they were brought to my attention. First, they left me behind but that wasn't the first time that they didn’t count off and make sure everyone was there. Second, Chino was good at keeping us moving but he also kept trying to get us to buy things that would benefit him. Apprently the store that they went to when we were at the helicopter he got a commission on anything we bought. There was the helicopter itself, which I am sure he got credit for as well. And on the first night he tried to convince us to pay 300 dollars to have the big bus take us into town for dinner and then pick us up again. He tried to tell us taxi's were really expensive, when they weren't. We miss the bird park and had to go the next day, which threw off the entire schedule. The falls made up for it, but overall the was not very well executed. All of those things didn’t bother me in the moment. I spent a lot of time by myself so I enjoyed the falls in a different way then if I had been with people I was friends with.
