A 5:15 AM pick-up time for an airport ride is painful to begin with. Who wants to be alive at that unearthly of an hour anyway. And when you make that 5:15 AM time running on two hours of sleep, with an already burgeoning sleep backlog, you know you're in for a rough morning. So if you happened along EZE airport that morning and saw sixteen maize-and-blue-clad zombies make their way onto a plane and wondered what was up - well, that's what was up.
So when the crew landed at Iguazu airport that morning and found out from our (enormously) chirpy guide Marissa that we were headed straight for the falls without a hotel pit-stop, there was a perceptible jolt to our already delicate moods. But Iguazu was sunny and warm, the bus was comfy, and Marissa's seemingly undying enthusiasm got the better of us, and we were restored to our amicable selves by the time we got to the National Park.
First stop: a top-side view of Devil's Throat - the main waterfalls. The falls were definitely massive, and the mist was everywhere. Bright sunlight + mist don't make for the best pictures, but that didn't stop us from posing for at least a couple thousand on the balcony overlooking the falls. That's a dashed good looking Michigan flag innit?
For a few people, being there at the top of the falls was the high-point of the day. I remember Joseph going "Oh this is so great! I am loving this!!" Now, I personally may say something like that about twelve times a day, give or take, but when Joseph pipes up with that - you know it's momentous for him.
A toy-train ride and sandwich lunch later, we found ourselves on an open truck ride through the rainforest, listening to a chirpy guide talk about trees, jaguars and preservation. And like everything else on this trip, we heard it all in English, and then in super-fast Spanish.
And now it was time for the boat ride. Not your typical 'Let's bob around on the waters in this here cool boat' kinda ride. More like a 'Let's play chicken with that giant waterfall over there by careening madly towards it' kinda ride. If that sounds dramatic, that's because it was. We had been warned playfully all day by Marissa, the forest-ranger-guide-person, and by other tourists that we were going to get very wet on that boat ride. But nothing could have prepared us for the feeling of being smack dab in the face of that wall of water falling from hundreds of feet above. A few of us cringed. A few of us put on brave faces and grinned, knuckles white on the edge of the seat. And then there those of us who could only channel that adrenaline by trying to stand up in all that spray, and try to yell back at the water like it actually made a damn difference.
Whatever your reaction, you couldn't have been there without feeling some kind of rush.
[As the group finally made its way off the boat and up the rocks toward dry land, I couldn't help but wonder how amazing this M-Trek had been thus far. And it was only Day 3!]
A special shout out to those of you who were out there in that boat, despite your fear of water, death, taking a shower, what-have-you - that was commendable. I know it wasn't easy. Glad we could all be there.
And now, a very brief word about our hotel. Because it's worth a mention. Cute from the outside. Cuter still from the inside (with the tiny two-level rooms, dark wood and bunk beds it kinda looked like a Hogwarts dorm). But the bathrooms were, for the lack of a better word - discomforting. If you encounter a hotel called La Strada in the Iguazu area, it may be alright to move right along. Si?
Dinner that night was a fifteen minute walk away, at La Rueda.
And despite having had a tiring day, the gang had enough left in the tank to hang out for wine in the garden area outside our rooms. Another great cork-collection opportunity for our resident oenophile, and benevolent East Asian ex-dictator Daniel Han.
So when the crew landed at Iguazu airport that morning and found out from our (enormously) chirpy guide Marissa that we were headed straight for the falls without a hotel pit-stop, there was a perceptible jolt to our already delicate moods. But Iguazu was sunny and warm, the bus was comfy, and Marissa's seemingly undying enthusiasm got the better of us, and we were restored to our amicable selves by the time we got to the National Park.
First stop: a top-side view of Devil's Throat - the main waterfalls. The falls were definitely massive, and the mist was everywhere. Bright sunlight + mist don't make for the best pictures, but that didn't stop us from posing for at least a couple thousand on the balcony overlooking the falls. That's a dashed good looking Michigan flag innit?
A toy-train ride and sandwich lunch later, we found ourselves on an open truck ride through the rainforest, listening to a chirpy guide talk about trees, jaguars and preservation. And like everything else on this trip, we heard it all in English, and then in super-fast Spanish.
And now it was time for the boat ride. Not your typical 'Let's bob around on the waters in this here cool boat' kinda ride. More like a 'Let's play chicken with that giant waterfall over there by careening madly towards it' kinda ride. If that sounds dramatic, that's because it was. We had been warned playfully all day by Marissa, the forest-ranger-guide-person, and by other tourists that we were going to get very wet on that boat ride. But nothing could have prepared us for the feeling of being smack dab in the face of that wall of water falling from hundreds of feet above. A few of us cringed. A few of us put on brave faces and grinned, knuckles white on the edge of the seat. And then there those of us who could only channel that adrenaline by trying to stand up in all that spray, and try to yell back at the water like it actually made a damn difference.
Whatever your reaction, you couldn't have been there without feeling some kind of rush.
[As the group finally made its way off the boat and up the rocks toward dry land, I couldn't help but wonder how amazing this M-Trek had been thus far. And it was only Day 3!]
A special shout out to those of you who were out there in that boat, despite your fear of water, death, taking a shower, what-have-you - that was commendable. I know it wasn't easy. Glad we could all be there.
And now, a very brief word about our hotel. Because it's worth a mention. Cute from the outside. Cuter still from the inside (with the tiny two-level rooms, dark wood and bunk beds it kinda looked like a Hogwarts dorm). But the bathrooms were, for the lack of a better word - discomforting. If you encounter a hotel called La Strada in the Iguazu area, it may be alright to move right along. Si?
Dinner that night was a fifteen minute walk away, at La Rueda.
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