Flora and Fauna Part II (This post by Emily)

I had quite an encounter with the Quati, otherwise known as the South American raccoon. It looks like an anteater.
It grabbed at my lunch bag with its dirty little hands and thus began a showdown between human and animal. While Jamila encouraged me to just drop the bag, Brazilians gathered around to take pictures, I held my ground and kept our lunch as the silly quati scampered off.
There is also a picture of an alligator that we happened upon during our ecological tour. This one was probably about 6 feet long. We will put up a better picture when we raid Ellen's camera. We also saw a crocodile, which was a bit smaller.

Flora and Fauna

We got a million bug bites (Emily's back is particularly covered), but we were able to observe some of the bugs from afar.
The coolest discovery was a little family of birds nestled on the side of the falls. I don't know how the didn't fall down or get soaked, but was adorable!**
We got a really close-up view of some rather large lizards. People who know me might be surprised that I am even including pictures of bugs and crawly animals, but there was something really cool about seeing them in their habitat.




** Bird comments made by Emily

Butterflies

I did not know this, but the National Park is filled with beautiful butterflies.
We must have seen as least 10 different species, and it was such an amazing sight to walk through the jungle and be surrounded by butterflies.
For anyone who has read 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, you might remember a scene where yellow butterflies fill the town, a sign of death. There was a moment in the park where we passed through hundreds of yellow butterflies. It reminded me of the book. No worries, didn't get a sense of death though.

Cataratas de Iguazu

The twin waterfalls are named Dos Hermanos (two brothers). As you can see, the steam from the falls rises above the forest, which at first looks like a fire.
The weather was extremely hot and humid, and we got caught in a tropical rainstorm towards the end of our visit. It was about 95 degrees and 100% humidity.
Somehow, however, Ellen, Emily and I were able to spend 9 hours at the falls without getting bored!

Side note: on our ecological tour, we sat next to a girl from Chicago. It turns out her name is Jamila. This is the second Jamila I have ever met, and it made Iguazu even more special for me.

Welcome to the Jungle!

For a long weekend, we took a 18 hour bus (uphill both ways in the snow) with our friend Ellen to Puerto Iguazu, home of a wonder of the world. We arrived Friday morning and on Saturday, we went to Las Cataratas (Waterfalls) de Iguazu.
We took an excursion, which included a Jeep ride through the jungle, an ecological tour on a raft down the river, and a nautical adventure that took us right beneath the waterfalls and left us soaked...not sure if this would have been allowed in the States for safety reasons, but it was so fun!
It was really hard for us to cut down our pictures, as they were all so amazing.

Little facts about the falls:

• Taller than Niagara, wider than Victoria
• Located on the border between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay
• It is made up of 275 individual falls and stretch along 1.7 miles
  

Sunset in Colonia

It was a long day in a lovely town. We probably didn't need more than a day to see and enjoy a lot of Colonia.

PIctures from the Beach!

As you can see, it was a beautiful day in Colonia and we spent a few hours just lying on the beach, catching some sun (a bunch of girls on our program got too much sun).
It was probably 85-90 degrees and most of us were afraid of cooling off in the river. Rio de la Plata is brownish, due to the sediment it picks up along the way to the Atlantic Ocean. It's the not the most inviting water I've ever seen. However, on the east coast of Uruguay, there is a famous beach town full of resorts called Punta del Este ("Rio meets the Hamptons", but its still South America).
Emily took a nap on the beach and miraculously did not get burnt. I took the liberty of decorating her pants.