Today was largely a travel day, leaving “Mal Aires” and going to the Heart of Darkness in the South American jungle. I woke up early to my té and wheat toast with queso, and headed to the airport in a hired car driven by Jerry Seinfeld’s Uncle Morty. Uncle Mort was rocking the pink and green striped tie with harvest green argyle sweater, so I felt safe in the hands of a true professional. He asked me if I wanted to go to the “aeroparque,” although I thought I was headed to the “aeropuerto.” Yet another instance of it being tough enough to understand these people already, made worse by local idioms not taught in the University of Texas Spanish language classes I took 20 years ago. Another example is when I wanted a tea “to go” at a local café-I was saying “ir” which literally means “to go,” but they had no idea what the hell I was talking about. Of course, had I said “to go” in London they probably would have been equally at a loss; there it’s called “take aways.” There’s your Sesame Street moment for today.
As we head out of the city centre to the airport, we pass what I can only describe as the slums. These are orange mortar brick structures, to use the term loosely, about half of which appear bombed out. They have that authentic 1945 Berlin architectural style down pretty good, and make the ‘hood in almost any major American city look like Beverly Hills. I can hardly imagine living there; it almost looks like some science fiction movie where all the people have died (except one guy, who gets more and more irritating as the movie drags on due to lack of dialogue to advance the plot). Yet, at the top of building after building were full clotheslines, indicating the presence of “tenants.” Fittingly, these buildings were located just the “other side” from the main Buenos Aires railyard, and they seemed to cover quite a large area. Oh, and we passed a huge billboard for the Michael Bolton concert, which unfortunately was a couple of days ago. That guy doesn’t miss a trick huh? Ditch Nicolette Sheridan one day, go on world tour the next. He must be recruiting more lucky women to go to his “private island.” So sad to have missed the show. As everyone knows, I’m a huge Michael Bolton fan. For my money, it just doesn’t get any better than when he sings “When A Man Loves a Woman.” No wonder the rest of the world hates us.
At the airport it looks like my lucky day. Huge lines at the LAN gates, no lines at the Aerolineas Argentinas gates, the airline I’m flying to Iguazu. And even though I have a panic moment as I go over the notes I took of when I booked the flights, which said “call to reconfirm on 9/2” (which I hadn’t), there was absolutely no problem getting on the flight. Security at this airport is an absolute joke. In other words, its almost exactly like it was in the US pre-9/11. You don’t take off your shoes or jacket, you just have to empty your pockets of metal objects and put carry-ons through the x-ray machine and walk through the metal detector. At first it seems kind of weird, but then again, I doubt al Queda has been training to hijack the Buenos Aires to Iguazu flight. The airport itself is fairly nice. It’s the domestic flights airport, so its like Hobby in Houston as compared with Bush Intercontinental. It appears to have been built only recently. The only weirdness is that you don’t go down the walkway and get directly on your plane. You go down the runway, and get on a shuttle bus that takes you to the plane sitting out close to the runway. I think they have more flights than the gates can handle. Otherwise its very modern and has a lot of the smaller US airports I’ve flown through beat (pay close attention Shreveport).
Iguazu airport is quite a different affair. Two gates—Gate One and Gate Two. Two gates. Monroe, Louisiana thinks you people have a small airport. While approaching and landing, all you can see for miles is thick forest and jungle. Not exactly a high urban area. As you land you can see the Igauzu River and the mist created by the falls, although you can’t actually see the falls themselves. As I head out the door, accompanied by the taxi driver assigned by the taxi stand, I can immediately feel the change in climate. Its Houston alright—in May, not January. Although the display in the airport said it was 73, it was that Houston kind of 73 that feels like its about 80, and like bugs may start crawling on you at any minute. You can almost see the mildew growing.
The road to the town is hacked through the jungle, yet is fairly well passable given the circumstances. It runs past an Army facility with a helicopter prominently displayed, which may explain the good condition. What an Army base is doing out here is beyond me—but obviously they’re keeping Northern Argentina safe from a Brazilian invasion. (Actually, that begs the larger question why most countries in this world actually need a military of any kind. You can see just how effective the Georgia defense budget was recently. Why does a country like Argentina, or Peru, or France, that’s never going to fight a war with another country, actually need a military? Just create an armed police force big enough to put down local peasant uprisings and drug lords who don’t pay up, but not big enough to stage a coup, and spend the rest of your budget on things like water purification, or dentistry). It’s a fairly nice drive with attractive scenery, sort of like the drive from Kingwood to Magnolia, Texas. My talkative cab driver (which was weird because he couldn’t speak a word of English, yet insisted on droning on in Spanish), whisked me past the entrance to the National Park and into Puerto Iguazu, after which he tried to convince me to hire him to take me to the falls the next day for the low price of 120 pesos (the round trip bus is 8 pesos).
How can I tactfully describe Puerto Iguazu, Argentina? You know that scene in Romancing the Stone, when Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas come out of the jungle and find this little hamlet where all the bandidos start following them as they head to the house of the local drug lord? Welcome to Puerto Iguazu. I kept waiting for pygmy warriors to leap out and attack with blow darts any second. Now, that’s a bit unfair, as it does have power lines and a couple of schools, and there are a few tourist hotels. I actually saw a relatively nice supermarket, wine store, a Chevy dealership (do they ask these people to “see the USA in a Chevrolet”?), an appliance store, and a big bus station. But it still makes Galena Park look like the Riviera. This place's leading export is dysentery, like in Bananas. The hotel (St. George), actually is fairly nice. The room is twice as big as the one I had in BA (and costs twice as much, although the rate included breakfast and dinner), but unfortunately they warned against drinking the tap water. First time I’ve ever been in a “don’t drink the water” area, so I had to head into town for provisions. It was too late to make it out to the falls anyway, so I set out on foot to explore the town. Didn’t see any bandidos, but I did notice that the great majority of the people here looked darker than in BA, I guess owing to more European integration with the indigenous peoples here through the years. Puerto Iguazu appears to have two primary purposes. One is to support the tourist industry related to the falls. The other is that it appears to be a regional transit hub. The bus station was very active all the day and night, with runs to cities all throughout the region. I noticed that most of the local stores and cafés were closed between 2 and 5, then reopened from 5 until around 8. Around 5 it started to cool down a bit to the point where it was actually somewhat comfortable. The schools let out around 5:30, and dozens of kids started walking the streets back home, wearing white coats resembling lab coats in the US. What can loosely be described as the main plaza had a number of native women sitting on the sidewalk with blankets folded out in front of them selling crafts and jewelry. Lots of tourists were milling about the streets and sitting in bars and restaurants. I noticed more and more obvious tourist types, and people speaking other languages. Question: how do you spot an American male tourist? Answer: he’s the guy with the huge gut, untucked shirt, and bald head. That guy was all over the place. With his wife Marge. Around 6 or so I passed a “tango bar” where what appeared to the owner was teaching a pretty blonde woman to tango while her boyfriend/husband looked on intently. That wasn’t weird.
Back at the hotel for dinner, which was a fairly good buffet with veal in wine sauce and pork with mustard, I finished around 9:30. This is when the place started filling up with guests ready for their dinner. I just can’t get over how late these people eat, but then again, some restaurants in Austin are still going strong at that time. I saw a lot of couples at dinner; I wouldn’t think of Puerto Iguazu as my ideal romantic getaway holiday, but I guess you take what you can get. Also observed, yet again, what I see everywhere I go—couples at dinner, not saying a word to each other. What is that? People sometimes ask me why I travel alone. Well I can go by myself, not talk to anyone, and do it for half the cost of these couples. Its basically a financial management strategy.
I’ll give Puerto Iguazu one thing: it does have clean air. Dirty water, but clean air. Guess you can’t have it all.
Tomorrow-Iguazu Falls.
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