Please be sure to read the previous 3 installments of this story before starting in on this next one.

Six months before this trip happened, I had spent a few days in the vicinity of Cerro Fitzroy in southern Patagonia. Heady days they were, and while there I met some climbers, fine folk with whom I struck up an immediate friendship. I walked in to the area with Daniel Renison, and he introduced me to his friends Julio and Susana. Daniel was going in to check up on the others, who had been waiting for an entire month in the notoriously-foul Patagonian weather, hoping against hope for a window of clear weather to attempt Fitzroy. Daniel was working on his PhD, doing a study of Magellanic penguins at Punto Tombo way down in Chubut Province south of Trelew. All 3 of them called Córdoba home, and that’s where Johanna and I were now headed.

Day 25 – July 4, 1991 (continued)

Upon landing at the Aeroparque in Buenos Aires, we saw that they had checked our bags all the way through to Córdoba – that was nice, we didn’t have to haul them around. Remember how we had a total of 8 one-way flights on our Visite Argentina pass? Travel to-and-from Mendoza, and to-and-from Ushuaia had used up 4 of them. Now, with this flight to Córdoba, that made 5. Our next flight took off 45 minutes late (the plane was late arriving from Mar del Plata). En route, we flew over many brightly-lit cities, including Rosario, the country’s 3rd-largest. After a flight of an hour and ten minutes, we touched down. Julio and Susana were there to meet us. Daniel was in Bolivia working as a mountain guide at the time. Susana’s house was full, so they drove us out to a town to the west of the city, by the name of Villa Carlos Paz. Susana’s family owned a motel there, but it was closed for the winter (little tourist traffic). They put us up in a nice room, but with no heat. After dropping off our bags, they took us back in to Córdoba to meet her family, where we visited until late. They then returned us to the motel for the night – it was very cold, and we slept under a mountain of blankets.

Day 26 – July 5,1991

For a change, we slept late. After a breakfast of bread and jam in our room, Susana and her mother came by around 11:00 AM. We walked to the local station and caught a bus into Córdoba, then walked to Julio’s home. We met his parents, sister, brother, cousin and grandmother – they all live together in the same house. We had a fantastic vegetarian meal and talked for hours – what a nice family, and so well-educated. At that time, Argentina provided tuition-free higher education for its citizens, and everyone seemed to take advantage of it. For example: Julio was studying biology; his sister Ana Ines – biochemistry; his brother Andrés, architecture; his cousin Alejandro, medicine; Susana, accounting, and her sister Alicia, pharmacy.

We then walked around in town. They have a huge peatonal, about 4 blocks by 6 blocks, which we walked in for hours – it was a fine, sunny day. The centro is filled with beautiful architecture, interesting shops, lovely parks and fun places to eat. Córdoba is the second-largest city in Argentina, with 1.3 million people. It has 6 major universities and several post-secondary colleges. Its largest, the National University of Córdoba, was founded in 1613 and is the 4th-oldest in the Americas – it boasts 105,000 students. In fact, so many students live in the city from all over the world that they create a very cosmopolitan atmosphere. In short, this is a great city.

Eventually, we ended up back at their home for tea, then took a micro to the terminal and another bus back to Carlos Paz. Later on, we found a nearby restaurant for a bite of supper, then back to our cold room for the night. It had been a lovely winter’s day.

Day 27 – July 6, 1991

I bought a few items at a local food store and we made a spare breakfast in our cold room. Susana arrived, walking, and we waited with her for her friend Pato to arrive. In his car, we went out for a pizza. Then to Susana’s house, where we picked up her mother and all drove out to Lago San Roque. It was a warm day, and we had an enjoyable time walking around this popular tourist area. Later, we rode a chairlift for an overview of the city, then went for tea at Susana’s house. Next, we stopped by their local climbing club – it was a nice place filled with dedicated climbers, an inspiring place to be. Climbing clubs are very popular in Argentina, every city of any size has one or more, and they’re always high-energy places to be. After an enjoyable while there, they dropped us back at our motel room where we wound down from our day.

Day 28 – July 7, 1991

This was our last day in Córdoba. At 8:30 AM, Julio, Susana and Alicia arrived. We went into the city and had tea with Julio’s grandmother. Johanna gave her a southwestern pot-holder and tea towel set we’d brought from Arizona – it was a small gift but she really appreciated it. We said our goodbyes, and Julio and Alicia drove us to the airport – they waited with us until we boarded our very crowded flight. It was hard to part with these friends who had treated us so well.

It was an easy flight back to the Aeroparque in Buenos Aires. We had become seasoned veterans of hanging out in that place, and it was getting old. With time to kill, we walked along the seawall and relaxed, whiling away 5 1/2 hours. Our next flight was late, and we weren’t airborne until 6:50 PM – you have no idea how glad we were to be out of there! On board our usual 737, we flew an hour and 35 minutes through the night. Hundreds of miles passed, brightly-lit cities passing beneath our wings. We set down at the small airport at Puerto Iguazú, Argentina, collected our bags and took a bus into town. Disembarking, we stood on the curb across from the bus station with a French couple. It was very warm compared to every other place we’d been so far – it definitely did not feel like winter.

I went out walking the streets, looking for lodging. The Residencial Lilian rated an F in the South American Guidebook, yet they wanted a whopping 260,000 Australes for a night. Everything else was full, and would surely cost even more, so we took a room there. It was nice and clean, with 3 single beds. I took my first shower since Ushuaia ( the motel room at Villa Carlos Paz had been so cold, and with no hot water). We went out to the restaurant at the bus station for a bite – tortilla de papa and ensalada completa – good enough to satisfy our hunger, especially so late. My back had been bothering me all day, so once back at our room I quickly fell asleep.

Day 29 – July 8, 1991

I slept like a baby, so soundly I didn’t even hear our usual alarm. We arose late, put together a day pack and walked over to the terminal. A bus left right away, and we were on it. Damn, it was expensive – it cost 146,000A (about $15 US) for the 250 KM ride. We passed through rolling country – hills and forest – pine, banana, orange – it looked and felt tropical, and the soil was brick-red. By the time we arrived at San Ignacio Mini, it was already 3:00 PM.

Much has been written about this World Heritage Site, and it was portrayed in the 1986 movie The Mission. It was built in 1610, and is quite the amazing place to visit. It is located in the province of Misiones close to the Río Paraná. The above link will tell you much about it. It was very late by the time the bus returned us to our room, where we ate enough to quell our hunger and then fell asleep, exhausted.

Day 30 – July 9, 1991

This day would turn out to be the best of times and the worst of times, memorable in many ways. I had become so cost-conscious (i.e. – a cheapskate) that I felt the $25 US we were paying for the room was unacceptable. This turned out to be a big mistake, as events later in the day would show. The owner said it’d be okay if we left our bags with her for the day while we were out playing tourist, even though we’d checked out.

I haven’t really talked about where we were and why. The city, Puerto Iguazú, is a real draw for tourism because it sits near Iguazu Falls, and the falls attract tourists from all over the world. The falls are known worldwide, and now we were there with time on our hands, planning to make the most of the opportunity. Iguazu is not the tallest falls in the world (not more than 269 feet), but it is the largest waterfall system in the world, with 275 separate falls. If you look at the total length of the falls, it is a whopping 1.7 miles. The Iguazu River is what tumbles over the falls, and it sits on the border between Brazil and Argentina. Much has been written about the falls, but here is a link that will tell you a lot about them, with some nice pictures.

We caught a bus to the falls and started walking. In places, there are sturdy boardwalks built out over the river, where you can go out over the fast-moving water to get up close to the edge of the falls themselves. It is nothing short of breath-taking, and all my words would fall far short of relating the actual experience for you. We went out to the edge of the Garganta del Diablo – the walkways are amazing – just when you think you can’t get any closer to the brink, you do. The roar of the water hurtling over the lip is deafening. Swifts flew in and out of the falling water – they must have had nests in behind. As we watched, a toco toucan flew by (they describe toucans as “a crow pushing a banana”). Flocks of green parrots squawked as they swirled around nearby.

We made our way down to the lower falls and did the walk from the Hotel Internacional. This was a completely different perspective, seeing the falls from the bottom, and just as spectacular. A vendor along the walk had something I just needed to buy, a T-shirt that immediately caught my eye. Here was the inscription on it:

Sólo después de que el último árbol haya sido talado, sólo después de que el último río haya sido envenenado, sólo después de que el último pez haya sido pescado, sólo entonces descubrirás que el dinero no se puede comer.

The saying is originally Native American, perhaps Cree, but I felt it was perfectly applicable to this amazing place in which we now found ourselves. While there, we learned of a research center – off we went to check it out. There, we met two American women and several Argentine students who were all working under the tutelage of a professor from the USA. They invited us to accompany them on a short field trip, so at 2:30 PM we all headed into the forest to observe a group of 14 capuchin monkeys. They moved around in the trees overhead – males, females and babies – we followed them as they moved, craning our necks, watching and listening to them. Not only were we studying the monkeys, the bird life around us was very distracting. The professor had passed 2,000 on his life list and then stopped counting. The monkeys moved on beyond our reach, so we went back to the research center, saw more birds and had a beer at the nearby bar. We caught the last bus back to town at 6:00 PM, then everything went to hell in a hand-basket.

Remember how we’d checked out of our lovely room this morning? They had rented it out immediately – there seemed to be a shortage of accommodation in town. I had come up with the brilliant idea that if we crossed over into Brazil, found cheaper digs and continued exploring the falls, we would then leave from there and head all the way to Río de Janeiro and visit a couple I’d met in the Andes 6 months earlier. So we collected our bags from the hotel and caught a bus over to the city of Foz do Iguaçu on the Brazilian side of the falls. It was already dark when we arrived, and some street urchin directed us to a nearby hotel. We checked in and were directed to our room upstairs. It was far worse than the room we’d given up that morning back across the river. To make matters worse, a loud band started playing in a club in the hotel directly below us. If it hadn’t been so late, we would have bailed out and found other lodgings, but we were stuck. Johanna cried and cried, and I was very upset – at myself, for being such a cheapskate – we had left a really nice room and ended up in a hell-hole. Since under the circumstances there was no sleep to be had, we stayed up and talked. Before the night was out, we had made some big decisions, some major changes of plans, and we’d put them into effect in the morning.

Stay tuned for the next installment of the story.