Vegetarian Meat

In the morning, I went to the desk to “reconfirm” our booking and the guy on duty said sorry we're full. The one we had asked the day before was not on duty, but he had been standing at the desk until I appeared, at which point he immediately disappeared. Great. If we had known the night before we could have made arrangements and been ready to move, instead, we had to scrabble about online trying to find another hostel with available space. Marco Polo Hostel, just across from the bus station, where we had originally planned to stay until I read how lovely the other one was, had space in the dorms, so we booked it.

I had no money to pay the hostel we were leaving because I hadn't thought I was going to need to draw it yet. This situation was quite tricky because nobody in that hostel spoke any English and I didn't have the Spanish to get across what I wanted to say: we are furious, your colleague told us there was no problem, this is totally unacceptable, you'll just have to tell the people moving into our room that you made a mistake, and so on, were all a bit beyond my limited grasp of the language. I managed we are very angry but it fell apart a bit when he asked me why and I tried to explain. I really need to look up the perfect past in Spanish, or whatever they call it. To add insult to injury, he insisted we leave one of our bags behind until we could return to pay the bill. That would mean an extra journey and wasting more of the day. I should just have sworn at him in English really, I'm sure he would have understood, although it was really his colleague I should have been shouting at.

Spinach canelone garnished with (meat) estofado

So we went up and dropped one bag, checked in, drew money, went back down to the first hostel, paid, took the other bag to the new hostel and dropped that off. So much of the day was gone by that time, we realised we would have to extend our stay in the area by another day to do everything we wanted to. And we're on such a tight schedule in South America! So we checked in for the two days and our two days at the falls had grown to four and it was already lunch time. Following the well-known maxim that there's no vegetarian meal which cannot be improved by the addition of some meat, the delicious spinach cannelloni I had for lunch came topped with delicious meat stew.

Then we rushed back to the falls to find out if the water level had fallen enough overnight, with no rain, for the boat trips to be running again. We were in luck and bought our tickets just inside, in case they changed their minds by the time we got to the landing platform. The bottom path which takes you right down to the waterside treated us to another perspective on the falls. The flow may have been a bit less, but it was no less impressive. We got on the boat and the driver zoomed backwards and forwards around the island, getting nearer and nearer to the spray each time. Eventually we were getting soaked, but I couldn't see anything at all because the water shoots away from the impact with such force that it hurts too much to keep your eyes open. I wish I'd had some goggles with me! Or even if I had been prepared enough to put my sunglasses on they may have offered enough protection to see something. The whole thing only lasted about twenty minutes and I didn't really think it was worth it. Joanne really enjoyed it, though, and so had everyone else we knew who had done it. I just thought it was OK; maybe if I had been driving the boat it I would have enjoyed it more. After the boat we had been planning to take another short hike to another part of the falls not on the main trails, but it started to rain and we decided against it. Just as well because, when we got on the bus, it really started to rain again. Perfect timing!

Where the boat goes to and fro

Boat in the spray

Joanne wet