So we left for Uruguay on a boat that crossed the water between the 2 countries and landed in Colonia and then caught a bus from there to the capital, Montevideo. Our first impression of Uruguay was a lot of fields which was later confirmed by a tour guide who told us that the population of cows in the country is 4x the population of people so there is a lot of countryside! The next impression was the incredibly fancy bus terminal that we arrived at...it was a full blown shopping centre and had everything you could possibly need.
We then caught a local bus from there to our hostel which was rather a challenge seeing as the bus was heaving and there was 5 of us all with a big bag on our backs and a small bag on our fronts, the amount of times my boots (hanging off my bag) almost got trapped in the doors is uncountable! Eventually got to our hostel (chosen for its funny name; Willy Fogg) and unloaded our stuff - I am very sick bow of trudging around with my backpack and living out of it. Sophie, Phoebe and I cooked ourselves a gourmet dish of pasta, tomato sauce and brocolli accompanied by some vino tinto...twas delicious! Later in the evening we went for a leisurely stroll along the seaside promenade (or rambla in Spanish) and took in the sights and particularly smells which were mainly fish, dog poo and marijuana as it is legal here. The next morning we got up and went on a walking tour of the historic part of Montevideo. We had a brilliant tour guide who told us lots of interesting things about Uruguayan history (did you know that there are zero native Uruguayans left because the various invaders wiped them out?!). We saw various pretty buildings, an English church, the gate from the original city boundaries and admired the promenade in daylight. We finished our tour at the Port Market which is a large food market with basically everyone selling amazing barbeque. We chose one such restaurant and sat at a bar watching our meat being cooked in front of us on the open, boiling hot grill - it was awesome!! The meat tasted amazing, even better for having been cooked in front of ours and we all came away decidedly stuffed. On our walking tour we had met a group of Brazilian students so in the evening we went to meet them for some drinks on the beach and then went on the fun fair which was hilarious.
During this time Phoebe and I had been doing some research into the easiest and cheapest way to get up to Iguazu Falls from Montevideo, which is very complicated. We had the option of paying £20 to go back to BA, spend the night there and then catch the 18 hour bus up at an extortionate price, or try and work our way up in Uruguay, cross the border somewhere further north and then buy a still expensive bus ticket to iguazu. In the end, we headed back to BA as the other option would have meant an 18 hour lay over in a bus terminal, and only saved us £10 so the next day we headed back to my beloved BA, not that we really saw any of it! Spent the night in a hostel there and then the next day got up early to book a bus up to Iguazu. Sophie, Lucas and Sam had opted to fly up to iguazu from BA so it was there that we sadly parted ways :(
The bus journey was surprisingly alright and I managed to sleep pretty well, although arriving in Puerto Iguazu in the pouring rain was not such a pleasure. Especially seeing as its the first rain I've seen in over a month. We opted to leave our bags in the bus terminal and catch a bus straight to the park to see the infamous Cataratas de Iguazu.
I have no words to describe how amazing it was to walk around a corner and see our first view of the enormous falls through the sodden trees. And then each time is we got closer, the view just got better and better. There was one point where there was a platform jutting out, extremely close to one of the bits of the falls which we went and stood on and got even more drenched than we already were by the rain.
We then took a boat ride,
which was only 12mins long but felt like a lot longer! We had to pop all our bags into waterproof dry bags and then the boat basically took us right under 3 different parts of the waterfall. The first bit was just a little one, although there was still plenty of spray, then we went around the corner where the water was a lot choppier and we were rolling all over the place and drove into an enormous amount of spray and water and wind and who knows what else. The last part was driving into the largest, strongest part of the falls where we drove close to it and I physically couldn't keep my eyes open due to the sheer force of the water and spray coming at me. I was completely overwhelmed by the quantity and strength of the masses of orangey water rolling down off the cliff towards our little boat in the river below. Its safe to say there was not a bone in my body that was dry after that but it was so much fun so I didn't really care (or at least not until later when I started to get cold!). Then next trail that we walked was along the tops of the waterfalls that we had just been under and by this point the sun had sort of come out meaning there were beautiful rainbows over many of the different parts of the falls just adding to the spectacularness (is that a word?) of the falls. A little train then took us up to a board walk to La Garganta del Diablo (the Devils Throat). We walked 2km along this board walking, over the raging river - it amazes me that those bridges survive the force of the water and I have no idea how they could ever have built them in the first place?! We made it to the top of the Devils Throat where we couldn't actually see much of the falls because there was so much spray coming off them but we could experience the mass of water swirling around us and gushing over the edge! After this we headed back to the hostel, a soggy mess to freshen up and cook ourselves some dinner (our new money saving strategy!)
Next day we wandered around the small town of Puerto De Iguazu and then jumped (not literally, that ain't happening with all those bags) onto a bus across the border into country number 6....Brazil! We got stranded at immigration because most of the others on the bus were Brazilian so didn't need to stop so they dropped us off and then told us to catch the next bus in 20mins. Well in true south american style the next bus didn't show up for another 45mins so we just sat and enjoyed the sunshine whilst waiting. Eventually a bus came along to pick us up and we were taken to Foz do Iguacu. Found our lovely hostel which is called 'Tetris container hostel' as it is entirely made out of multicoloured shipping containers which was a really cool set up, particularly sleeping in one! That night there was an enormous thunderstorm and we woke up the next morning to a very wet world! But we decided to brace it and head to the Brazilian side of Iguazu Falls anyway. Its safe to say we were drenched before we even saw the falls, making the mistake of sitting on the top, open deck of the bus as soon as the heavens opened! It then continued to rain for pretty much the whole time we were there, but I guess once you're wet, and we couldn't really get much wetter. The view from this side was just as beautiful and much more panoramic, and again we were able to walk on a board walk into the middle of the river although I genuinely thought I was going to be blown away as it was so windy. Thankfully when we reached the closest point to the falls where there was just a wall of falling, orange water the rain had stopped so we were able to take a few snaps there. We quickly headed back to the hostel to cook a nice warm lunch and dry ourselves up before catching my last night bus of my travels to, hopefully, more sunny Sao Paulo....
We then caught a local bus from there to our hostel which was rather a challenge seeing as the bus was heaving and there was 5 of us all with a big bag on our backs and a small bag on our fronts, the amount of times my boots (hanging off my bag) almost got trapped in the doors is uncountable! Eventually got to our hostel (chosen for its funny name; Willy Fogg) and unloaded our stuff - I am very sick bow of trudging around with my backpack and living out of it. Sophie, Phoebe and I cooked ourselves a gourmet dish of pasta, tomato sauce and brocolli accompanied by some vino tinto...twas delicious! Later in the evening we went for a leisurely stroll along the seaside promenade (or rambla in Spanish) and took in the sights and particularly smells which were mainly fish, dog poo and marijuana as it is legal here. The next morning we got up and went on a walking tour of the historic part of Montevideo. We had a brilliant tour guide who told us lots of interesting things about Uruguayan history (did you know that there are zero native Uruguayans left because the various invaders wiped them out?!). We saw various pretty buildings, an English church, the gate from the original city boundaries and admired the promenade in daylight. We finished our tour at the Port Market which is a large food market with basically everyone selling amazing barbeque. We chose one such restaurant and sat at a bar watching our meat being cooked in front of us on the open, boiling hot grill - it was awesome!! The meat tasted amazing, even better for having been cooked in front of ours and we all came away decidedly stuffed. On our walking tour we had met a group of Brazilian students so in the evening we went to meet them for some drinks on the beach and then went on the fun fair which was hilarious.
During this time Phoebe and I had been doing some research into the easiest and cheapest way to get up to Iguazu Falls from Montevideo, which is very complicated. We had the option of paying £20 to go back to BA, spend the night there and then catch the 18 hour bus up at an extortionate price, or try and work our way up in Uruguay, cross the border somewhere further north and then buy a still expensive bus ticket to iguazu. In the end, we headed back to BA as the other option would have meant an 18 hour lay over in a bus terminal, and only saved us £10 so the next day we headed back to my beloved BA, not that we really saw any of it! Spent the night in a hostel there and then the next day got up early to book a bus up to Iguazu. Sophie, Lucas and Sam had opted to fly up to iguazu from BA so it was there that we sadly parted ways :(
The bus journey was surprisingly alright and I managed to sleep pretty well, although arriving in Puerto Iguazu in the pouring rain was not such a pleasure. Especially seeing as its the first rain I've seen in over a month. We opted to leave our bags in the bus terminal and catch a bus straight to the park to see the infamous Cataratas de Iguazu.
I have no words to describe how amazing it was to walk around a corner and see our first view of the enormous falls through the sodden trees. And then each time is we got closer, the view just got better and better. There was one point where there was a platform jutting out, extremely close to one of the bits of the falls which we went and stood on and got even more drenched than we already were by the rain.
We then took a boat ride,
which was only 12mins long but felt like a lot longer! We had to pop all our bags into waterproof dry bags and then the boat basically took us right under 3 different parts of the waterfall. The first bit was just a little one, although there was still plenty of spray, then we went around the corner where the water was a lot choppier and we were rolling all over the place and drove into an enormous amount of spray and water and wind and who knows what else. The last part was driving into the largest, strongest part of the falls where we drove close to it and I physically couldn't keep my eyes open due to the sheer force of the water and spray coming at me. I was completely overwhelmed by the quantity and strength of the masses of orangey water rolling down off the cliff towards our little boat in the river below. Its safe to say there was not a bone in my body that was dry after that but it was so much fun so I didn't really care (or at least not until later when I started to get cold!). Then next trail that we walked was along the tops of the waterfalls that we had just been under and by this point the sun had sort of come out meaning there were beautiful rainbows over many of the different parts of the falls just adding to the spectacularness (is that a word?) of the falls. A little train then took us up to a board walk to La Garganta del Diablo (the Devils Throat). We walked 2km along this board walking, over the raging river - it amazes me that those bridges survive the force of the water and I have no idea how they could ever have built them in the first place?! We made it to the top of the Devils Throat where we couldn't actually see much of the falls because there was so much spray coming off them but we could experience the mass of water swirling around us and gushing over the edge! After this we headed back to the hostel, a soggy mess to freshen up and cook ourselves some dinner (our new money saving strategy!)
Next day we wandered around the small town of Puerto De Iguazu and then jumped (not literally, that ain't happening with all those bags) onto a bus across the border into country number 6....Brazil! We got stranded at immigration because most of the others on the bus were Brazilian so didn't need to stop so they dropped us off and then told us to catch the next bus in 20mins. Well in true south american style the next bus didn't show up for another 45mins so we just sat and enjoyed the sunshine whilst waiting. Eventually a bus came along to pick us up and we were taken to Foz do Iguacu. Found our lovely hostel which is called 'Tetris container hostel' as it is entirely made out of multicoloured shipping containers which was a really cool set up, particularly sleeping in one! That night there was an enormous thunderstorm and we woke up the next morning to a very wet world! But we decided to brace it and head to the Brazilian side of Iguazu Falls anyway. Its safe to say we were drenched before we even saw the falls, making the mistake of sitting on the top, open deck of the bus as soon as the heavens opened! It then continued to rain for pretty much the whole time we were there, but I guess once you're wet, and we couldn't really get much wetter. The view from this side was just as beautiful and much more panoramic, and again we were able to walk on a board walk into the middle of the river although I genuinely thought I was going to be blown away as it was so windy. Thankfully when we reached the closest point to the falls where there was just a wall of falling, orange water the rain had stopped so we were able to take a few snaps there. We quickly headed back to the hostel to cook a nice warm lunch and dry ourselves up before catching my last night bus of my travels to, hopefully, more sunny Sao Paulo....
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