May 30, 2003
After breakfast, we hooked up with two couples - Milena's parents and their relatives from Spain who had a 4-month old baby. We decided to walk with them to La Aripuca, a place that was advertised on the back of the flyer for Güira Oga. The walk was farther than any of had thought and one of the men asked some locals who pointed out the road to the entrance, which was not too far away. Michaela was in the backpack of course, Milena was in an umbrella stroller, and the baby was in a stroller/carriage.
Aripuca is a name for a trap that the local natives use to catch animals and the biggest thing at Aripuca was a huge replica of an aripuca. At the entrance, there was a large tree and next to it was an office built entirely from trees: the doors were hollowed out halves of a tree, the furniture was made from roots, and the walls and everything else was made from unfinished trees. It was very cool. And it only cost a few pesos.
We had already set Michaela down and she was making her way around. We headed outside past a sign showing itemizing the price of yerba mate (the farmer gets .03 out of 2 pesos) to a model of an aripuca. Michaela quickly made her way to the aripuca. I thought she would set it off, but the guide prevented her. From there, we made our way to the other areas: the very large aripuca and the places where we could buy local crafts.
First, we checked out the large aripuca. I helped MIchaela slowly walk over to it and then set her down to play in the dirt. She has learned (I think) not to eat dirt and rocks. Anyway, Milena's mom took Milena out of the stroller and set her down nest to Michaela, and they played together in the dirt. This continued for a while until Milena's father saw his daughter getting dirty, picked her up, and tried to brush off all the dirt. Milena was not happy. She cried for quite a while as Michaela continued to play. I later found out that many things we consider normal for Michaela are considered by Milena's parents to be signs of a problem child.
Remember when I said not buy crafts at Iguazu? The reason why is Aripuca. They have two places to buy handicrafts and they are cheaper than in Iguaza by about 50%. We bought lots of stuff - blow guns, a rattle for Michaela, a little coati and toucan, and some other stuff. We also looked at wooden furniture and more "practical" things but decided against buying the homemade dulce de leche, local jam, or candies. We did however, buy a bag of round bread thingies that had cheese and other stuff in them from a local for 1.5 pesos. Of course, I only had 2 pesos and he didn't have change so I told him to keep the extra. We shared them with the other couples. They were quite hard and at first seemed unappealing but they grew on me. They kept Michaela working her mouth on them for quite a while.
Then we all piled into taxis that had been called for us for a quick trip to Tres Fronteras, where Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil meet. The actual location is in the water, but you can see all countries and the rivers that separate them. There is a monument and a grassy area with benches - along with a line of little stalls selling tourist-oriented goods. This is when I noticed that all of the other couples smoked. It seems that most people in Argentina smoke. Again, I set Michaela down to crawl around and Milena joined her for a while until her dad took her away again. Michaela soon found a cat and was chasing it around the monument area. Fortunately, two women having lunch were feeding the cat, so it was willing to stick around while Michaela grabbed at it and chased it. Margarita spent most of her time talking to Milena's mom as I kept watch over Michaela. On the way out, Margarita stopped to picked up a souvenir and then we were off to lunch at a parilla. We only had an hour so we had to make it quick.
We were first to the restaurant and then were joined by the other couples. Lunch was nice - we had meat (surprise). The other two fathers split a parillada for 4 and the moms had pasta and chicken. After they had finished eating Michaela and Milena spent a lot of time playing with each other at a window that had a full-length curtain. They seemed to love seeing each other intermittently as the curtain moved around. They also chased each other around the restaurant a bit. We had to split early to catch our ride to the airport from the hotel so we bid our farewells and caught the taxi to the hotel.
The bus for the airport was waiting for us at the hotel, so we quickly grabbed our things and got onto the bus. This time, we would be picking up another couple along the way at the Sheraton hotel in Iguazu. Michaela quickly fell asleep along the way in my arms. However, I wanted to check out the view from the Sheraton, so when we stopped, I handed a sleeping Michaela over to Margarita and rushed into the lobby of the hotel to check out the view. It was a spectacular view of the falls. I filmed it with a video camera, in case you're curious. I rushed back into the bus before they were done loading the luggage and we were on our way again.
Things went smoothly at the airport and we had an uneventful flight back to Buenos Aires. We didn't have a hotel for the night at it was kind of late, so Margarita checked prices and availability and found a suite for 100 pesos that included transportation from the airport, so we ended up there for the night. It was close to Avenida 9 de Julio and the hotel we had stayed at previously. As a suite, it had a living room and a full kitchen, which was nice, but it was only available for one night so we would have to move the next morning. Oh well.
Tomorrow - a new hotel and Buenos Aires.
Posted by mike at June 3, 2003 05:51 PM