Bernie's Travels: The final push to Iguazul Falls

From Salta, Argentina I was almost to the point of meeting my sister Katie in Iguazul Falls, on the Brazilian side. It was on 12 hour night bus to Resistencia, cutting across the north of Argentina with my buddy James, then after a day and a half in Resistencia it was another 12 hour night bus to Puerto Iguazul. Resistencia was a good town with supposedly over 300 public sculptures lining the streets. It was a cool town but the sculptures weren't that great. From Puerto Igualazul I was one step away from the Brazilian border where I would meet Katie a couple of days later. At least that was the plan. It appeared to be unfolding beautifully everything seemed to be set; I was there a couple of days ahead of time, I had my fake yellow fever vaccination card, 140 bucks for the visa, a valid passport, and the visa application all filled out.

The first thing I did after arriving to Puerto Iguazul early in the morning was line up at the Brazilian consulate to get my visa application in the works. In most consulates visas can take several days but on the border they generally get them through the same day. Everything looked good until I gave my passport to the immigration official. After a brief shuffle through my passport he handed everything back with out much of a care and shrugged his shoulders ad muttered something in Portugese. He told me that I didn't have enough space for the Brazilian visa. As it turned out my last exiting stamp, from Bolivia, was hastily put on to the last remaining open page of my passport. I pleaded with the official and made sure that there wasn't another way around the problem but it was no use. My only recourse was to have the US consulate add pages to my passport in Buenas Aires, 19 hours away by bus. Then I would have to come back to the border to get the same day visa. Between a bus or flight to and from Buenas Aires plus waiting for the consulate to add pages I would have been hard pressed to make it back to the falls by the time Katie arrived.

I called my sister and gave her the news. She was great about it and we changed our plan. We would see the falls on the Argentinian side (apparently the better side to view them) then we would head for good beaches and decent carnival in Uruguay before heading to Buenas Aires. Relieved that I didn't have to rush around I took it easy at Puerto Iguazul and waited for my sister to make it to Brazil, fly to the falls, then catch a taxi across the border to Argentina.