Too much, too young

The week since my last post has maybe seen more shenenigans than the rest of my trip combined. Not only did I finally track down Julie Fair, Ewok, Allie Gates, and a huge contingent if the Beam Team, but I saw some of the world's most incredible waterfalls, got kicked out of the Brazilian Consulate, and rang in several nights of a Carnival that would be unforgettable if I could only remember everything....

To start at the begining, After I met up with Jules and the BF, we took off for three nights in Iguazu, home to some of the world's largest and most impressive waterfalls that straddle the borders of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil. They are absolutely jaw dropping- it seems like more than fifteen or seperate falls have been crowded into a tiny river valley that shouls never witness that kind of water volume. And you can witness the sheer power of these waterfalls in the most visceral manner imaginable, since the falls are ringed by a complex system of elevated boardwalks that bring you so close to the falls that you'll be drenched. The whole park was so impressive that we went back a second day to see the exact same sites, this time including a motorboat trip up along the Brazilian side of the falls and quite literally as far under the falls as one could get without crushing the boat and all aboard. We couldn't have been wetter if we'd swum into the falls. And that wasn't the only soak spot of the park, since the falls are so powerful that even at the overlook at the highest poinht above Garganta del Diable (devil's throat, the highlight of the spectacular waterfall system), the spray from the impact of the falls reaches up higher than the waterfalls thenselves and consistently rains down, helping to create a local ecosystem that is entirely unique because of the level of water in the air.

This trip, howeverm will prove to be the closest that I will get to Brazil this trip... after two while days waiting around the Brazilian consulate in Buenos Aires, I was kicked out and told to get lost after the teller began to process my visa application and then decided that I wasn't worth the favor. Ot seems that Brazilian visas depend entirely on the mood of the embassy teller. I caught her on the wrong day, it seems. This meant, clearly, that it would be impossible for me to get to Rio for Carnival (NEXT YEAR!! Whose down?), so I dod the nect best thing and went with Julie and Evan down to Gualagueychu, which is just a little bit north of Buenos Aires, for the Carnical celebration there. This tiny town was so packed that we had to pay more than the cost of a budget hotel in BA to sleep in a tent in the backyard of an old woman with tons of dogs. So small, in fact, that the bus we took down from Iguazu wouldn't stop in town, dropping us instead, and I'm absolutely serious, on a grass median of a highway on-ramp 10 kilometers outside if the pueblo. Nevertheless, we managed to get into the Carnival and had what my pictures tell me must have been an epic night of dancing and drinking while massive floats, almost entirely nude dancers, and bands paraded down the center if the grandstands. Quite the party really, espècially when we were able to share it with so many of the Beam Teams all stars: Evan, Julie, J-Rob, Tara, Kevin, Amy, and an extremely excited Australian.

Unfortunately, the team was not complete the next day, and we had to spend several hours trying to track down Tara and J-Rob, who were in neither the tent or our rental car when noon rolled around the next day. We almost lost Kevin, who had been trying to sleep naked in the middle of the street, but we really had no idea what had happened to the two girls, who'd been last spotted with me at the afterparty in a club around 6 in the morning. J-Ron eventually arrived in the back of a moped with a young French student, and we ended up leaving without Tara after waiting four hours for her to get in touch. As it turns out, Tara, woke up in a field with several new scrapes (from hiping a fence, we later guessed) at 4 in the afternoon, by which time we had already left. She tried to take a bus back to BA, but she had absolutely no money and was almost at the point of hawking her camera before she found someone from the states willing to wire her 20 bucks.

The revelry continued on Monday night when most of the same group (plus other UCLA amigo and current BA resident, Allie Gates) went to an all night percussion dance party featuring La Bomba de Tiempo, an awesome local percussion collective that plays driving pan-american drum compositions that keep you moving like nothing I've ever witnessed. It just so happened that in the spirit of Carnival they were doing a six hour set starting at Midnight after there regular 2 hour monday residency. that totalled to like 8 hours and dancing our asses of in a sweaty, crowded warehouse. Then sunrise empanadas to top it off. After that much celebration and debauchery I have never felt so ready for the physical and ethic abnegation of Lent. I guess I could just call it detox (joking!) But all the same, time to slow it down and get back to nature, which should be just the ticket in Cordoba and Salta before heading into Bolivia.