From Rio we left on a 24 hour bus journey to the amazing Iguassu falls. This journey wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be apart from the fate that there wasn't a dinner stop and we hadn't brought food, and the toilet door didn't close. However, about 13 hours in I woke up and my feet felt really tight and I looked down to see my feet had become hugely swollen, elephant man style. This totally freaked me out and I woke John to see what to do. Over the next 11 hours I kept them propped up, with cold water cups on them and just prayed they would go down. Was panicing, imagining DVT and the like, a cheeky text to Dad did help me calm down and they reduced in swelling by the next day- quite worried about out 30 hour to Uruguay next week!
So after 24 hours we arrived, it turned out the bus only went as far as the brazil side of the boarder Foz Iguazzu, and our hostel was in the Argentina side in Puerto Iguassu. So... we arrrive very tired in the bus terminal and managed to decifer that we need to change to the international terminal and there began the hop on hop off bus experience! We finally get to the international terminal after a wait and it turns out buses aren't regular to Argentina, and when it turns up you have to go through a turnstile!!!! Yes I got stuck, then we took this bus to brazil frontier, get off here with the bags, queue through customs, then wait 30 mins on roadside in heat for next bus to Argentina customs, get bus, get off bus with bags, queue in customs, wait for bus to town, etc etc ahhhhhhhh!
Finally we arrived in our hostel and I was sweating more than I ever have in my life after 24 hour bus with rank toilet and no dinner stop!!!!!
Unfortunately our hostel was not nice, and certainly not worth the extra 3 hours travels, what was worth it was the Argentinian side of the falls, absolutely breathtaking. Its hard to descirde but it was simply so huge and overpowering and never ending, completely beautiful.
As we happen to be two travelling lawyers, we made a complaint to the head office of the hostel and managed to score two free nights in their Florianopolis site! Score! So for the next leg of our journey we were mystery shoppers for that hostel, ooh the resposibility.
I'm enjoying 'riding along' with you!
ReplyDeleteWhen you're having to sit for a long time, if you can't get up & move around, you could try to do some isometric exercises. That is, tighten & loosen the muscles in your legs & bum while you're sitting. That should help keep your blood moving around anyway.
Have fun & safe travels!
Thanks for the advice, I was totally freaked out by the big feet! Will definately try these on the next bus. Im glad your enjoying the blog, hopefully there will be lots more interesting incidents to come!
ReplyDeletewow that sound like an awful long journey! You poor thing, I think the no dinner stop bit would be the worst - were you gnawing at your own arm?
ReplyDelete