Puerto Iguazú – Day 1 & 2: The Triple Frontier
PUERTO IGUAZÚ
Day 1 & 2: The Triple Frontier
February 25 & 26, 2023
My flight to the next destination couldn’t have come any sooner. No, really. It was rescheduled time and time again. First it was meant to be at 4PM, then 9PM, then 12AM, and finally 10PM the following day.
Pre-Utila Marius would’ve been completely freaked out and riddled with anxiety over all these changes. He probably would’ve gone straight to the airport and pestered the staff about the flight every chance he got. But post-Utila Marius? He genuinely couldn’t be bothered. In fact, I took it as an opportunity to see more of Buenos Aires, and with the city being so massive, I made the most of every single minute. I met up with Cristian, an Argentinian police officer I’d met way back in Cancún. Together, we spent the morning wandering around the city, tying up a few loose ends I’d left behind. Then he dropped me off at the airport, and finally, I found myself on my way to the next city, Puerto Iguazú.
I arrived in the middle of the night and straight into an angry storm. Ariel, my soon-to-be host, had kindly told me I could call him the second I arrived and that my bed would be ready for me. Drenched to the bone, I found myself sneaking into the hostel after he failed to answer my multiple calls. After stumbling upon a guy sleeping on a mattress carefully laid out in the middle of the room, I manoeuvred my way to the bed I’d been told was mine – a bare mattress with a cushion that I assumed would double as a pillow. At least this gave me the perfect excuse to finally use the sleeping bag liner I’d been lugging around since the very start of my trip.
An Ode to Momma Bear
With dark bags under my eyes and a bucketload of exhaustion from the journey, I knew I needed a light day. In fact, I spent my morning writing a memoir as part of a gift for my best friend Momma Bear, who’d be getting married in April. While I would’ve gladly spent a few extra months travelling, there was no better reason to cut my trip through Latin America a little short.
Even just thinking about it had me bawling my eyes out. Back in Utila, I’d gone slightly insane trying to find a measuring tape so I could get sized for my suit. While I was backpacking across Costa Rica, she’d sent me a picture of the dress she’d be wearing. And now, all of a sudden, it hit me just how close the wedding actually was. The fact that I couldn’t help out with any of the planning broke my heart, but at least I’d be able to make it up to her once I was back. The memoir was gonna be the first of those amends.
Words poured out of me like a fountain. While I never took our friendship for granted, revisiting all the memories we’d built over the seven years we’d known each other made me appreciate her even more and allowed me to reevaluate our entire relationship. We’d started out as frenemies at the beginning of med school, and with time, she’d become a mother figure to me. By the end of our studies and the two years of the Foundation Programme, we were practically family. In fact, I’d be her Paladin at the wedding, our made-up, manly version of Maid of Honour. And I couldn’t wait to share that day with her and her husband-to-be.
Puerto Iguazú
Some 11,000 words later, I could now venture forth into the outside world and explore the town a bit. Puerto Iguazú, located in the north-easternmost corner of the country, sits at the Triple Border, the junction between Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, where the brown-green waters of the Iguazú and Paraná rivers meet.
I strolled along the road until I got to the actual border. On each side of the border stands an obelisk painted in the colours of the respective national flags. From the Argentinian side, the impressive Tancredo Neves Bridge connecting Argentina to Brazil can be seen, a genuinely spectacular sight.
With nothing much to do, I then treated myself to the daily steak (which admittedly wasn’t as good over here), and then made my way to the run-down hostel I’d be staying in. By that point in time, my mattress had been adorned with a brand new sheet – though my things were now kept hostage by yet another backpacker’s mattress which was placed conveniently right in front of my locker.