Tuesday, Mar 4 – Day 78
We hired a cab to take us over to the Brazilian side. I think it was something like 15 miles each way, and the driver waited for 3 hours while we toured the parks. Then, he drove us back to the hostel on the Argentine side. Total cost for the two of us, US$30.00.
Since I had already been to the Brazilian side, I went to the Parque de Aves (bird park) while John went to see the falls. It’s a 14 acre park cut right out of the jungle, and has several large aviaries that you walk through. A few of the more interesting things that I learned were that the Harpy Eagle is the largest raptor in the World, and its prey includes monkeys and sloths. Its claws, literally, are as large as my hands. The Golden Parakeet is a beautiful, small, green and yellow bird. It’s also an endangered species. Since a young chick is more valuable than an older bird, the traffickers will rip many of the feathers out of a mature bird to make it look like a chick. Unfortunately, many of the birds just die from the trauma. The strangest thing I saw didn’t even involve birds. There were about 100 centipedes crossing a sidewalk, and they were all just globed together in one big ball. This big hunk of bug-mass was just sort of slithering across the walk. I guess some ride on the backs of the others for a while, then at some point they probably find themselves at the bottom of the pile and have to take their turn carrying the others. I wondered what it would feel like to step on it.
Tomorrow, I’m flying down to Buenos Aires for a few days to catch up with some friends, then further South to Patagonia. I’ll be visiting the Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina, then hiking and camping in the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. After that, I’ll come back up to see the peaks of Fitz Roy, before heading up to the “lake areas” of both Chile and Argentina. I know that I’ll be moving around a lot, and now realize that I have too much stuff to lugging around all the time.
I spent some time thinking about how I’m going to lighten my load, and then went to the local DHL station to see what it would cost to send a package of clothes back to the states. Believe it or not, it’s US$186.00 for 2 kilograms (about 5 lbs.) The Argentine Post Office will send 5 kilos for $97.00 pesos (US$30.00), but they are only accepting 2 kilo packages today.
While investigating all of this, I saw a motorcycle get side-swiped by a car. I heard the “thud”, and turned to see a guy and a girl laid out in the street. The driver stopped, helped them up, and then moved the motorcycle out of the intersection. The police were there within minutes, picked up the motorcycle and put it in the back of their truck and drove off.
Looking around the accident site, I noticed that this is an intersection of two roads that are not perpendicular. In one of the obtuse angles, another road comes in, making it a 5-way intersection. So, of course, there is not a single stoplight, or stop sign, or yield sign on any corner. No wonder the motorcycle guy gets crushed.
We hired a cab to take us over to the Brazilian side. I think it was something like 15 miles each way, and the driver waited for 3 hours while we toured the parks. Then, he drove us back to the hostel on the Argentine side. Total cost for the two of us, US$30.00.
Since I had already been to the Brazilian side, I went to the Parque de Aves (bird park) while John went to see the falls. It’s a 14 acre park cut right out of the jungle, and has several large aviaries that you walk through. A few of the more interesting things that I learned were that the Harpy Eagle is the largest raptor in the World, and its prey includes monkeys and sloths. Its claws, literally, are as large as my hands. The Golden Parakeet is a beautiful, small, green and yellow bird. It’s also an endangered species. Since a young chick is more valuable than an older bird, the traffickers will rip many of the feathers out of a mature bird to make it look like a chick. Unfortunately, many of the birds just die from the trauma. The strangest thing I saw didn’t even involve birds. There were about 100 centipedes crossing a sidewalk, and they were all just globed together in one big ball. This big hunk of bug-mass was just sort of slithering across the walk. I guess some ride on the backs of the others for a while, then at some point they probably find themselves at the bottom of the pile and have to take their turn carrying the others. I wondered what it would feel like to step on it.
Tomorrow, I’m flying down to Buenos Aires for a few days to catch up with some friends, then further South to Patagonia. I’ll be visiting the Perito Moreno glacier in Argentina, then hiking and camping in the Torres del Paine National Park in Chile. After that, I’ll come back up to see the peaks of Fitz Roy, before heading up to the “lake areas” of both Chile and Argentina. I know that I’ll be moving around a lot, and now realize that I have too much stuff to lugging around all the time.
I spent some time thinking about how I’m going to lighten my load, and then went to the local DHL station to see what it would cost to send a package of clothes back to the states. Believe it or not, it’s US$186.00 for 2 kilograms (about 5 lbs.) The Argentine Post Office will send 5 kilos for $97.00 pesos (US$30.00), but they are only accepting 2 kilo packages today.
While investigating all of this, I saw a motorcycle get side-swiped by a car. I heard the “thud”, and turned to see a guy and a girl laid out in the street. The driver stopped, helped them up, and then moved the motorcycle out of the intersection. The police were there within minutes, picked up the motorcycle and put it in the back of their truck and drove off.
Looking around the accident site, I noticed that this is an intersection of two roads that are not perpendicular. In one of the obtuse angles, another road comes in, making it a 5-way intersection. So, of course, there is not a single stoplight, or stop sign, or yield sign on any corner. No wonder the motorcycle guy gets crushed.
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