Wednesday 27 January

Iguacu (also known as Iguazu) Falls

An adventurous day for us old folk, which made it a highlight of our trip so far. Firstly we left the hotel early by bus to cross into Argentina to visit the other side of the falls. 90% of the falls are actually in Argentina and only 10% in Brazil. It took quite a while to get through the Argentinian border crossing! There is a kind of no man’s land between the two border controls, so I don’t know who actually administers it. The Iguazu River is the actual border so the bridge has one half with green and gold (Brazil), and the other half blue and white (Argentina). We imagine each country administers right up to the middle of the bridge!

Firstly we managed to be on the first little train to get to the starting point for the walk to the falls (thanks to our tour director who wanted us to be among the first there to avoid the crowds). We had to walk about a km along a metal board-walk. The river is about 4km wide above the falls, so most of our walk was over water. We could see where a previous board-walk had been washed away in a flood. 

Our destination was the “Devil’s Throat”, a long narrow ravine into which much water poured from all round. Spectacular! We occasionally got water spray, but not much because there was no wind. Apparently you can get quite wet standing there.

Butterflies in abundance ...

... and birds

... and tortoises

... and other critters (Coatis - raccoon-like).

Following this we got the little train only half way back so we could walk the rest of the way to see the wildlife. This is a national park so there is a lot. A photographer had taken our photos so we paid for them and went by bus to the helipad. [This was the first time we actually gave permission for a photograph – we have been photographed leaving the airport, or leaving a hotel, with these blokes then catching up with us later in the day or even the next day(!) to show the photo and wanting us to buy! We did buy one such photo of Stuart.] We paid extra to fly by helicopter over the falls. First time we’ve been in a helicopter. We both sat in the front, with Lesley sitting next to the pilot (we had three of us in the front and four in the back). Photos are not brilliant because of the angles and reflections and other helicopter bits, but it was amazing.

Our hotel, taken from the internet. Our room was in the square end at the left.

Then we all went down to the river downstream of the falls, and zoomed up to the falls in large jet inflatables. They took us under one of the falls, four times, so we got rather wet! Great fun! Lesley used our waterproof camera, getting a few decent shots, and Stuart used the Go Pro look-alike for some videos.

We returned to the hotel very wet, to change and rest. Some of the ladies had cocktail drinks at the jewellery shop in the hotel to look at their wares. Beautiful jewellery – gold, diamonds, emeralds etc. Very expensive, most items over $2000US. Brazil is known for precious and semi-precious stones. Lesley looked, but didn’t buy. Others bought, however – mostly rings.

Dinner was earlier, and not as noisy as last night. Buffet of beautiful food! And Brazilian lemonade isn’t anywhere near as nice as Peruvian lemonade!!

Tomorrow we go to the bird park, to look around and have lunch, then fly to Rio.

Tuesday 26 January

Lima to Iguacu Falls

Cows in the outside area of the hotel in Lima

Today was spent mostly: on the way to an airport; at an airport (and trying to spend our remaining soles [pronounced Soll-ez] which is Peruvian currency); in a plane; in an airport trying to get through customs; in a bus. Ah well …….. It was a bit of a long day. We sat down to dinner at the hotel after 8.30pm, but found the restaurant fairly buzzing. Seems Brazilians like to eat later.

huge advertising over the roads

Coke anyone? Opposite the Lima airport entrance!

Our hotel is the only one on the Brazil side actually in the national park of the falls, and at the top of the fall, so we are really close to the falls (only about 150 m). We can hear it, but it isn’t loud because the water is falling into ravine so is below the level of the hotel. 

Monday 25 January

Lima

Today’s excursion was a bus-and-walking tour of downtown Lima. We went to Central Lima, which is the old part. Here are many old buildings, built by the Spanish. Lovely carved wooden verandahs looking over the street, old stone churches, the Presidential Palace, the Palace of the Archbishop. 

The Archbishop's Palace next door to the Cathedral

 

Archbishop's wooden verandah in detail

One end of Presidential Palace

Presidential Palace

Yellow building signify the city of Lima

Police on duty sending off a suspicious woman

Queue of people to do their banking

street sellers

We had a tour of Convento de San Francisco, the Franciscan monastery, looking at old paintings explaining the story of St Francis to the Peruvians Indians. 

We also went into the catacombs under the church – like all churches of the 15-16^th centuries, the local people were buried under the church. Archaeologists have estimated over 10,000 people were buried under this church. The catacombs have the bones laid out by archaeologists largely thigh bones and some skulls because the bodies were laid one above the other with layer of limestone between. The limestone damaged and destroyed the finer bones, reducing them to dust. Due to the earthquakes in the region the builders of the church built curved ceilings, and circular wells to absorb the tremors, and stop collapse of the church above. No photos were allowed, so the following two photos, of the bones in the bottom of the well, were Googled!

We walked around an area of housing dating back to the early 20^th century (Miraflores), which is now popular with artists and crafty folk.

Large ant of woven natural fibre

church undergoing restoration, in the old way (bird on top are vultures)

large woven cat

Peruvian electrical wiring leaves a lot to be desired - this is common throughout!

We then had lunch at a restaurant, with a tapas first course, then mains. Once we got back to the hotel we were free to do our own thing. A group of us walked to the shops some distance away to get some necessities, then walked to the olive tree park. This was popular with many families sitting under the old olive trees and enjoying nature. 

small but noisy demonstration against corruption in something on the way to the shops

Near the hotel is a pre-Incan pyramid-style structure called Huallamarca. It looks so out of place in the city. Unfortunately it was closed but we walked around it. Google says it went through three uses – firstly as a temple, secondly s a funeral place, and thirdly as a village with people living on it. It is made of adobe bricks (no stone in this area), with three levels and a ramp leading to the flat top. It has survived so well because it was buried under soil, and also because Lima has a low rainfall so the adobe wasn’t washed away.

We have learned to order only one meal for dinner and share it. The servings are really big, but the food is delicious. They have lemonade that is the old-fashioned stuff made with real lemons (more like limes) and water. No bubbles! Really nice.

Peruvian police seem to be divided up into different sections, much like Aus, but they have different uniforms for different functions. We have noticed that traffic cops seem to be women, with bright lime green gloves that they wave constantly, and they also blow whistles constantly! Motor cycle cops are both male and female, but the females wear jodhpur-style fawn/beige pants that are very tight (tucked into long black boots) and are perhaps a little too revealing! They don’t seem to mind though. They have guns in white holsters on their hips. Stylish! In major cities there were tourism police, who had fancy uniforms and seemed to be there to help tourists and make sure they weren’t attacked or something!