La Jac Goes to South America.: February 2011

So we said goodbye to Rob (who was travelling on his own again until Valdivia) and stood there waiting. We watched the sky, trying to guess where the next good lightning bolt would show up. Until we saw her. And she was coming straight for us, just as sure as I´m sitting here. Coming with those lips like roses and that hair like waterfalls. If my memory doesn´t fail me, a condor trailed along behind her, both of them shrouded in a rainbow-tinted, dreamlike mist. This very woman was the centerpiece of the airbrushed art on the side of our bus. Yes, our bus. We could hardly believe our luck.

Until we got on. Instantly, Erin nearly lost her teeth. The guy in front of her quickly and obliviously reclined his seat, coming within centimeters of her pearly whites. It seemed these seats weren´t quite as spacious as buses in the past. But we were quickly distracted by the water falling through the roof and into the laps of our neighbors. Then the bus stopped on the side of the road. (This doesn’t alarm us anymore.) I am certain that no one knew what was going on, and I am also certain that no one cared. Erin just shrugged, silently handed me one of her earphones and deejayed while we watched the lightning through our foggy window.

We sat there for maybe 20 minutes before the bus got rolling again. We soon wished that it hadn´t. Now Erin and I were both in danger of losing our teeth, likely to rattle out of our little heads. Those dirt roads are bumpy. Then we drove through a cave and forged a few rivers. It was a lot like being at Disneyland, except that it lasted nine hours and there were no seatbelts and no security that it would end alright.

It did, more or less.

However, that bus ride combined with the events that followed were not a high point of our travels. (I think our nerves may have been a little raw.) The somewhat condensed version involves arriving at Villazón at 4 a.m. only to have the bus driver point uncertainly when we asked where the border was. It wouldn´t open "for quite a while, though." Not having sufficient funds to use the bathroom and then not knowing how to flush once we got in there, anyway. Missing the bus we had been promised (and had also been grotesquely over-charged for). Having our luggage held hostage. Me leaving my camera on that second wretched (although if I´m honest, comfortable) bus, and finally a wild taxi chase after said bus and camera. But things only went up from here.

Salta was my first taste of Argentina. Definitely different than Bolivia. It was a beautiful city with pretty parks and cafés and trendy little shops. The surrounding country was so GREEN. I would love to go back with more time to explore the outskirts. Then we got on 20 hour bus headed for Iguazu Falls. The humidity when we got off was… shocking. There we stayed in our first hostel with a pool. (Also the first one with lizards climbing on the walls.) We may or may not have each eaten 3 or 4 ice cream cones there. You will never know for sure.

So, the famous falls. Oh my goodness, the falls. As we followed the trail towards them there were butterflies floating by and these strange raccoon/aardvark/monkey hybrids playing in the trees. An occasional dinosaur (or they could have possibly been really big lizards) would scuttle across our path. Then we turned a corner and what to our wondering eyes should appear but a HUGE LINE OF WATERFALLS. I guess I do not know what else I was expecting. (Whatever it was, they exceeded it.) You can see them from all different angles. It was so gorgeous… just so crazy. When you look at them from above it looks like the whole world is being sucked into a hole, just dropping off into nothing. We also took a little hike to another baby waterfall (fighting off enormous—really, enormous—jungle spiders all the way) where we took a lunchtime swim. It was a full and beautiful day and I am SO glad we went.

Now, to emotionally prepare ourselves for yet ANOTHER 20 hour bus ride, our destination this time being Buenos Aires, where we will part ways.