Iguazu Falls from the Brazilian Side

24 January 2016

On Saturday, we flew from Lima, Peru, over the Andes, with some great views of the snow-capped mountains.  Four hours later, we arrived in Foz de Iguaçu, Brazil.  Except our hotel was in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina.  I know, right?  The flight from Lima to Foz de Iguaçu takes four hours and is a direct flight.  But to fly from Lima to Puerto Iguazu, which is only across the river, takes 24 to 30 hours - because you fly from Lima to Santiago, Chile, to Buenos Aires, Argentina, then north to Puerto Iguazu.

So when you arrive on the Brazilian side, you then find a taxi driver willing to offer a reasonable price to take you through the border to your hotel.  We turned down several drivers before we found a discounted price, though it was still high.  But the issue is that this isn't just driving from point A to point B.  No, the trip is like this:  we get in the taxi with our luggage, and drive maybe 10 or 20 minutes to the Brazilian Customs and Immigration.  We had the entry forms from arriving at the airport, but now we had to exit the country - so we stood in line for another 20 minutes to go through Customs and get a stamp saying we legally left the country.  Then a quick drive across the bridge over the Iguazu River (which is the legal border, in the middle of the river), and up to the Argentinian Customs and Immigration.  Here, the Customs officers are in little toll booths, and drivers just go up to the window (after waiting in line another 10-15 minutes) and hand over their information and the passports of their passengers.  We say hello, we get an entry stamp, we drive out, and voila, the first right turn and there's our hotel.

Crazy!

And just to make life more interesting, Brazil is on one time, and Argentina is an hour earlier.  

Since we arrived in the evening, we made Sunday a relax day, and just hung out at our hotel.  It was a really nice hotel, so we enjoyed just relaxing.

Monday was my day to explore the waterfalls, which is the whole reason to come to Iguazu (or Iguaçu) Falls.

This is one of the seven natural wonders of the world, and absolutely worth the effort to get to this little intersection of Brazil, Argentina, and almost Paraguay (which is just down the road).  The waterfalls are magnificent, majestic, all those superlatives.

Both sides of the waterfalls, the Brazilian and the Argentinian, are national parks.  "Iguazu" is the name the original people, the Tupi-Guarani, gave to the falls - "Y" means water or river, and "guasu" or "guaçu" means big.  So Iguazu means big water or big river.  

These are SERIOUSLY big waters!!!!

A traditional legend says the river housed a huge snake named "Boi."  The original inhabitants sacrificed a woman every year to calm Boi, and keep him happy.  One year, a brave Guarani man kidnapped the woman scheduled to be sacrificed, and saved her from this horrible death.  The two escaped through the river.  Boi was so enraged, her burst, which bent his body and split the river, forming waterfalls that separated the man and woman forever.

The Iguazu River meanders along, and then reaches a somewhat semicircular region covering approximately three kilometers, where the land drops precipitously roughly 240 feet, or 80 meters.  This abrupt drop creates a series of waterfalls, taller than Niagara Falls and twice as wide.  In fact, it has been said that when Eleanor Roosevelt visited Iguazu Falls, she looked around and said, "Poor Niagara!"

Some general facts: There are about 275 drops or individual cataracts in this series of waterfalls.  The height of the cataracts ranges from 60 to 82 meters, or 197 to 269 feet.  And the flow rate, or volume of water, is astounding:  1,756 cubic meters per second!  That's 62,010 cubic feet per second!  PER SECOND!!!  And in March, during the height of rainy season, that volume can increase up to 450,000 cubic feet (12,750 cubic meters) per second!!!!

This series of waterfalls has THE greatest volume of any waterfall in the world.  And the water is endless!  It just keeps thundering over the rocks, foaming into a new river that continues onward.  

The basin that creates this huge drop into a canyon or gorge is actually the result of a volcanic eruption millions of years ago.  Geologists have measured 8 or 10 distinct layers of volcanic rock, primarily basalt, in the falls.  However, with this constant volume of water, the erosion continues as the water wears away rock, other rocks break and fall off, and the location of the falls slowly inches (or centimeters) back an infinitesimal amount per year.

Those are the facts and figures.  The story part is that I went through the Customs issue in reverse; went to the falls; hiked from one end of the trail to the other, meeting people coatis, and butterflies along the way; gasped and was amazed!  Then a bus ride back to the entrance, a ride back to Customs again, then back to the hotel.  With a few glitches, but such is life.

The photos barely do justice to the majesty of the falls.  And these photos from the Brazilian side?  This is supposedly the LESS scenic side!  I can barely wait until Wednesday, when we visit the Argentinian side!

I'll leave you with more photos, because it really is the only way to share the breath-taking and heart-stopping beauty of Iguazu Falls.  Words pale in comparison.

  

Happy Birthday, Lima!!!

18 January 2017

Lima, Peru, was founded on this date in 1535.  Yes, this city is 482 years old!  

Of course, this is the date that the Spanish conquistadors, under Francisco Pizarro, founded the city.  There were various indigenous people and pre-Columbian civilizations who lived here on the coast, but there wasn't a united city - that was a conquistador thing.  (The Inca people lived mostly in the part of the Andes referred to as "the eyebrow of the jungle" - the eastern edge of the Andes where the mountains meet the Amazonian jungle.)

There have been all kinds of celebrations going on in Lima, mostly in the old part of the city in the Plaza Mayor.  The occasional single firework blast in our neighborhood.  Schools are closed, but not banks or stores or restaurants.

So we've just been going about our life as usual - a little shopping, a walk, some lunch, maybe the hottest hour of the afternoon in our friendly neighborhood casino.

Now, I should add here that we aren't big gamblers.  A $20 US bill equals 68 soles, or 6800 centavos.  A slot machine might play for 25 centavos a spin.  So you can imagine how much play we can get for $20 US.  It's fun, it's a little bit social, it's air conditioned for the hottest part of the afternoon.  The casino staff provide drinks if you ask, or come around with meals (which we've never tried).  Though we did have the Christmas snack of hot chocolate (chocolate caliente) and Christmas bread (paneton).

Anyway, today after lunch I stopped by the casino, to throw away my $20.  (I walked out with a 200% profit.)  But that isn't the best part - first, one of the young men waiters came around, all dressed up with a fancy jacket and lacy shirt, looking, well, like a pirate!  I told him, in my beginner Spanish, that I liked his clothes, he was very elegant!  (Muy elegante!)  He thanked me.  So I asked him if he was a pirate, thinking this was possibly some promotion at the casino.  No, he explained, it's the celebration for Lima Day.  (And then there was a lot I didn't understand.)  

And he agreed to pose for a photo, looking very handsome in his vaguely 16th century clothing.  Top photo.  And doesn't he look like a pirate dressed up??

Then, two of the ladies who help us with collecting wins (they have a credit card system, where they download the win from the machine, then get the money from the cashier) were all dressed up in gorgeous ball gowns, each a different color!!  Of course, I had to tell them how beautiful they looked, exclaim over their wonderful dresses, and ask if I could get their photos as well!

So here you go, photos of our friendly neighborhood casino staff, dressed up for Lima Day!

I need to add that I couldn't think of the word for "birthday" or even "anniversary" when I was asking one of them if this was the celebration, so I asked "Hoy dias es el nacimiento del Lima?"  Literally translated, "Today is the birth of Lima?"  Close enough, but it explains why the lady in rose laughed at me.  

What can I say, my Spanish has its roots in Italian art terminology.

Anyway, it was great fun, and just one more reason to hang out in the same places while in a town or city - people get to know you and are happy to pose in their lovely costumes!

Unraveling a Musical Mystery

16 January 2017

We're still in Lima, we had a few more tasks to take care of and it was just easier to do here than in a new location.

Richard found a doctor who is a specialist in tropical diseases, and we've visited him twice to deal with the pirate parasites.  Richard is now armed with other antibiotics and we're giving those evil hitchhikers a one-two punch, first a left and then a right hook.  Or something like that.

We also needed to take care of the yellow fever issue.
  
Apparently one needs a World Health Organization (WHO) card to enter Brazil, stating that either we've had yellow fever inoculation, or that we have a medical reason to not do so.

Turns out that the CDC recommends people over 50(ish) NOT get yellow fever vaccines, there's an increased rate of adverse reactions to the serum used.  And we're both over 60.  (Although I had a yellow fever inoculation in 1981 or so, before going off to Liberia in the Peace Corps - but I don't know if those records are available, nor if I can get a new WHO card with that old information.)

So Dr Tropical Diseases wrote a nice letter, in Spanish, saying we're too old to get the yellow fever vaccines (vacunacion de fiebre amarillo in Spanish), and told us to go to one of the national health centers to get the certification.  Of course, the place nearest our hostale turned out to have problems so that the staff person who does the certificates wasn't there.  We ended up at the children's hospital.  Surrounded by families with babies under a year or two old, getting their baby inoculations.  (Including fiebre amarillo, at about age 15 months.)  It was just funny, and ironic, or ludicrous, to get our WHO cards at the children's hospital, saying we're to old to get our yellow fever shots.

Between fun things like that, we visit the kitty park, read in the parks, and explore other parts of the city, or even more areas in our neighborhood.  We found a café and bakery that seems to specialize in small and almost miniature sandwiches and sweets, featured in the photos here.  I loved it, because I could try three different sandwiches, each one being only three to six bites (and the price was roughly 30 to 60 cents each)!  Plus look at that macaron, smaller than the bowl of a teaspoon!  So with sweets that tiny, I had a baby macaron and a teeny little truffle.  I thought it was great fun, but Big Rich wasn't quite as enthralled as I was.

And then, one afternoon, I encountered the oddest musical mystery.  I was having lunch in my friendly little neighborhood cafe today, and I heard a very familiar melody on their sound system. I listened a bit more closely, and while I couldn't understand any of the words (since I'm in Lima, Peru, and much of the music is in Spanish), I could have sworn I knew the melody.

I listened more closely, and suddenly I knew - this was the tune for "A Groovy Kind of Love" - a song from my youth!  I kind of hummed along, and while there were a few parts that weren't in sync with what I remembered, most of it was there.

So I asked my friendly waitstaff, since we chat every time I'm there - and here's the piece I heard. A song named "Agnese" by the singer Ivan Graziani. And it's in Italian:

youtube.com/watch?v=l416fdjjAU8

Here's the Phil Collins version of "A Groovy Kind of Love" - it's slower than the original version by the Mindbenders, from the 1966 version. (Next post.)

So, Phil Collins:

youtube.com/watch?v=HsC_SARyPzk

And the Mindbenders:

youtube.com/watch?v=sAxh0-aHGm4

Bizarre, isn't it? Not even the same song, and the Italian one is from some 13 years after the original English version.

I couldn't figure out what happened - how did these two songs end up with the same basic theme music??  Was it a spontaneous thing, like people in various parts of the world figuring out how to weave at the same time, without having contact with each other?  Or was it something else?

So, after more research, I found this gem: Wikipedia (useful despite its frequent inadequacies) says that "Groovy Kind of Love" is HEAVILY based on the Sonatine Op. 36 No. 5 - Rondo by Muzio Clementi, who wrote it in 1797 - and here's the link to that piece:

musescore.com/user/61179/scores/2364121

WOW!

I'm guessing that both the British and Italian composers of the modern songs "borrowed" that distinctive lilting melody from Clementi - and since it was about 200 years after his original, there really weren't copyright violations.  

I felt like a detective, researching and figuring out all of this.  Pretty easy in the internet age, but I'm not a music person, so this was quite exciting!

So of course, the next day I had to explain all of this to my buddies at the café, in sort of a mix of English and Spanish.  And being young, they looked up the music on their smartphones, and connected the phones to the sound system, so everyone could hear the classical original and then the two modern variations on a theme.

Plus the original is allegro molto in tempo - Italian for "very fast" - which of course in Spanish is muy rapido.  While the two modern versions are slow and soulful love songs - in musical terms, lento, tardo, even adagio.  Modern Spanish would be despacio (which we see on traffic signs, as in SLOW), tranquillo, or even lentemente.  Yeah, you can imagine the conversation we had, tossing around all those terms!

Oh, I also took another ganache and truffle making class at the Choco Museo.  I was the only student, but they basically gave me a private class, which was wonderful!  My teacher was Fiorella, which means "little flower" in Italian.  She told me what to do and had me do pretty much everything.  We had a great time, and of course Richard enjoyed the truffles!

Lima never gets boring!

But we have a new adventure planned, and we head off on Saturday.  We're going to one of the major natural sights in South America, and I'm excited!  I don't want to give too much away, so that's all I'm going to say at this point.

Look for our next post to find out!!!

We Saw Three Kings Bearing Gifts

6 January 2017

Today is Three Kings Day, in many parts of the world.  Also known as Epiphany, and Twelfth Night, as in the end of the Twelve Days of Christmas.

In much of the Spanish-speaking world, Three Kings Day is a big deal; in Spain, this is even bigger than Christmas Day.  This is the day the three kings (or wise men, depending on your translation) brought gifts - the frankincense and myrrh and all.  So the tradition is that gifts are given to children on Three Kings Day.

We asked around, thinking that perhaps today would be holiday, offices might be closed.  No, it was a normal working day as far as everyone was concerned.

But then, we saw three men dressed as, well, someone's idea of what kings in the Middle East might have dressed like some 2000 or so years ago.  

Riding horses, because camels aren't as available in Peru?

There were police on motorcycles stopping traffic and escorting the Three Kings down the road.  And they were followed by two trumpeters on horseback. 

Not exactly angels we're hearing on high, but, well, they do make people hark.  Or hearken.  Or stop and take photos.

And accompanied by the official cleaner uppers, because, well, these are horses.

The kings would stop every so often and hand things to children, maybe candy.  By the time they started handing out their non-myrrh and non-frankincense, they were too far away for us to see that it really was.

But it was pretty exciting, and we passed them again, riding in a taxi on our way back to to our hostale.

I love local color, and this time we even had a vague clue what was happening!

Oh, final photo - a few blogs ago I wrote about the triple sandwiches.  I don't know if this is called a seituple or what, but it definitely has at least seven layers of fillings in there!  Green beans, carrots, avocado, cheese, tomato, maybe hot dogs on the bottom layer.........and beets or purple cabbage?  Not sure, but it's like a mosaic sandwich!!

A Peruvian New Year's Eve

4 January 2017

Hard to remember to type 2017 - and wow, we're well into the 21st century!  Amazing!  Plus that means we've been on the road for 4.33 years already!

Last year we were in Valparaiso, Chile, for New Year's Eve.  This year's celebration in Lima wasn't as spectacular, but it was definitely more homey.

Just as in Chile, yellow is a major color for celebrating the New Year.  In Chile, we saw stands of yellow underwear for sale.  Didn't see the stands here in Peru, but one of the people working at our hostale said that his wife bought the entire family yellow undies, and everyone would wear them that evening.  The yellow is for good luck.  If a person wants to get more money in the coming year, then they wear green.

I have to add that I don't own any clothes in either color!  Both are just bad with my coloring, LOL!

So, our hostale staff prepared another fabulous feast and invited everyone for the celebrations.  Richard and I went downstairs about 9 PM to see what was happening, and I happily assisted in decorating the dining room.  The daughter of one of the staff and I blew up the bright yellow balloons, decorated with grapes (good luck), wine bottles, cheering people, etc.  We added streamers, and taped them across the long wall.  Not the classiest of decorations, but cheerful and, most importantly, YELLOW!

We also handed out the yellow plastic leis to people waiting around, and also hung them on the backs of the chairs.  The manager also put one on her chihuahua, who happily wore his lei the rest of the night.

The usual firecrackers and small fireworks started going off as soon as it was dark outside, and continued all evening.  We were in and out to see some of the bigger blasts.

Food was finally served, about 11:30 PM.  I'm guessing that eating certain foods about midnight and into the New Year is considered lucky - we encountered this in Spain, so that might be part of why dinner was served at what we think of as a really late hour.  (We had a lovely roast pork, sort of a Waldorf salad mixed in with lettuce greens, potato salad, and pasta salad.)

At midnight, the night erupted again as everyone started shooting off their fireworks - and then the city-sponsored fireworks started off over the shore!  They were huge, mostly white-gold-yellow-red, and went off at intervals along the coast.  We could see three separate sets exploding from the corner closest to our hostale, and they continued for maybe ten minutes.  They eventually stopped, though the other, smaller fireworks and firecrackers kept going for a few more hours.

There were also a few young people running around the neighborhood, with their rolling luggage.  I read that people do this in Chile as well, to ensure that they travel in the coming year.  It was quite a sight to see people racing around with their luggage bumping along behind them, based on an old tradition.

We went back inside, just in time for cake.  Richard and I bought the cake, because that's just the way we were brought up.  We bought the big sacher torte at the local supermarket, we weren't sure how many people would be at this celebration.  The cake ended up lasting two days, because Peruvians serve very small slices of cake.  (It was really good cake, but a small slice was plenty.  They even offered us more cake for breakfast, which we thought was really funny!)

Of course, then there was music, and people dancing, late into the night.  Things started quieting down maybe about 3 AM, although people were still partying in the street.  Yeah, not the quietest night.

The first was a slow day, with the usual kinds of places closed.  Of course, the kitty park was open, and the kitties were their usual adorable selves.

By the second, life was back to normal, and we've been dealing with the usual things - Richard's dental work, plus seeing the new tropical disease specialist who is advising us on the piratical parasites.  We're hoping to have everything taken care of by next week, so we can head somewhere else, and head off on new adventures!!!

Here are a few more photos of Peruvian holiday decorations - I think some of the tradition arts and crafts kinds of decorations.