Sneaking Through Brazil

11/29/09

This morning our hotel served up a massive breakfast buffet. It is the most I've eaten for breakfast in a long time. After breakfast we walk across the bridge to Brazil. Shannon and Carmalyn walk straight through, but I get tapped on the shoulder and told to report to immigration. Apparently I'm the dodgy one. At immigration, I have a choice. I can pay an exorbitant visa fee and she'll stamp my passport or I can just walk on through without a stamp. I choose to walk on through. A fifteen minute bus ride later, we arrive at Brazilian exit customs. Again, I choose to walk on through. Finally, at Argentinian immigration, I actually show somebody my passport. And it is quickly handed back.

I have a theory that the more upstanding the country, the faster they process you at immigration (providing there are no problems). Some of the dodgiest countries have hemmed and hawed over my passport trying to decide if I should be let in, while in the U.K, it took only as long as it took to run my passport through the reader and ask if I was a tourist. The last time I was in Switzerland, I slid my passport under the 9 inches of bullet proof glass and the official (he didn't smile, Swiss officials never smile, but he came as close as officially authorized) slid it right back without even opening it. The U.S. always takes a long time at immigration, but I think that just confirms my theory.

Shannon found us a hostel with a pool (or, as I think of it, a pool that lets you spend the night). We arrive early and are told to come back in an hour so we go have lunch and walk around the town of Puerto de Iguazu. It is very touristy. Now I am sitting beside the pool typing this up after a refreshing swim. The girls went to see some monument at the corner where you can see three countries. It's going to take a lot more than three countries to drag me away from the pool and my beer.

Tonight we go visit Iguazu falls by moonlight. For that I will leave the pool.

At the park, we take a little train out to the last stop; the walkway out to the devil's throat (it's better in Spanish - Garganta del Diablo). It's about a mile out over the river to the devil's throat. The throat is a really narrow horseshoe-shaped section, right in the middle of the falls. We are standing above one side and the other side is only a hundred feet away. It is really beautiful by moonlight. I took some pictures and I think some of them turned out.