Water, A Friend to All of Us

June 23, 2006

Well, the theme of my last week seems to be predominantly water. The other day I visited Itaipu Dam in Brazil, which is apparently one of the 7 Wonders of the Modern World. This disappointed me, as I had imagined the Wonders of the World to be more magical places, like the headquarters of Taco Bell, and not just large and practical structures. But alas, I was wrong. Anyway, the Brazilians are VERY proud of this dam. First thing in the morning my group was treated to a 15 minute montage on water in all of its glory, to ready us for the viewing of Itaipu Dam. This montage was a riot, it just went on and on with dramatic, Enya- type music in the background....kids splashing in water, couples swimming in the ocean, water on leaves, water on trees, people drinking water, animals bathing in water, bottled water, rivers, streams, icebergs, etc. The point was clear: we need and love water. At the conclusion of the montage we moved on to the "informational" portion of the video - although information was provided, a love of water and of the dam was still strongly imparted to us. For example, we were told that Itaipu Dam is "A concrete, iron, and steel giant with a Brazilian and Paraguayan soul." Powerful words. We were also informed that "Its soul dances to the beat of the Brazilian samba..." And indeed it does.

After our dam visit (which, although undoubtedly an amazing feat of engineering, still looked to the untrained eye like a waste management plant), we moved on to our "Great Adventure!", which consisted of a viewing of Iguazau Falls (which incidentally makes Niagra Falls look like a runny faucet), as well as a ride into the falls, a la Maiden of the Mist, for those of you who have been to Niagra. Our Great Adventure! went astray due to some VERY inclement weather, which, although adding tremendous discomfort, did add a sense of adventure that would have been lacking otherwise. Basically, it started to POUR, not a light casual rain, but a pounding, relentless flood for hours, which eventually turned into hail. Of the dozens of groups on this "adventure" ours was the only group that completely neglected to wear any form of protective rain gear. Before we even got to the falls we spent about an hour walking to a truck with no roof (on the course of this walk we lost one of our group members to the jungle -she was recovered hours later) which then took us, unprotected from the elements, for 20 minutes through the jungle to our boats. The man guiding this portion of the tour cracked me up, because he pressed on with his tour guide lecture as if nothing was going on, when at this point it was fully hailing on us, girls were screaming because branches and hailstones were whipping into our faces, people kept shouting "Great Adventure!!" (and by people I mean us) and not one person could hear a word he was saying. I admired his steadfast approach to tour leading though. Anyway, by the time we made it to the boats we were already at saturation point, so it really just added insult to injury when we were sailed directly under the falls for a natural "shower" of sorts. Ahh, water. We do need it, and I do love it. Which brings me to my next encounter with water based entertainment. We were told that we would be visiting a "natural hot springs/spa" (I should have learned to be wary of spas from back in 2000 when Linda and I had a very, shall we say, uncomfortable experience in a Turkish bath involving Brillo pads and old, naked Turkish women). But I digress. We were all very excited for our spa, come to find ourselves in the middle of what can only be described as a conglomeration of heated pools, complete with tons of screaming kids and unattractive families eating pizza in all their glory. It was like Canobie Lake, if Canobie Lake were flooded. Oh my.

What else. I have been learning lots from my British travel companions. For example - brace yourselves - the Queen Mum is dead. Apparently she has been for some time now, but I missed this. Hmm. I thought that they just called the Queen the "Queen Mum" to be affectionate - little did I know that the Queen Mum is (or was, may she rest in peace), you guessed it, the Queen's Mom. It's all coming together now. I also learned the phrase "Right Royal Fun!" which I might try to popularize back home. We'll see how that goes.

I am sad to say that as my trip draws near its close I have developed some sort of phobia of dogs, which I can only assume dates back to the mauling/rabies scare in Peru. Speaking of which, I better not need to visit any more clinics during my last week abroad - I should have drawn the line when the Peruvian veterinarian tended to me, but I will definitely draw the line if any Uruguayan/Argentinian/Brazilian schoolchildren dressed as nurses try to inject me with vaccines (did I mention the children are dressed as medical professionals here? Yes, I believe I did).

A few more items: I just finished a 21 hour bus ride, which was actually rather pleasant. What makes me laugh is that apparently during the overnight portion of the trip our bus hit some trees, burst a tire, and broke down; we had to be lifted up on our side to replace our tires, and we were stopped for well over an hour, all of which my entire group slept through. Hmm. Apparently we are not the most alert group ever to cross the continent.

A Dutch girl in my group, Renata, is making me ashamed of my Spanish. She took a 5 week grammar course and lived in Argentina for 2 months, and I'm not gonna lie, her Spanish is just like mine. She is reading Memoirs of a Geisha in Spanish right now. Are you kidding me? After 3 months of Spanish I could barely say the days of the week. And I still have trouble reading menus. Nothing like Europeans and all their languages to make you feel simple.

And finally, something that makes me proud and also appalled with myself: Adrian, the Australian giant man in my group, has taken to ordering whatever I order wherever we go, because he realized that whatever I ordered will be enough food to fill him. So now the giant and I are eating exactly the same thing at every meal, except I am a girl and one quarter his size. Mom, don't be ashamed of me.