Mission: Misiones

Friday, May 18^th, 2012

I rushed down the stairs, PB&J in hand to meet everyone else in our 6am cab that normally would be taking to come home at this hour, but we were on our way to Aeroparque Jorge Newbery (or as Angela’s host mom calls it, Jorge Neeeeeeeeuuuuberyyyyyyyy) for our trip to Iguazú. For those of you that don’t know, Puerto de Iguazú is the home to Iguazú falls, which happen to fall right on the border between Brazil and Argentina. But more on those later. First I had to get on the plane.

But before every traveler gets to their destination, they have to go through the increasingly hassling task of actually traveling. I’ve had pretty good luck when it comes to traveling, but the travel gods were especially smiling down on me for this trip because not only are liquids TOTALLY ALLOWED on flights in Argentina (because I’m willing to bet that the terrorist threat isn’t at flaming red omg we’re all going to die level. It’s at ZFWBG level. Because Argentina gives none). And then a miracle happened:

Nobody was in my seat. And given that I have never woken up at 5am by my own accord, I took all that sweet space for the best airplane nap ever had.

Luckily I woke up in time to see just exactly what we were flying over. I didn’t think any place on earth could actually be this beautiful. There were trees for as far as the eye could see and red soil in between. We’re flying to paradise.

After getting off the plane, I realized that my paradise idea wasn’t too far off—it was perfectly hot and on our drive into town, it felt like for the first time ever we were in “real Latin America” with countless palm trees, bright colors, laundry blowing in the breeze and a carefree air about everything. We had a bit of time to grab a bite to eat, but it seemed like it was siesta time with every store having its shutters closed.

After lunch, we went to a Guaraní village not too far out of town. I had mixed feelings about this part of the trip because there’s a fine line between “experiencing” and learning about another culture and then just intruding upon it and staring at it and its people. We were somewhere in between the two, with me leaning towards “borderline uncomfortable”. The Guaraní traditionally tried to keep themselves separate from the society growing around them, but in this day and age they no longer have the option and are somewhat forced to host tourists in order to generate funds to purchase food and supplies that they can no longer depend on the forests for. It’s the classic case of civilization destroying civilization. Our guide told us to forgive him for his Spanish, because he was still learning too. Traditionally, none of the Guaraníes learned Spanish, and for a while it was forbidden for females to learn, but now everybody receives instruction in the bi-lingual school. Guaraní is a prized language, known for its beauty, and the unique feature of being an oral language, meaning there are no books or texts of Guaraní, although they have since been created by scholars in order to document the language that is slowly losing out to Spanish. But this is difficult as some sounds are of course different, as well as the fact that it’s just not traditionally written.

Our tour comprised of a walk in the “jungle” to see the traps that were traditionally used (and still used today, although with less frequency due to the continually smaller amount of critters roaming around in said jungle). All of them were so ingenious! When we approached a new trap we had to guess how to use it and what animal it was for. I had no idea on any of them, but all of them worked like a charm. Nobody likes to think of cute little jungle animals getting killed and eaten, but for the most part, the killings were about as humane as possible and compared to the way the “civilized world” kills animals, I think we’d be better off following this example.

Afterwards, we were treated to some music from the school choir. Again, keep in mind the language is not written, so all of the songs had to be memorized by hearing them enough times. Talk about oral tradition. While it wasn’t necessarily lyrical music, it was definitely catchygot to go “shopping” for Guaraní handicrafts. This is one of their major fundraising efforts. I hated thinking that going shopping was going to help the Guaraníes, because isn’t that what kind of put them in the margin in the first place?

I tried to not let my anti-capitalism thoughts get too pervasive, however, as we were on our way out of the village to see the 2^nd best view in the area (with the 1^st being at the falls). It was where the rivers met between Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina. Anytime I’m in a moment of pure geography, I love it—and it doesn’t get much more geographic than being at the border of 3 countries staring at overflowing foliage practically spilling into the rivers sizzling with mist as the sun is setting. But with the sun setting, that meant the day was already over and I was proven wrong again—time CAN go faster. As we walked back to the hotel, I was mocking the birds overhead and gave the longest, loudest r-roll ever (because, keep in mind, until February, I didn’t actually have this linguistic ability…). I never want to leave this place. It makes me feel alive.