A Day In Paradise!

Tuesday November 22.

Today I was picked up by a friend of Kristian's who runs a tour company. I was shuttled across the border between Brazil and Argentina and then to his offices. There I joined a tour bus. We departed and picked up about thirty tourists from a number of hotels in Puerto Iguacu. Then we drove to theParque Nacional Iguacu, Argentina.

We took a little 3 km train ride and then walked along a 2 km catwalk to reach the viewpoint of the "Devil's Throat" cataract. It's similar in shape to our Horseshoe Falls. The falls are amazing and the weather today was spectacular, sunny and about thirty degrees.

After that we walked to the upper falls lookout and then the lower falls lookout. Here some of us took a boat ride on the river below the falls. It's like the maid of the mist, but it's a speedboat. Kristian arranged a free ride for me! Thanks very much! The views from the river were awesome and added another dimension to this beautiful place. Then they told us to put our cameras away in the dry bags they provided. You guessed it, they proceeded to drive right up to the falls until it felt like we were right under them. I couldn't tell because there was so much water beating in my face and on my head! They did this in two different locations and then we went for a long ride down the river riding the rapids.

Then they took us by open wagon back to where our guides were and we had lunch there. After the company brought be back to the Brazillian side and dropped me off at Kristian's house. Thanks for that too!

I went to the school tonight and talked to another two students. One of them works for the Itaipu powerstation as a civil engineer and is going to get me a ticket to go to the ecological reserve there and the other, a retired policeman/lawyer has invited Kristian and I to his hotel for breakfast so he can practise his English!

Kristian went to Karolyne's apartment and I came home with Murilo and Marizette to have a pizza and a couple of beer.