With the help of some more friendly people from Madero restaurant (which holds the title of "best burger in the world"...) we actually found our strange hostel. The hostel was an odd mixture of these gloomy and clinical HI hostels with no character whatsoever and at the same time it was more of a hotel. We were separated in different gender specific dorms with 3-storey bunkbeds. I was glad not having to stay in the highest bed. The location of the hostel was fantastic though, in the historical center and more importantly: near a climbing gym!
View from the hostel in Curitiba Chris tried this "best burger in the world" for dinner and was convinced! With a great dinner and a hearty breakfast next morning, we were filled with energy to walk around the center and checking out its parks. Accidentally we stumbled into a zoo-kind-of bird park, public, free and open for everyone, filled with cages full of exotic birds. And plenty of prostitutes too (though no, they were not in cages, nor free I presume). Odd place.
Scary big bird After the cheapest sushibuffet ever it was finally time for climbing! Curitiba's climbing hall Campo Base was in the center and it was truly a very decent place with a lot of bouldering and high walls. First time entrance was free of charge, well why not! Only problem was that there really weren't many marked routes and deciphering the codes to find some was somewhat tricky. We came to a conclusion afterwards that we were pretty damn lucky back home to have such amazing bouldering halls with quality problems to climb (Thank you very much Boulderkeskus people for example, it's a pleasure!). Surfing and lack of climbing had made our skins so annoyingly soft that we didn't last too long on the wall but yet again I vowed to train even harder when I get home. Super psyched, super motivated!
Bouldering 
and rope stuff We had a great dinner of Arabic food before our night bus to Foz do Iguassu. Foz is the town on the Brazilian side of the fall but they also extend on the Argentinean side. Paraguay is right there too, sharing the second biggest dam, the Itaipu dam, in the world with Brazil. We based ourselves in Foz for two nights in a hostel called the Green House.
Rain, rain, rain on the way and the whole morning. Our hostel's beautiful pool and yard would've been a lot more inviting without the rain but the when the rain stopped, it was time to try our luck (and hope it doesn't continue raining) and head for the falls on the Brazilian side! Easily reached by a local bus and just one pricey entrance fee to pay, the falls were a nice and fast destination to organize by oneself. On the Brazilian side one gets to see the falls from a bit further away, but it's a cool overview to the whole area. From the last point, one gets to go all the way on top of the falls and get really wet by the blowing water. Impressive sight indeed: hundreds of big and small waterfalls crashing down in a lush forest. The masses of water and the thunderous power of the water is insane.
Another kind of entertainment was provided by some raccoon like creatures with long noses snooping around everywhere on the walking paths. These animals acted exactly like the monkeys in Bali, jumping on people and stealing food, not caring much about the hordes of picture snapping tourists. We came back hungry and after some early dinner we were pretty much done.
Next: a million pictures from the Brazilian side water falls
Paradise bird 
Happy falls fans 
Raccoon fellows 
It was Friday and it also happened to be my birthday. Chris had prepared a nice breakfast for me and even some candles were lit on a little (gluten-free!) brownie, cute :) We had also booked a full-day tour to the Argentinean side of the falls for that day. Only a little bit more expensive than going by oneself and a lot less hassle with the four different buses and border crossings and whatnot, we decided to be lazy. To be honest, the guide of ours really sucked and the company tried to make us pay extra for some boat tickets etc. so maybe we did make a wrong choice. Anycase, that day we got to see the falls a lot closer - even a bit too close for my taste.
We walked around and above the falls we had seen from afar the day before. We got to see the water flowing down over the high edge of the falls and crashing down far below. There was a boat ride too to go right under the falls. I wasn't too excited but since the whole group went, so did we. Peer pressure.
And a million pics from the Argentinean side: 
This big fast zodiac boat took us right under the waterfall - I mean so that we were completely soaked, more than we would've been under a (pressure lacking and nerve-wracking showers here in South America. There was so much water that it was difficult to breathe. And of course we had on the boat an excited older Argentinean man cheering for more and more! First time was enough, third time way too much. I was glad to have some dry clothes to change into afterwards.
Yep, YOLO 
Getting soaked
The last views on the trip were great! We took a short "train" ride to the Devil's Throat which from further away looked like a big whole in a lake: we walked on a constructed path on top of the falls without seeing the edge of when suddenly we could just see the water disappearing into a nothingness. When we got closer we saw the falls and a beautiful rainbow inside it. Superb!
The Devil's throat
Happy Chrisu 
Guinea pigs! I was dead tired after the trip - must've been the heat and the air. But since it was my birthday, we were obliged to go out for a dinner. Not having a clue about the city or its offerings, we didn't have any plans or ideas where to go. I remembered that this "best burger in the world" also had a restaurant in Foz, so we headed there.
We found the place from a massive shopping mall - with a cinema! So quick dinner it was and then a random Hollywood war movie with some famous actors but not a very mind-blowing storyline. Still, it was great, I enjoyed it.
We had been counting the menacingly lessening days of our travels and decided to take a short cut. As much as I wanted to see more of Paraguay, I had to admit that it would take longer than we had time for: with the little infrastructure for tourism, the truly spectacular sights would take a lot of organizing to see and get to and since the cities didn't have much appeal to us, Asuncion was also out of the question. BUT Paraguay had something for us, nearby and easily accessible: the most famous of its sights aka the Itaipu dam and a crazy shopping city of Ciudad del Este.
We took a morning swim in the great pool of our hostel and left to cross the border to Ciudad del Este. This insane shopping paradise had everything one can imagine and more. The rich Argentineans and Brazilenos come there to buy duty free things, cheap electronics, perfumes, clothes and whatnot. Massive shopping malls and outside street vendor labyrinths with constant flows of masses of people, hassle, noise, traffic and crammed spaces made it my worst nightmare and pickpocket paradise. I get so stressed out in these places, trying to hold on to my stuff while trying not to step on people, stumble on stalls, get hit by cars or scooters and then I'm still somehow supposed to look around for something to buy!? No way, Jose. I did have a mission though, since the inevitable had finally happened and I had dropped the lens cover of my camera into the Iguassu falls. Stupid Sony and its retarded product design with lens covers that are not attached to anything, argh. But even this shopping heaven (hell) didn't have what I needed (I revise myself: they actually do not sell EVERYTHING in Ciudad del Este after all). We checked about a million Sony stalls but no luck.
Our pool 
View from the border crossing bridge 
Ciudad del Este, Paraguay Exhausted after a couple of hours we returned to the border, crossed the bridge over a beautiful massive river between Brazil and Paraguay and somehow missed the Brazilian immigration!? What now!? We turned back and had to truly search for it...no one really cared if we left or entered the country. But we did, and so would probably the next border officials that would stamp us out of the country again. After finally getting the stamps, we had lunch and took another bus to the dam.
We were a bit short on time - for our bus to Dourados would leave soonish - but since we came all the way, we still joined a 1,5 hour tour (the shortest option) to see the dam. I fell asleep during the 20 min introduction video (in Portugese and Spanish, only). Gladly the tour itself was more interesting: we rode over to the dam with an open double-decker and had a couple of stops with nice views over the dam. Like the falls, this was pretty impressive too!
Happy Itaipu fans (?) 
We rushed back to catch our ride and ended up in a night bus to Cascavel where we would change to a bus to Dourados where we would be around 4 am and from where there was a bus to continue to Bonito at 6 am. Sounded exhausting but the reality was even worse. More about that on the next post then.
1 comment:
seems like you are having a great time :) mahtava. always super psyched, super motivated!!
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