Iguazu

I am so sorry this has taken me forever, but things have been CRAZY! This past weekend was so AMAZING!! On Friday morning I woke up at 4:15 AM so we could fly out of the domestic airport in Buenos Aires. When we arrived in Puerto Iguazu, we met our tour guide, Margarita and she was a blast. We were too early to check into the hotel, so we killed some time by walking 8 blocks to the city center and eating lunch at this little restaurant. After that we went back, checked into our hotel and I took a very nice nap. We had to be ready to go at 3 PM so we could go and visit a reservation of the indigenous people called the Guaranis. They were the first people to inhabit the lands of Paraguay and Argentina. They are now confined to their reservation which is in the heart of the jungle. They are not allowed to have jobs outside of their reservation, so they make handicrafts to sell to the people that pay to tour their village. The guide showed us lots of traps that they use to hunt their animals and we also got to see a hut where a family would live. The best part of the trip was the little kids that we got to be around. They sang a song for us, which was so amazing! Then we got to hang out with them and they were so precious. We toured their booths with handicrafts and I bought a cute bracelet and the coolest maraca you've ever seen! The fact that these people use their bare hands and the fruits of the forest to make their living, made it mean 10 times more than it would have in a store in the city. We watched a lady wash her clothes in the stream where people shower, I can't even imagine having the life that they have. 

The safari wagon that we rode in

This is for you Becca!

School for the Guarani

A house for the Guarani and our guide

Traditional food made from corn flour

This is how they do laundry

One of the traps. This one is for deer.

                                   Guarani children singing

With the children

When we got back to the center, we went to Hito de Tres Fronteras. This is where you can look over the Iguazu River and see the Argentine border, the Paraguay border, and the Brazil border. It is kind of like being in three places at once, but not really :) From here we watched the sunset and it was beautiful. We went back to the center to have dinner and I had some chow mien that was so delicious!  After that I called it an early night because I was exhausted.

Three places at once!

Standing in Argentina, Paraguay on the left, Brazil on the right.

On Saturday we woke up at 7 AM and spent the whole day in the national park where all the waterfalls are! Words cannot even describe what I saw and pictures can't do it justice either. There are three trails that you can walk. One that is above the falls, one below the falls and then a train and trail to the "Garanta del Diablo" which means the "Throat of the Devil." This waterfall puts out over 1 million liters of water per second. CRAZY! In the park they know there are over 250 waterfalls, but this changes based on the amount of the water in the river. Only 20 of these falls are named. It was all so intense and I would highly recommend going there someday. I had so much fun and was in awe the entire day. I hadn't even noticed that I walked more than 5 miles, which I'm not really sure is different than a normal day. After this I was once again very exhausted and after I ate dinner, I went straight to bed.

First view from Upper Trail

From above

Monkey!

First view of La Garganta del Diablo

In front of San Martin Falls

The end of the rainbow :)

First view from below

Standing under...it was quite misty!

More rainbows. They were amazing and astonishing.

Boat tour with students in my program. They were soaked!

La Garganta del Diablo

No words to describe...

On Sunday we woke up at 6 AM (the weekend was full of early mornings) and drove about 4 hours to another city in the Missiones province. We went to see the ruins of The San Ignacio Jesuit Mission. The mission was occupied by Spanish Jesuits and they built the mission and they lived there together with the Guarani. They converted them to Catholicism and changed a lot of things about their lifestyle. After a period of time, the king of Spain called the Jesuits back to Spain which left the Guarani alone. They abandoned the mission and moved back to Spain. The jungle grew around the mission, and hid most of it. It was found and restored and is now a popular tourist site. It was very interesting to learn about the history of it and to see the buildings where these people had lived. 

San Ignacio

The town before they abandoned it

Where they lived

In front of the church...well what used to be a church

After this we took the bus to a place called La Chacra (http://www.lachacra-misiones.com.ar/.) This place was absolutely gorgeous, but it was so cold, that we all hovered around the fire. Here we hung out and eat asado (BBQ). It was very delicious and I got a nice seat by the fire, so that I wasn't so cold :) After we ate we walked to a mate field and looked at lots of plants before we went to the mate factory. We saw the big dryers and played in the mate plants, then went to where they store the mate after it is packaged. It was a blast. Afterward, we went back to the estancia and drank lots of mate, which is really only good with sugar, but is very traditional here. Then we had to drive to Pasados to get on a plane and come back home. We got home around 11:30 PM on Sunday night and I was so exhausted.

Amy, Krista, Me

Where we ate lunch...so beautiful

The asado!

Black Tea and Mate plants

The Mate factory

How they transport the Mate to the dryers

The dryer

Looking inside the dryer

Playing in the Mate leaves that have been harvested

Coqui loves Mate...Igal got this bag just for her :)

Playing on the stacks of bags!

Dessert after our tour

Yesterday I just went to class and then came home and tried to book stuff for Machu Picchu. It was quite stressful and it wouldn't work for the longest time and I couldn't figure out why. Well apparently if you are from the United States and you don't realize that you put your nationality as Afghanistan, your payment will not go through. So frustrating. I didn't get anything done yesterday evening, so I made up for it this afternoon. I have plane tickets booked and now just need to work on booking hotels. I'm getting so pumped and hoping that the stress goes away! 

Tomorrow is review day in class, then its just a written and oral final and I'm out of here! Can't wait.