Our overnight bus from Uruguay took us to Porto Alegre, Brazil, where we immediately caught another bus further north along the coast to Florianopolis and the highly touted beach paradise of Ilha de Santa Catarina where two more local buses took us to the south end of the island and a hostel that was just 50 metres from the sandy ocean. It was run by some artists (painters) who were very hospitable and enjoying life in a very relaxed state. The only problem was that it was raining steadily, and continued for two days......our first stretch of bad weather during our two month journey. We played cards waiting for the sun to emerge and when it was still raining on day 2 we decided to take the local buses around the island, and 4 buses later we had toured the island and realized what a fun place it would be when umbrellas weren't required.
With rain predicted for another day, and full into our bus addiction, we travelled 4 hours by bus to Curitiba where we were able to catch an overnight bus to Iguazu Falls where we are right now. We passed on an afternoon trip to the falls, saving that excitement for tomorrow so that our sun deprived bodies (especially Caity's since she arrived) could enjoy some leisure time around the magnificent pool and patio at our hostel in Puerto Iguazu on the Argentinian side of the falls.
Prior to coming here we had 5 hours to burn in Curitiba before catching the overnight bus so we walked around until we had enough of the rain and then had a leisurely dinner at a brewpub. It was a good choice.....the beer was good and plentiful (as you can see from our 2.5L starting vessel), and it is a necessary substitute for wine in Brazil were the vinho is terrible (we actually poured our first bottle down the sink at our island hostel......the second brand was barely drinkable and a lesson learned not to purchase any more). The best / worst moment of the night (depending on your point of view) came when dinner arrived. In Brazil the native language is Portuguese and while we were starting to understand almost 75% of what was said to us in Spanish........although that still got us into trouble in Tigre where we thought they said "go to another dock to catch the return boat" instead of "go to ANY dock to catch the return boat" which led us on an adventure previously posted......we were now starting all over trying to communicate with the locals. Since we had not had a meal all day and everyone was starving we all ordered separate meals (we usually share) and Rhonda was ready for a beef feast so she ordered Carne de Onca. What she didn't realize, and you should have seen the look of horror on her face when her meal arrived, was that she had unknowingly asked for steak tartare......uncooked meat which she despises! Caity and I graciously shared our meals (they serve very large portions in South America), and I consumed most of Rhonda's meal which in spite of her bias was very tasty (and I'm still fine today).
Meanwhile we are giving the locals lots of laughs with our mixture of Spanish, Portuguese and English often thrown into the same sentence, but we are getting by and fortunately "cerveza" works everywhere.
Stay tuned for some great (hopefully) pictures from Iguazu Falls.
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