May 12, 2006 - Iguassu Falls

Hello everyone! We have reversed our itinerary and we have spent the last 6 days touring southern Brazil. We headed out from Santos to Curitiba where we took the 3 hour train ride to Morrentes. It didn't go to Paranagua but that was good because Morrentes is a sleepy little town that is very clean, colourful and warm! Pictures to follow when we can get to a place to post them! We then took the train back to Curitiba and spent the night with family of Sarah's first host family. They were absolutely hospitable and wonderful to us. We then headed down to Florianopolis by bus which was a very pleasant ride during the day and we got to see the countryside and ocean views galore. We stayed at a great little bed and breakfast which only cost us 105 Reais for all of us per night. (about $50. CDN) The food and beer is cheap. We had a huge plateful of yummy deepfried shrimp and 3 huge beers (600 ml) for only 33 Reais ($17. CDN) They serve beer in big bottles and give you little glasses that you keep filling up. The breakfasts here consist of lots of cafezinja, bread, baked goods and fresh fruit and juices and the ever present portuguese buns with ham and cheese. Lunches are the main meal and they eat dinner at around 9:00 pm which seems to be just as big! We hiked up a mountain and took in the beautiful view of the area around our B & B and all the white sand beaches that are everywhere! We headed out after a couple of days by bus (this time 13.5 hours) to Iguassu Falls arriving just this morning at 6:30 am. We went to check into our next hotel and discovered flat hard beds....not so good after a long bus ride so we went wandering around and found a better hotel with better beds and crashed for 3 hours. Our first plan was to eat and then figure out how to get to Bolivia and the Salt Flats....who knew how difficult this was going to be arranging for flights from one country to another. The airlines only fly from the capital or very large cities with international airports and then to your little destination. There seems to be a lot of backtracking and we have decided to cut out the Salt Flats more for reasons of lack of time. (yes another is in the plans) Everything does seem to take longer to do which is fine but we don't want to be rushed with Machu Picchu and the Amazon. We had some bad news about our puppy Connie. She had not been feeling well for past month or so and we knew her time was short and she passed away on Sunday night. Thank you to Lorenzo for being there for her and taking care of everything! She will be missed very much by us as she is part of our family. Other than that we are all doing well and will try to keep you posted more frequently but travelling has limited us somewhat. Posting pictures seems to be a challenge too due to equipment. Tchau for now!