Iguazu Falls and Roger the Clever Linguist

"Argentina: A country of Italians who speak Spanish and act like the British in France."

Iguazu Falls

There are famous sights that everyone sees and talks about…“must see” destinations. Sort of like the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, or Disney World; if you are nearby, you’ll most likely visit it. Some travelers are real assholes about these places and deliberately avoid them because they are just too cool to go where the tourists go. Not us. Iguazu Falls is popular and famous and a “must see” for a very good reason: because it is totally, amazingly awesome, and I mean that to actually mean Awesome. People from all over the world have been awe-struck by the sights here and so were we. Our advice: Go if you can…you can never see too many waterfalls.

We arrived in Puerto Iguazu after splitting with our group, proceeding from this point on our own! We hit the park the next morning. Iguazu Falls were featured in the movie The Mission, (you need to see it if you haven’t), and are actually 275 separate falls that separate Brazil from Argentina. We took a train to a suspended steel walkway leading to Garganta del Diablo (The Devil’s Throat). The walkway here took us close enough to the water get soaked and required us to take several hundred pictures with our water-spotted cameras. Photos can’t do it justice, but, as always, we tried. A second trail, crossing many branches of the river and numerous narrow falls, led us to the upper falls viewing area. Spectacular.

Along the way cute coatimundi (stretched-out raccoons-type critters), ran around scavenging food. They looked less cute after we read the warning signs about them. We tried to eat a sandwich at an outdoor restaurant in the park, but were forced indoors by their persistent aggression. You win this time, coatis, but we’ll be prepared in the future.

         

                                 Thoroughly Bizarre Coatimundi Warning Signs

Gary and Roger Cooling Off

On day two at the park, we hiked to the lower falls for a different, equally impressive view. We followed that with a boat ride, sort of a pimped-out Maid of the Mist. This is one of those hokey tourist activities that is so popular because it is so much fun. After the captain inspected our life jackets, he gave the group extensive instructions in rapid Spanish. People nodded seriously, except us, since we hadn’t a clue, and English wasn’t an option. We roared toward the falls, got soaked, and then roared toward another set of falls. This water hit us so hard that we couldn’t open our eyes, so I guess I’m just assuming that we were under the falls. The group started chanting, “Uno mas! Uno mas!” so we did it all again. Great fun. Plus, we cooled off from the sweaty hike. A most excellent day!

We found a quote from a famous visitor to Iguazu Falls, Eleanor Roosevelt,  upon seeing the falls for the first time: “Poor Niagara!”  It should be noted here that the Falls are in a tremendously well-protected national park (at least on the Argentine side), with the only concessions a couple of lunch restaurants, the boat rides, and A SINGLE HOTEL.  That’s all for MILES.  No wax museums, no Hooters.  A lot of lost opportunity here. Perhaps that’s why they call this a ‘developing country.’

Roger the Cunning Linguist

Nearly all of us have had at least SOME Spanish language instruction, even if at the public high school level (“que es el burro?"). Roger was far from the most proficient, but he was certainly the most confident.  Right in there.  And he got the job done, mostly.  

So we were on our daily pilgrimage to the ice cream parlor in downtown Iguazu, trying to figure out how to get back to our hotel, somewhat out of town.  Roger engaged a couple of local guys, early thirties, in an earnest discussion, using his best elementary school Spanish as the others looked on. After several minutes of tortured tenses and misplaced vocabulary, Roger finally turned to the rest of the group and says, "I think I got it.  We're almost there." and then the one guy said, in nearly unaccented American, "Wait a minute. You speak English?"  

"Well, sort of," Roger says.

""Why don't we speak English, then?"

And everyone roared.  Funny thing is, this happened in one form or another to all of us at one time or another on this trip.  "Muy interesante!", as they used to say in high school Spanish.