To the jungle

After a long day of travel (the taxi picked us up at 5:30 a.m. in Santiago today and we had to change airports during the layover in Buenos Aires) we arrived in Puerto Iguazú in time to watch the sunset at the river confluence where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay all come together. It would be a perfect setting for Heart of Darkness, except there´s barge traffic on one of the rivers.

The proprietor (actually, I think it´s the proprietor´s son) of our hotel here in the Argentinian jungle is an Italian-born, Venezuelan-raised man who went to high school in Wheeling, West Virginia. I couldn´t make that up.

A brief political aside: So far I´ve entered two countries. Neither one requires Americans (or most westerners) to have a visa. But because the United States requires Argentinians and Chileans to have a visa to enter our country, American travelers have to pay a $130 extortion reciprocation fee when we cross the border. That´s $260 of completely unnecessary expense I´ve had to absorb just to make this trip. Why on earth don´t we just let South American tourists travel freely to the United States as we do Europeans? Are you listening, Congress?

Here are a couple pictures from around town.