We are staying three nights at Foz, Brazil which is literally a short walk to the Paraguay border! Here they have a cross-border shopping experience like they have at Shenzen in China (from HK), so we will take advantage of that and I will buy a rolly suitcase (at long last!).
No one at this hotel speaks English. They also don't speak Spanish (or very little), for which I know a few hundred words now, so trying to explain what I want is a pain, however they are patient so lots of hand signals usually sorts it out. This morning I was trying to find the Cambio (money exchanger) to get some Brazilian Reales and it was right next door - as in RIGHT next door and I walked past, much to the amusement of the desk staff. I also asked for the laundry price list which was hidden under the desk - no wonder the prices were incredible at US$100 to get a few items done! I will walk elsewhere or do a few things in my room.
Ditto for a plug for the sink (one of my "is this a reasonable hotel" tests), as there is none here - so be it, the shower cap will do the job for my shave. Similarly for the power adapter - they have the normal three thin pin plugs as seen elsewhere in SA, but the middle one is offset somewhat, so none of my (many) adapters works - photo below.
I have upgraded my iPhone to the next software release last night, which has caused all sorts of issues today with my GoPro camera software called QUIK. Some extra time this morning is required to work that out.
The tour was supposed to start at 09:45 but there are too many busess going as it is Sunday, so we will wait until 10:30am! Anyway we head off in a van with Daniel the driver, to what turns out to be a big day. Drive 17km to the National Park of Iguasu and buy a ticket, which in our case was a ViP one so that we avoided a kilometre long queue to get in. Then walk almost a kilometre on a concrete track with hundreds of others and wait patiently at the best lookouts to take video and photos. It is truly spectacular and earns the title for the widest falls in the world (with Niagra having the most water and Victoria being the highest). The track is quite different to my memory to handle the number of people and to get you right up under the main fall. After that I walked up the track to the top, but you can catch an elevator to a restaurant which is marvelous but expensive.
We had a considerable buffet lunch and looked out to the Argentinian side where a long board-walk collapsed under heavy rain last week and killed a few people. Though I cannot get confirmation of that.
We were quite hot, but determined to go to the Bird Park a few kilometres up the road, and it was well worth it, with a two k track winding in and out of cages with double doors, so that the parrots and mccaws dont get out. There were also some animals and a butterfly cage. Overall it exceeded my expectations and was beautifully built and managed. And I got to see some birds that I had never heard of at all.
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