Our tour bus arrived at 8 AM on schedule to take us to the Brazilian Side of the falls. We were a little groggy and lethargic.
We dragged our weary bones onto the bus and the epic saga began. We drove for 20 minutes and stopped at a tiny shopping centre, a meeting place for tour buses. Other people got on our bus. We waited longer and another bus arrived and the people switched on to ours. We then drove 5 minutes and arrived at Argentina customs on the border with Brazil.
Our guide took all our passports and returned half an hour later. OK to leave Argentina. We drove 5 minutes to Brazilian customs through the apparently dangerous ‘no mans land’. All we saw were a couple of shanty farm houses nestled in a very peaceful valley.
Another half hour sitting in the bus while our guide dealt with customs and we were off.
The Park entrance building was packed. Some of our group did not have pre-paid tickets and had to wait their turn in a half hour queue. We all then boarded our same bus on the other side of the entrance. They should insist everyone on a tourist bus pre-pay and then we could have saved an hour of our lives.
By 10:30 we were at the start of the falls trail and had an hour and a half to explore. Our guide muttered something about her left our right and Noon but I couldn’t take my eyes and camera off the view. The views were even better than from the Sheraton. The drudgery of the previous 2.5 hours evaporated. Oops, where has everyone gone?
Tricia thought the way was left but I remembered the guide talking about our right, We went left. I was a little nervous about this choice. Tricia quickly abandoned me to my own fate. But I didn’t really care that everyone was lost but me, the views were stunning.
After taking all the turns to the right like I was told, I finished up on a walkway leading right to the centre of the falls. I was now drenched, everyone else was still lost, and very content.
On exiting the walkway, there was our guide! I really wasn’t lost. She had sighted Tricia some hours earlier but had no idea where she was now. The queues to the elevator to get back up to ground level were insanely long. I took the 5 minute walking trail instead.
At the top I found Tricia standing by the bus. I went back to the elevator complex and bought her an icy pole and drink. She was kinda talking to me again. She apparently got to the elevator early and since I wasn’t there to point out the walking trail, did the 30 minute queue instead.
On the way back we did a 10 minute helicopter trip over the falls, not really worth the $100 each, nor the near panic of our driver as customs wanted me to sign a form and Tricia to sign two forms and the time of our next trip was approaching fast.
We made it back precisely on time for our ‘grand adventure trip’. It was running on ‘jungle time’ and so we had 10 minutes to kill. We tried to photograph speedy butterflies that rarely stand still for more than half a second. We got a few blurry coloured streaks.
The open top bus that took us through the jungle to the river was bone jarring. Do not do this with a bad back. I still had a bad back.
We stowed all our gear in the waterproof bags, put on a life jacket, and clambered onto the speed boat. We sat at the very front.
It was a nice leisurely sail up the river towards the falls but the driver forgot to stop. We drove right into the waterfall and bumped against the rock wall. Thousands of litres of water were pouring directly onto everyone. Tricia was screaming like a little girl. The boat rebounded from the wall but since the engine was still on kept going through the falls again and again. The driver eventually wrestled control back and was able to turn us around. But then crashed into another waterfall, again and again.
We now understood why there is a sign at the door to the Sheraton, “no wet feet’. Technically we were wet everywhere so we went back to the pool, sipped more drinks, watched the sunset, and used the pool towels to dry off a bit.
No comments:
Post a Comment