Checked out the buses to Puerto Iguazu at the terminal. It's a 5h trip and costs about ARS45. Most companies seem to do the trip stupidly early or late but at least one had a bus at around 11:30. I didn't buy a ticket as I wanted to avoid waste if I decide to leg it tomorrow instead of staying Saturday night as planned. I think that may have been false economy as unless I can manage to travel the 5km to the terminal by bus, it will cost me nearly the price of the ticket to Puerto Iguazu to go there and buy a ticket and return to town. (I don't want to risk turning up on the day, though I suppose I could take advice on that from the hostel owner, it may be OK.)
I was mildly hassled by touts outside the terminal and not all the cabs had markings on. I loitered around and eventually some oldish bloke asked me if I wanted a cab. We chatted briefly and he seemed fairly on the level so I went with him. If memory serves, he said it would be ARS18.
He told me to sit in the front which made me a bit nervous, but I think it was just so we could talk. I managed to get by although there were a few tricky spots. I asked him if there's malaria here and he said there was. He told me about some ruins about 60km away and also about the bridge to Paraguay. We talked about Iguazu Falls a bit, he mentioned the jungle and I brought up the spider issue and he said there weren't any but there were snakes.
When we got to the hostel I asked him how much it was again and he said 20. Bit of a cheek but I did ask and I didn't give him a tip on the 20 so it works out about the same.
Checked in OK, at (I am always excessively coy about naming the hostels for no really good reason, sometimes I simply can't remember and don't want to bother checking) Hostal Vuela el Pez. Very quiet, the owner seems fairly helpful although not so effusively so as the couple at the hostel in Puno, which is probably a good thing but also makes me feel I'm disturbing him all the time.
He said it was very quiet at the hostel at the moment when I said I understood I'd turned up early and the room might not be free. As far as I understand the only other person in my dormitory is a Spanish guy who may (it is not too clear) be leaving today. I saw a couple of youngish women at the hostel and no one else. I did have a briefish chat with the Spanish guy (in Spanish), so even if it wasn't the matiest thing ever I have at least broken my conversational duck.
Spanish guy or no, I am not overly concerned about the dormitory as a dormitory (although it does have bunk beds, which is a bit of a bugger). I am concerned as I have what I shall incorrectly term the 'tropical jitters', as experienced in Cuernavaca and Tlaquepaque in Mexico. The hostel is not overly clean or well maintained, which in itself is no major problem, but there are a fair few cobwebs among the dirt and that I don't like. It's one of those warm climate buildings with shutters and no glass and courtyards and the like which give me the heeby-jeebies. I suspect I will gradually overcome them as I did in Mexico, but still.
I asked the owner and he says there is no malaria here or at Iguazu Falls, unless you really go into the jungle, and was surprised I had been advised I needed tablets. So I don't know what to do. The tablets have fairly rare but potentially unpleasant side effects (disturbed sleep and nightmares being the one that freaks me out, I can handle a bit of sickness) so in some sense I would rather not take them if I can help it.
I cleaned my teeth and applied some suntan cream and the damn DEET spray. The bottle is largely empty, not too surprising as I guess most of the contents have spread themselves over the contents of my suitcase over the last two months. I will see if I can buy some more here, ideally in aerosol form (probably more leak resistant than the pump-action plastic bottle I have now).
I had a quick flick through my guide book and left. The attractions here seem to consist of one scientificy place where they demonstrate venom extraction from snakes. As the only map I have is in my guide book which is too big to carry around and I can't remember the address, I may go if I stumble across it but otherwise probably not. I also have a lurking suspicion that any such place is bound to have a few fucking enormous spiders among the exhibits and especially with my tropical jitters I am not sure I want to risk experiencing anything like that.
The Spanish guy tells me you can get a bus to the ruins but I am not sure where from even if I am otherwise inclined to risk it. I would rather do a tour or not do it, and I am not sure a tour is an option.
The other main point of interest is crossing over to Paraguay. There is a bridge and you can do a day trip to the city on the Paraguayan side whose name escapes me right now. I must say the view across the Parana to that city is pretty cool, although I was not in the frame of mind to fully appreciate it when I saw it earlier.
I left the hostel and stood outside for two or three hours while my GPS sorted itself out. (I have no map, so it's a valuable fallback.) As I stood there a hummingbird did whatever hummingbirds do to some flower at the side of the street just in front of me. That was pretty cool I suppose, although it's not like I haven't seen them up close before.
I then wandered a bit aimlessly, stumbling across the view over the river already noted. It was damn hot and I could taste the DEET on my lips.
Lacking basically anything to do, my vague plan was to find a pharmacy for the spray and a net cafe to burn some photos to DVD before I run out of space on my cards.
Normally Latin American cities seem overrun with pharmacies but of course I haven't seen one yet here. The place seems just a little too sleepy for somewhere with a quarter of a million inhabitants.
I found two net cafes but neither of them could sell me a DVD. The first pointed me at some shops nearby (for some reason he also introduced CDs into the conversation, I don't know why), I went in and singularly failed to make myself understood or understand. The second pointed me at some nearby covered market. After struggling with the phrase "DVD (pronounced in what I believe to be proper Spanish fashion) en blanco", I managed to convey my requirement to some woman (I believe I should have asked for "DVD (pronounced as in English) virgen") who would sell me some for a price I didn't catch but had no cases for sale. Because who'd want a DVD case when buying a DVD? I didn't buy anything. I wandered around to see if I could find any cases or DVD+case deals. One woman at a pirate CD/DVD stall (it is shocking how common that is here, the lack of law and order makes me lie awake at night expecting to be murdered in my bed) had some but on being asked refused to sell me any as they were f
or putting purchased CD/DVDs in. Because I'm sure she brought *exactly* the right number of cases out to match her stock of pirate discs and selling me a couple would throw the system out. What is it with these people? Don't they *want* my money? Within reason they can charge me stupid prices and I'll semi-cheerfully pay up.
Feeling hungry I abandoned that epic quest and managed to find a small cafe down the road where I've had a surprisingly decent steak and chips and am writing this crap while I finish a litre of Quilmes.
Vague plan after this is to wander more looking for 'something to do', a pharmacy, a sane net cafe and maybe some bars which might tempt me to come out tonight instead of making an early night of it. I guess some of the latter may be listed in the guide book if I can be bothered to pop back to the hostel later and look (although the owner has my backpack with the guide in it, since there was some delay over sorting out a locker, so it may be a hassle to get hold of it anyway). But I am not overly confident about late hours access (although I believe in principle it's available) even were I not worried about disturbing the other people, if any, in the dormitory.
I may pop over to Paraguay, probably tomorrow, but it seems a bit of a silly box-ticking exercise in many ways.
Oh, the phone battery is down to 22% and I have no idea when or where I will be able to charge it. Sigh.
They gave me a fruit which looks and tastes like a lime, except that it has pale orange pulp, with the steak. I assume I was supposed to put it on the steak, but that seemed a bit uncalled for so I squeezed it into my beer instead, which worked nicely.
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