The last two bathrooms...

...have been small square rooms with a sink, a toilet, a bidet, and a shower with no shower curtain and no other real way to differentiate the shower from the rest of the bathroom. I am at a complete loss for how to shower in these kinds of bathrooms without getting everything soaking wet. Though I suspect that was the reason for the giant squeegee in the bathroom in San Ignacio and the plastic flap over the toilet paper here in Puerto Iguazu, though it appears to be rather ineffective.

I spent last night in the very small town of San Ignacio to visit the ruins of a fifteenth century Jesuit mission. Like the bull ring in Uruguay’s Real de San Carlos, the ruins are a complete anomaly in this town, though the artisan stalls and restaurants strategically line the street outside the exit of the missions. I’m not sure what else goes on economically for this town.

The ruins were recently declared a UNESCO world heritage site, and so a lot of work has gone into restoring them, and this winter, there will apparently be a sound and light show that includes holograms projected against a screen of water shooting up from fountains in the ground. Something about a hologram show amidst centuries old ruins seems to be a bit contradictory, and I was surprised by the intrusiveness of some of the installations already, though I will be the first to admit I wish that show had been happening during my visit.

But the ruins are spectacular in their own right and their history is a bit bizarre – Jesuit missionaries come to South America and offer protection from slave hunters and food security to the indigenous guarani in exchange for communal living with religious overtones. Multiple sources describe the missions as semi-utopian, and most of the sources are theoretically unbiased. If only I had my instant time transporter up and running to see how utopian it all was. Were the Jesuits not expelled by the Spanish crown in the 1700s, I wonder what would have come of these communities.

A fascinating part of the tour included the tree with a stone heart, which was a ficus tree that had sprouted atop a ruin decades ago and as it grew sunk roots into the ground until it enveloped a column of stone. You can peek inbetween the now massive roots and see bits of stone. And lots of mosquitoes (speaking of which, the province next door is having a dengue epidemic…eek!).

This morning at 10 a.m. I walked a half-mile or so in the already intense heat and humidity with my overflowing backpack to wait, as I’d be told, in front of the church for a “colectivo” for the 4-5 hour ride north to Puerto Iguazu. A colectivo, I learned in my first few weeks in Argentina, is typically a bus that transports people within a city or between a close set of towns. They can be a bit rickety and overcrowded. The buses called “micros” or “omnis” are the swank doubledeckers with seats that recline into beds and include dinner service with wine for free. I took a micro from Buenos Aires to San Ignacio, and it. was. amazing. I much prefer it to planes, and if you take a night bus when you’d otherwise be sleeping, the time difference doesn’t make a difference really.

Anyway, I was a bit nervous to hear about this 4-5 hour colectivo ride, but this colectivo turned out to be more like a Greyhound bus, so it wasn’t too bad. However, it seemed to make its way down just about every dirt road to every small town off the beaten path, and by hour five, my clothes were damp with sweat, and despite having consumed copious amounts of water, I hadn’t the slightest urge to pee. Surely that can’t be healthy, but I was drinking water to the point of distending my belly, in part to curb off the hunger I was feeling by then too.

Still, my initial visions of riding a crowded colectivo and having to stand with my hundred-pound pack breaking my shoulders made the actual ride bearable. That said, I will definitely be taking the omni to my next destination, especially because there’s not much of a price difference mile for mile.

Puerto Iguazu is much bigger than San Ignacio, though everything here centers around the falls, which are some 20 km from here, so it’s a bit non-descript. All the same, I just beebopped around the streets visiting the little artisan booths to get some Spanish in and ultimately couldn’t help but buy some jewelry. Whenever I’m tempted to buy something bigger, I remember the weight of my pack right now, and I’m quickly and completely dissuaded. I’m staying in a great hostel called Hostel Peter Pan. It has a pool, which is a godsend, and the staff and visitors are very friendly.

I look forward to seeing these falls I’ve heard so much about. I’ll take my camera, though I’ve heard the mist is something like a shower there, so we’ll see how many shots I can fire off before having the get the camera back inside a plastic bag. The little point and shoot is still clicking, though it’s getting increasingly temperamental. It’s never had to do this much work before…