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| Where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay Meet. |
my bus. I stayed in Puerto Iguazu, which is in Argentina and my bus left from Foz Iguaçu which is just across the border in Brazil. My bus was scheduled to leave at 8:00pm so I figured I would give myself 3 hours to get across the border, through immigration, and get to the bus station, leaving time for any problems along the way. My plan started out great… as soon as I got the bus station in Puerto iguazu the bus was already there, as if it was waiting for me to arrive. I was soon on my way and waiting in line at immigration just as planned.
The way that the border crossing works
between argentina and Brazil is they drop you off at immigration, give you a
transfer to get on the next bus that comes by so they don’t have to wait for
you to go through customs. After making
it through immigration without any issues I went back to the bus stop to wait
for the next bus to pass by. I waited,
and waited and waited and waited. Soon I
was getting worried because according to my watch I only had 45 minutes to
catch this bus to another bus station to take another bus to a different bus
terminal from which my bus was leaving.
At about 7:35 a taxi passed by, so I waved it down and had him take me
directly to the terminal so I wouldn’t miss my bus. I had made it, just in time, with about 7
minutes to spare. My watch said 7:53
pm! I thanked my taxi driver and ran
into the terminal and went directly to the platform in which my bus was
supposed to be leaving, but it wasn’t there.
I thought hey… I even beat the bus, but then I didn’t see anyone else
around and started to get worried. One
of the men working in the terminal asked me where I was going and what bus I
was waiting for, so I showed him my ticket.
He looked at it and looked at me, then looked at his watch and said,
‘im
really sorry, but your bus left an hour ago.”
“WHAT?’ I said, extremely confused. I looked at my watch and said, ‘its only 8:00
I’m right on time.’
He said, ‘actually here in Brazil its
9:00pm.’ I thought, ‘you have got to be
kidding me!”
I didn’t realize that Argentina and Brazil
had an hour difference. My initial
reaction was frustration, then I laughed and thought its all part of traveling
right? Luckily I was able to get my
ticket changed to the next day for no charge, but that still meant I had to
find somewhere to stay that night.
Unfortunately this specific bus station was out of the center of town,
which meant there was pretty much nothing around it. There was an expensive hotel or a bunch of
hostels… that were incredibly sketchy.
It was like walking down a hallway in an outdoor mall and every shop was
a hostel that had a few rooms. All of
the owners were sitting outside smoking and drinking and hanging out. They were all trying to get me to stay at
their place and making offers as I walked by.
Throughout all of my travels so far I haven’t felt as uncomfortable as I
did at that moment, so I left. I went
back over to the terminal to try to use the internet café, but they were
closed. Without a map, internet, or any
information, I decided I would make my way to the center of the city because
surely there had to be a hostel to stay in there. I made it to the local bus terminal and was
able to ask a guy there if there were any hostels close by. Gracias a Dios there was a hostel about 5
blocks away, so I set out walking. It
was about 10:30pm as I arrived to the hostel soaked with sweat from walking in
the humidity with my backpack, but I was greeted with a huge smile by the
brasileras!
After I got to my room and dropped my bag
on the floor, I just had to laugh and all my frustration at that point was
gone. Sure I was sad I had to wait
another day to see my friends, but its all part of the adventure when traveling.
So, remember when you are traveling make
sure you know what time you are leaving and that you are following the correct
time, hahaha.
