After ditching our bags, we wandered up the street to find food. 8 blocks later the heat got to us and we just plopped down in the first decent looking restaurant that wasn't a buffet. Apparently buffets are popular here and still just as scary to eat at (I really dislike buffets). At lunch we realized that we could use credit cards, knowledge that is super handy as our pesos were running low. We wanted to walk the town and maybe go wine tasting, but we needed the credit cards...which were back at the hotel. It was an internal struggle on whether to go back to the hotel to get the cards, or just walk around and hope we found an ATM later. Somehow going back to the hotel won out, but our town adventure was waylaid for an hour by Robby falling asleep. I had to force her back into the heat, but it was only 2:30pm and we couldn't see ourselves hanging out at a hotel all day. They did have an inviting looking pool, but there was not a lick of shade anywhere near it, so that option was crossed off our list.
Town turned out to be rather large- 5 long blocks consisting of stores and restaurants that all met together and diverge into more shopping or residential areas. Robby had decided to we're going to Three Frontiers- a lookout spot that showed you Puraguay, Brazil, and Argentina. We stood on the Argentina balcony 100 foot high over 2 rivers that flowed between the countries. Kind of cool, but since it was so hot, we walked to the lookout point, snapped a picture, and then hid in the shade for 30 minutes to recover from walking there. When we recovered a bit of our energy, we walked back through town, bought a nice Malbec, some local cheese, and fruit to share while hanging out at the hotel bar.
Day 2 in Iguazu - we woke up early for a tour to the Wanka Gem Mines and Jesuit Ruins. The gem mine was mostly a tourist attraction, but they have 12 working miners and they create beautiful jewelry using mostly quartz that's evolved into different stones through mineral and chemical reactions creating amethyst, rose quartz, and other stones of various colors. The quartz lives in pockets throughout the caves, but stupid tourist break in on the weekends and smash the pockets open to snag pieces of the stones, therefore destroying large pieces of the gems, messing up the caves, and hurting the company's finances. Robby and I decided to buy a few stones to support the local business, plus gems are pretty.
Next stop was the Jesuit Ruins, which happened to be a 2 hour bus ride away from the mines. I had unfortunately chosen seats in the back of the messed up 15-pass van thing our tour used, where the backrow seats were 2 feet higher up than the rest of the seats, so everytime we went over a bump, our heads would graze the ceiling. It was not all that comfortable. but luckily Robby didn't get carsick and we made it to the ruins in one piece.
After a quick lunch we headed into the ruins. At first the guide came over and started jabbering on for 10 minutes in Spanish before moving on. I decided to ask if he spoke English and he goes, "why didn't you say so in the beginning?" maybe because he just walked over and started a diatribe without stopping to breathe. He told us to wait on the side and went to fetch anEmglish guide. We ended up on our own private tour with a college girl that at first was annoyed with us constantly taking photos, but aftern we started talking with her for a bit, she lightened up. The ruins were from the 1800's when the Jesuits came to conquer the local native tribes. They convinced the tribes to live in houses, work with the priests and live monogamist lifestyles (they used to be hardcore polygamists). The ruins were of a city, one of three that fought a bunch with the other tribes in the area and tribes from the surrounding countries.
The king of the tribe's children were allowed to go to the Priest's school and learn about Gid and politics while everyone else learn a trade. Everyone had to contribute and if you didn't agree with something, the Jesuit's tied you up in the center square and whipped you. But besides that, the place didn't seem half bad. There was a sense of community, families lived together and everyone took care of everyone else.
After the ruins we found out that the dingy mini bus had broken down, so we wandered the town (not much there but a few dirt roads, closing shops, and mangy dogs) before our bus driver told us we get to go home on the big greyhound type bus. Oh darn - comfy reclining seats, legroom, and a movie; sucks the mini bus broke. The movie was called The Mission and starred Robert DeNiro and Jeremy Irons. It told the story of Jesuit missionaries coming to convert the local Iguazu tribe, Guarani, and protecting them from the Porteguese government, who thought the Guarani's were no better than animals and needed to be wipped out or enslaved. The priests died for what they believed in, Ali g with most of the tribe. This movie was based on the real plight of the Guanai and the missionaries that came to change their lives. Even though the movie was dubbed in Spanish, it was interesting to watch.
Back in Puerto Iguazu, we had a nice fish dinner before hitting the sack. Even with the heat, this place is quite lovely.
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