These past couple of days I was up in the province of Misiones in Puerto Igauzu with the one and only Lonnie "Leo" Walthall, one of my best friends, who is doing a medical preceptorship in Buenos Aires for July. It was great to spend time with him, and see some amazing things before school gets up and running.
The first day, we went to the national park, and saw Igauzu Falls, one of the coolest waterfalls I've ever seen. The sheer volume of water cascading down created refreshing mist that was like one of those squirt bottle fans, only much wetter and refreshing. And the falls don't require 2 AA batteries. The falls were only flowing at 1/10 of normal flow, due to a drought. I can't imagine this place during a flood! We saw a bunch of falls, including Garganta del Diablo (<---see picture), very pretty landscapes, some interesting creatures (I include some of the tourists we saw in this category, including the guy we ran into who went to Alamo Heights High School. Ridiculously weird, I know.), and then went on a hike, where I somehow convinced Lonnie to run the entire trail, which we did. Our reward was quite sweet;
we found a serene secluded waterfall that fell into a tiny pool. It provided a nice natural shower, very refreshing, but I forgot my bar of Lever 2000 (see picture --->).
The next day we went on a jungle exploration trip to a property owned by the military, where we learned alot about the natural habitat, and how many of the Guarani Indians subsist on the sub-tropical landscape. Timber is the main industry for them. It was interesting to hear our guide's perspective on the depletion of resources around the area and what is, and what is not being done along with that. Part of the trip was a zipline canopy over the land, but you couldn't take any pictures from the zipline, for fear of stealing military tree secrets, and then we rapelled down a waterfall. Lonnie and I both got soaked doing that. That night, we stopped in on a church service in town. The sanctuary was roughly 15 ft wide by 60 ft long, and carried a packed house. And whoa nelly, these people and the pastor were fired up. I'm talking about a I-don't-care-if-all-my-blood-vessels-burst-I'm-a-gonna-bring-the-Truth-tonight type pastor. Think of an African-American television pastor in the US, multiply his passion by 10, and picture a tall Argentine man with a medium-sized mustache, and you have this pastor. It was a great way to spend a Sunday night.
The following day, we went province traveling through Misiones to see and experience rural life. We walked down a long red dirt road to get where Che Guevara lived as a toddler on the banks of the Parana river. For some reason, I felt the land, the trees, especially the red dirt (that's really good for growing mate) reminded me of Georgia, the state, not Georgia, my friend. They might have abandoned shoes like the one in the picture (<---) in Georgia too, I'm not sure. The red dirt was cool, but it stained my shoes, so now I have shoes that look like I've been playing sandlot baseball for awhile. We continued our journey, and stopped in the booming metropolis of Monte Carlo, Argentina. I've never been to the other Monte Carlo, the ritzy one in Europe, but I really enjoyed this one. We went through this cool labrynth maze, where you had to find your way out. As smart and as skilled as Lonnie is, it took him a little long to get through to the end. Fittingly, throughout the labrynth, Lonnie was reading Jorge Luis Borges'
Labrynths. Dr. Moss would be proud that I underlined that, as book titles need underlinization (that's not a word), according to proper MLA format. Borges was one of the most famous Latin American and Argentine literary figures. We continued on and went to a maté factory, and learned all a
bout how
maté is transferred from the field, to the factory, and then the processes that go into refining it. The picture (--->) shows the maté at the end of the line being sealed in bags. Extrapolating beyond the quantity of maté that I saw with my own eyes, there is alot of maté in the world. Forgive my dorky math terminology, I'm warming up for classes.
The trip was great, and a great way to spend some time with brother Leo as we both prepare for our upcoming jobs: med student and teacher. Until next time...
From Left to Right are: Craig (my roommate & high school Bible teacher), Joanna (6th & 7th grade, she likes challenges), Paul (high school English, Govt., and teaches CS Lewis class - which makes him automatically cool), Adam (full-time sub & activities coordinator), Lara (Adam's wife, not a BAICA teacher, but a fan of ducks), Mariah (no silly, not Mariah Carey - the 4th grade teacher), me, (Jenn, 10th grade literature, some math), Meg (the 5th grade teacher, Ivy League genuis & soccer all-star), Sarah (the kindergarten teacher who is adored by all - and cooks a hearty, very good Italian meal), and Jorge (the master all tools of the trade guy at BAICA who likes to wash dishes with me - we'll be friends). Great people!
