The following morning after our first of two ham and cheese toasties for the day, Anita and I took the 13:40 bus to Sao Paulo to the West heading toward the falls. It was a 6 hour journey and fairly comfortable as the seats went back to almost horizontal and they played the movie "Wayne´s World" on repeat the entire time.
We were lucky in that we arrived in Sao Paulo and immediately managed to jump on the 16 hour overnight coach to Foz do Iguacu. This journey was quite possibly the worst journey I have ever experienced in my life. When we left Paraty it was roughtly 30 degrees and hot, while we tried to sleep on the coach it was around 4 degrees outside and the air conditioning was blowing on us at full blast. Anita and I expecting sun and sea for our entire time in South America had at most a cardigan which was jammed at the bottom of our rucksack. Of course our rucksack was safely stowed away in the coach hold. We actually thought we might die from exposure on this coach. Grumpy, frozen to our marrow we disembarked in Iguacu 16 hours later where all the locals were in woolly hats, big coats and mitts and their breath misted the air. I walked into the bus station in my jean shorts and Anita in her t-shirt to bemused local stares. We ran to the loos and pretty much emptied our rucksacks clothing ourselves in vest tops and other inappropriate layers.
Our only salvation at this point would be to arrive at a warm hostel, have a hot shower and get into our sleeping bag liners. We rocked up at the only hostel we could find in town, one totally open to the elements with outside showers and no heating until 9pm. It´s ok, it´s ok, just a hot shower, that´s all we need... I shuffled out to the shower block shivering and turned on the shower. Stone cold. Oh My God. I was getting irrationally angry at this point and just wanted to cry.
The next day, no surprise, both Anita and I had a cold and felt like death warmed up. It was monsoon raining outside and about 5 degrees again. We managed to get dressed and head over to Foz do Iguacu, which actually in spite of all the pain, cold, rain and discomfort was worth it times a million. They were absolutely massive, thundering and beautiful. The rain made them all the more magnificent and we managed to walk our to viewing platform in the middle as the waters raged beneath us, we screamed and giggled in excitement and kept saying ´oh my god, oh my god!!´. A true thrill and absolutely terrifying. By the time we made it back to the hostel there was not an inch of us that was dry, our walking boots like puddles but we felt totally exhilarated by the experience.
The following day we mooched about the main town Foz do Iguacu, which was a weird mix between a Middle-America town, an Australian town and a Brazilian Town. Taking time out today, we were starting to see the pleasure in the small things, such as having dry socks and paper towels in the toilets. One of our happiest moments we were starting to notice is every time we came across the perfect size shape and consistency plastic bag. They can be used to separate stuff in our rucksacks, hold our ham and cheese toasties, store wet toiletries. There is no end to their usefulness! We salvage and hoard them in our rucksacks like candy, and get plastic bag jealousy when one of us gets a really good one. Ham and cheese toasties are beginning to become a luxury, this morning Anita said she was going to make a ´sandwich´, which actually turned out to be a peice of dry bread that she nibbled on like the little match girl. Endless hilarity.
That evening we then caught a flight in the evening up to Lima, Peru where we would gradually work our way back down the continent.
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