Rolling Solo

Grace pointed out to me the other day that our final blog update, posted 2 weeks ago, seems to have left a bit of a void with regards to the continuing misadventures of the lesser half of our unambiguously heterosexual duo.
So here's what I've been up to since my Sweet Pea left...

Prior to the trip, Grace had committed to sewing bridesmaid dresses for a friend, due at the end of September, requiring that she return home early. I however had made no such commitments and likely would just prove a distraction if I accompanied her, so I decided to stick around for a bit longer and continue my Spanish classes. I ended up taking 3 weeks of intensive Spanish thanks to which I can now properly locate a preposition and pronoun relative to a conjugated verb (yeah baby!) Other than the classes, my daily life has consisted of touring the city, working on Pete, lounging at the apartment, and dinner with friends.

For my final weekend in South America I decided to take a little trip, and on Friday of last week I caught an overnight bus from Buenos Aires to the Brazilian border at Iguazu Falls. An awe-inspiring tourist destination, Iguazu has been recommended by a number of travelers as an incredible and unmissable spectacle of nature. (FYI: the nicer bus seats that are sold as "Full Bed" I think would have been absolutely perfect, had I been 4 inches shorter!!!)
The town of Puerto Iguazu, located at the intersections of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina, is small but well developed and when I arrived on Saturday afternoon I found no trouble settling into Hostel Iguazu Falls (awesome name) and laying out a game plan for the following day.
I was up early Sunday in order to get to the park before it opened at 8am and I spent the entire day roaming the acreage and taking in the sights. The main attraction consists of what appears to be the single longest waterfall in the world, winding it's way along a jagged crack in the earth, eventually leading to the spectacular confluence, aptly named "La Garganta del Diablo" or The Devil's Throat. Broken up into smaller, individually named spillways the park is laid out nicely with brick paths and iron walkways allowing visitors to walk right up to the edge of the action. I had a wonderful time and even the massive tourist hordes didn't seem to bother me too much (I did have a moment at the very start of the day when I couldn't get away from a loud couple that would not just shut the hell up, forcing me to take a few deep breaths.)

Back at the hostel I went straight to bed for a much needed 2 hour nap, and then was invited for dinner with my dorm companions. We enjoyed a few mediocre take-out pizzas and engaged in deep and thoughtful conversation that mainly involved pestering the only local in the group for details as to the correct pronunciation and etymology behind the nastiest dirty words of the language. Later that night he asked me in private if he had acted inappropriately at the dinner table by answering everyone's questions and saying such awful things. I told him he had.

An overnight bus ride back to Buenos Aires the following day, once again in the slightly bent knee'd seat of mis-comfort (and death!), and it was time for me to get back to Dakar Motos and prep Pete for shipping.

Photos of Iguazu!