Tired feet from too much tango, or perhaps, from Brazilians one-two stepping on our toes when we were out of time, we headed West sixteen hours by Pluma coach travel to Foz du Igazu. Following such a long, and slightly traumatic journey (there was a point at which we thought Anna had been left behind at a twilight toilet stop), the sink-into-me sofas, enormous fridge of beer and back-garden pool went down a treat. Unfortunately for the other guests, we just had to jump straight in without showering. See pool above.
No, just joking. That's Igazu Falls, in case you hadn't gathered from one of our million uploaded photos on the internet! Our pool, in contrast, was small enough for Anna to do thirty three lengths. But apparently, not clear enough to see your own belly button. Retrieve the goggles games were alas, short-lived. What didn't get tiresome, even after five hours on one side and six on the other, was the most magnificent wonder any of us have ever seen. Instead of boarding the treacherous boat ride- we heard that a group recently drown as the boat's engine failed- we spent our hard-earned Reals on a couple of pina coladas and put our feet up at the mouth of the falls, after all that trekking. We returned back that evening, buzzing with wet bums and in Eva's case, a small shampoo bottle of genuine, magical, cure-all-your wounds Igazu Water. It was a bit of challenge for her to dip in between the tourists legs to catch the drips of the edges of the walkway, so she checks every day since to make sure it hasn't evaporated.
To do the Masters or go straight into work; to have your own kids or adopt; to be buried or cremated? Heavy-decision making takes copious amounts of caipirinhas, but by ten that evening we still hadn't come to a conclusion. Should we or should we not go to the Argentinian side of the falls? Dusk had ditched our pros and cons lists so we followed words of wisdom from a friendly Mancunian by the pool- 'Why the fuck not?'
We've never seen such amazing rainbows. Never felt like we were quite so at the edge of the Earth, with water that became a force of its own, plummeting from our feet into a mist that wet our lenses from even one hundred feet away. Tens of butterflies landed on us at lunch. We rode an old railway through surrounding jungle. And, getting our own private mini van to and from the mouth of the falls this time (Brazilian buses often take surprising routes, dropping you off on highways that aren't on the map), we knew that we'd made the right decision. Pat on the back for us.
After all that great decision-making, we treated ourselves to yet another beach getaway. Florianopolis was our next destination, with its sprawling white sand beaches and chilled, hippy vibe...When you're in a place that passing a beer from hammock to hammock invokes a groan, you know you've hit paradise. In Floripa (as the cool kids of Sao Paulo refer to it as), we let lose our inner artists. Creativity swelled like the waves around our hostel table, a couple of frame-worthy scenes- a dinosaur convention and an amputee tattooing a man's nose- drawn in felt tip were given to our favourite new friends. Funnily enough, they were left on the side... We're not planning on buying our next batch of postcards, for the record.
Our afternoons were whiled away with made up games, as if a family holiday the adults conveniently left.
It seemed there were no rules: yes, ham and cheese rolls could and would go in the smoothie blender with coffee, no second looks at pajama tops that were worn to group dinners, and white balls potted on the pool table incurred no penalty except that the next in line could place the ball wherever they pleased! Inconsequential, we named it. The only consequence we were facing was having booked our onward bus tickets too hastily. Three days seemed like nothing in a place where watches fall down the sides of beds without you even noticing. This was especially true for 'surf instructor', Aku. We thought by doubling our time at the hostel that he may be able to fit us in for a lesson. We thought wrong. After sleeping through our first attempt, 'something' coming up for our second and just not showing his face for our third, we took the matter into our own hands.
Heads turned as us beach babes rode the waves with as much style and grace as the professionals. The waves were strong, so inevitably swells that we decided not to 'catch' tumbled us like a washing machine. Being brought right up onto the shoreline by one wave was only counteracted by the fact it took half an hour to get back to the same spot. It was tough! But not as tough as kayaking.
Nothing better to satisfy your built up appetite than Floripa's 'beach cheese'. Young men with barbeques hanging off their arms trail up and down the beach, willing to chargrill a chunk of local queso for you to eat straight off the stick like a lolly. What with beach cheese, and self-service ice cream parlours (priced by the kilo), it was never difficult to satisfy our curious hunger patterns. Obviously we had to compare all the parlours and make sure we tried all the flavours before we left.
It seemed too ridiculous to change our bus tickets again, so we got on this one. Across a border nonetheless. Well, just slightly over the border. For a couple of hours we had Brazil exit stamps, but somehow, did not have Uruguay entry ones. Curious. Just like border town, Chuy. We found ourselves landed here at four in the morning with no idea about how to undertake the next part of our journey. Thanks to some broken English and some seriously broken Spanish (two hour lessons every day from here on in were to be made compulsory), we were helped by a man hanging around for the cheap whiskey. Apparently Chuy had great duty free. Punta del Diablo was our next destination. Not in the best of moods after being followed on a four-hour hostel hunt by a quite possibly rabid dog, we found oursevles yet again swingin' in hammocks, sampling the Uruguayan brew and chewing on perfectly cooked cuts of meat round a fire pit.
