Luckily a bus pulled up across the road as I was leaving, they only run every half hour so that was a bonus.
They charge foreigners more here - it's ARS85 for all foreigners except those from Mercosur countries, they pay ARS45. Argentinians pay something like 25 and local residents get in free. They have this bizarre 'second day pass' where you can ask for a stamp and you get a discount on a second day's ticket. This is free but they don't just *give* it to you, that would be too easy. I was so anxious to make sure I got this I have a strong suspicion (though I am not sure) I forgot to get my ARS15 change from the hundred note I paid with. Oh well.
Been round the visitor centre and now waiting (about 20 minutes total) for the half-hourly train to Garganta del Diablo. Hence my having time to write this.
I am just about broke. I think I have ARS200 stashed away but apart from that I am down to 35 pesos. There is supposedly a cash machine in the food court but I haven't been there yet. It would be good to eat something but since I'm a bit short of time and the last train out is at 4pm I want to get this in ASAP.
Isla San Martin is closed because of the river level.
19:10. Just had a very good and large steak and slightly overcooked and hard chips at El Charo in town. I got the bus back at about 5:30, they counted how many people got on and I was luckily the second to last allowed. I had to stand for the 20 minute trip as it was, not ideal as my feet were starting to hurt.
I saw Garganta del Diablo and it is indeed amazing. I took some photos and videos so I won't bother trying to describe it, they are inadequate but probably less so than anything I might write. The walk to/from it is quite cool in its way, it's 1.1km along some metal walkways which bridge the upper lake.
I will observe that you can't actually see the bottom of the falls at Garganta del Diablo as there is just so much spray in the air. When the wind veers round the right way the spray blows onto the platform, although it's more refreshing than seriously soaking. It was pretty warm in general but nowhere near as intolerable as, eg Nazca (at least when I was there).
I did the 'upper circuit' afterwards, which was pretty cool. Anywhere else the falls you see on that route would be a draw in themselves. Quite a bit of wildlife around, there were monkeys in the trees and occasionally scampering along the handrails of one of the bridges, and I did catch a glimpse of a toucan. Underneath one of the walkways to Garganta del Diablo (FFS, I've just had 3 child vendors/beggars in the space of this paragraph) - they have 'mesh' floors so you can see through - was a pretty large spider sat immobile in a web. I saw a few others, including several smallish ones scuttling along the handrails (which I therefore avoided touching when I remembered :-) ), but nothing too outrageously large.
I will go back tomorrow - hopefully earlier than today - and do the lower circuit and some other routes as time permits and maybe revisit GdD. Just maybe the island will be open tomorrow, though I doubt it.
I am on some bar terrace in town writing this. I plan to give the hostel bar a miss tonight and thus at least see a little of the town.
21:00. Deeply torn over whether or not to go back to the hostel and have another beer there or stay out. It's quiet but pleasant here. I have decided to stay. If I have one more here and go back to the hostel I should end up getting to bed reasonably early. If I go and drink at the hostel I will either just drink on my own, in which case I might as well be here, or I'll manage to get into a conversation and probably end up having a late night and drinking too much. I do want to make more of an effort to be up early tomorrow than I did today.
Also, I can't quite bring myself to face the effort to get into a conversation. I am half inferring it would be OK to just wander up to some big group and say 'do you mind if I join you?' but I don't much fancy doing it.
I think the real clincher though was the thought that even if I knew I could get into a conversation at the hostel with no effort, I actually really don't want to. That seems odd given my recent drought, but there it is. I actually don't find it hard to talk to people once I get over that enormous speed bump of meeting them but I'm just not that inclined to it right now. I think the 'more likely to get up' early argument has some force too. It's not like this is my last chance to meet people, if I choose places to stay accordingly, and there is always tomorrow night here anyway. I do have a certain nagging feeling I 'ought' to take every opportunity to meet people but sod it, if you're not in the mood you're not in the mood.
On a totally random note, I am just wondering if Wales has a 'national spirit'. England has gin, Scotland and Ireland have whisk(e)y, but I can't think of any spirit I would mentally associate with Wales.
23:00 Got a cab back for ARS15. A certain amount of life at the hostel but I resisted the temptation to have a beer and see if anything happened. Iron will baby. :-)
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