so far so good. Now where was I....
The night before we left Cusco, we deemed it appropriate to pay a visit and say good bye to a friendly waiter who had been taking care of us at a restaurant that we visited 5 times called ´Macondo´ (Pete, note the reference, they pride themselves on that swanky name, even though it has more to do with Columbia). A bit of a chic restaurant with really good food for a reasonable price. Gabriel is more than surprised and delighted at the gesture and shows his appreciation by giving Dave a handshake, which moved onto a cheek kiss, which in turn more than surprised my companion. Dave´s countenance more than made up for my kiss on the cheek. Seeing as I was much closer to Gabriel, and he reached for Dave first, I think Dave threw on his old chastity belt before he went to sleep that night.
Thanks to a suggestion by Kretsch (that´s 2 drinks) we flew to Puerto Maldonado, and headed 30km up stream to a lodge located on the Tambopata reserve, the Peruvian part of the Amazon. We were fortunate enough to have a really broad range of amazonian weather ranging from the stinking hot, to thunder and lightning for 12 hours straight. For me, it was the latter which made it work, that and the barrage of animals and jungle trees we got to see, especially monkeys and plenty of netballers(I mean wild boars, Hi Tara), and lots of them. The lodge itself was very well setup with a hammock room for chilling out mid-afternoon, but it wasn´t until the second night that I started getting concerned about what the lodge may have been a front for. Lying in the hammock at about 6 in the evening, a loud wave of music hit the room, obviously eminating from the room across from ours which was pouring out smoke (maybe from a smoker, maybe from incense) but it was the loud twang of the sitar and the trance of hari-krishna that brought memories of David Caresh. The idea that we were stuck out here along the amazon 30kms away from other people in the cult of a male love machine made me almost wish that jesus had made it out here. This continued on the next night, when I decided to find out where it was coming from, and funnily enough, it was some fat American Tourist who thought everybody might be interested in Hari, Hari, Hari. Folks, I recommend getting out here if you´re in Peru, it was definitely a highlight and probably much cheaper than Brazil. I won´t dwell on how cool the animals and jungle was, but I did once again, get my arse chewed out by mozzies.
In the Sao Paulo airport, we booked lodging with Pausada Evelina in Foz Do Iguacu, the Brazilian city of Iguacu and was greeted by her daughter Christina. Evelina is Polish, and speaks 7 different languages, with the same applying to both her daughters Graciela and Christina. Evelina is cool, she´s loud, happy and always excited, but it takes about 15 minutes to realise that she´s one pushy lady. It appears that both daughters are equal in nature, each of which have daughters of their own, but ostensibly all 3 appear not to have any husbands. Go figure. Anyway, we decided we´d make for the Brazilian side of the falls the next day, just to see what all the hype was about, but Graciela suggests that we go on the Evelina tour to the Argentinian side. Her selling point is a private ride across the border, and 3 swedish girls. Come again? There didn´t appear much else she wanted to sell out of their custom tour other than a ride from the hostel to Argentina, and 3 SWEDISH GIRLS. right. So, 57 Reais for a bus ride to Argentina, tickets into the national park to see the falls, and 3 SWEDISH girls. That´s right. We did take the tour to the Argentinian side only because of the value, and the hassle free pass over to the Argentinian side, and yes, the three swedish girls were quite good to look at, but the thing that amused me the most about this was that the poor Swiss and Brazillian girls that were also on the tour that didn´t even get a mention. Once again, beauty sells. However, I´m not sure how she sold ´2 Aussie Boys´ to the swedish girls.
On to Iguazu, and I have to say, these falls deserve their place in the natural wonders of the world. Simply amazing. The roaring of all these falls is so powerful and so loud, it´s like the roar of 1000 Imran Khans (how´s that for an analogy). It really is something to look at and I can´t describe it any other way. Should I ever get a wife, or an animal, male or female remotely interested, I´d consider bringing it here for our honeymoon. That´s right, I´ve said it. I might marry something someday.
After spending 4 nights in Iguacu, seeing the Argentinian side with 3 swedish girls once and the Brazilian side with 2 Norwegian gents, we headed towards Curitiba, a town in the middle somewhere between Iguacu and Rio which is known in particular for having the most beautiful train ride in Brazil, which I guess is a decent rap. It appears also that Curitiba is the model town for Brazil, with the best city planning, and quality economics. This equates to a city which is very much similar to Adelaide, in appearance, population, and a major mall. Hampered by a misty day, the train ride was not all that beautiful, but the railway was somewhat of an engineering masterpiece. However, my experience, was made much better when I met Leila, a Brazillian girl from Foz Do Iguacu who I spend the next 3 hours talking to. Leila speaks to me in broken spanish, broken english and portuguese, and in return I spoke in pretty much broken everything. Firstly, she tells me how the train ride sucked, because all there was was mist, trees, and more trees which I guess was fair enough. Then she tells me that Foz Do Iguacu is a very dangerous place, and Curitiba, Brazils´ model city is just as dangerous. Having spent a 6 days and nights wondering the two towns looking for food, I didn´t get this impression which may be because we stuck to the main accesses of town, so I ask her about Rio De Janeiro, and what I get in return is a self-deprecating laugh-cry and shake of the head with a yelp of ´muito perigroso´ (most/much dangerous) which pretty much made me shit my pants. It appears that Leila lives close to a favela (watch ´City Of God´) in Iguacu and her friend was murdered 5 years ago for no other reason than ´just cause´. She asks me how it is where I´m from, and I don´t have the heart to tell her how good it is, and instead I tell her it´s ok and hot. We´ve got it pretty good folks, and this made me miss Adelaide.
In Rio now, there´s some nutters out here, but we haven´t lost our pants yet, although most of the women on Ipanema appear to have lost pretty much everything.
