Well Thursday Mom and Tim officially made it home, HOORAY, and I took off for the northeast corner of the country to visit the infamous Iguazu Waterfalls! The waterfalls are along the border of Brasil and Argentina and we stayed in a town sandwich right in between Paraguay and Brasil, it was another great excursion with ISA that gave me the opportunity to see a completely new side of Argentina.

We left Thursday afternoon at 6 and 30 of us road a bus all night to arrive at our first destination, from there we met up with our tour guide for the weekend and switched buses to head to a farm of Yerba (the leaf used for mate) and Black Tea.  On our way to the farm we spent a couple hours at the ruins of a Jesuit Mission called San Ignacio Mini. The Jesuits set up many missions in Argentina and surrounding countries to bring Catholicism to the indigenous people of the area, the Guaranis. The ruins have been beautifully reconstructed and it was really interesting to learn the history of the indigenous people and the ways things operated in the mission. After that tour we head to the "ranch/farm" which is set up to also entertain guests and tourists, so we spent the rest of the day lounging by their pool, playing volleyball and enjoying another incredible Argentine asado! (big surprise :)) The owners of the land also manufacture their own Yerba that is sold to be used to drink mate, so during the afternoon we took a visit to the yerba factory! We were able to see the whole process, from live yerba plants growing in the field to thousands of 80kg bags of dried yerba leaves ready to be shipped all over Argentina! 

Saturday we went deeper into the rainforest to Iguazu National Park, home the the incredible Iguazu Falls. A true wonder of the world, and once again something that pictures can't even capture. We were able to go on 3 different trails to see the falls from all different angles, and visited the biggest of them all, LA GARGANTA DEL DIABLO! (THE DEVILS THROAT!) It was so incredible to stand in front of the falls and feel the mist of the water, hear the roar of the water and stand in awe of God's amazing creation : ) Our final activity at the falls was a speed boat ride that gave us the COOLEST shower of my life : ) It literally took us right under the falls and I got beat up a little by a waterfall, no big deal! hahah. To end the day we headed back into Puerto Iguazu, to "Las Tres Fronteras" or The Three Borders. It is a place in Argentina were you can stand in Argentina and see the coasts of Brasil and Paraguay, watching the sunset over 3 countries and drinking a mate is something that I don't think that  I will soon forget, how incredible!

Sunday we were privelged to be able to visit a Guarani village. The Guarani are the indigenous people of the area, and they have laid aside a seciton of the rainforest so that these ancient people can continue to perserve their culture. They still observe many traditional customs and our Guarani guide took us through a small hike through the forest to show us how they construct their homes, and 4 different traps that they use to catch jungle animals. I will put some pictures below and see if you can guess which animal they catch with each (here's your test Dad : )) To end the tour, the children of the village sang a song for us in their  traditional language and we were able to spend a little bit of time with them, so incredibly cute! The trip was so much more than I had anticipated, to start with a trip to a  the ruins of  a mission and then to be able to end the trip actually meeting the same people in their native lands was so neat. Not to mention the farm, yerba factory, waterfalls, speedboat ride and 3 countries in between! It's truly mindblowing all that I have been able to experience during my short stay in Argentina and words can't describe how blessed I feel. Just another day in this crazy thing called life : )

UN BESO!
Bailey

In front of the ruin of San Ignacio Mini mission

The Yerba Factory that we walked to from the ranch house! Here they take the harvested plants and dry them, cut them and package them!

Any mate lovers dream! Laying on a bed of yerba leaves ahahah

Our hotel! Not too shabby eh?? : ) In the middle of the rain forest!

Yep, indescribable

There were literally lines at times in order to get a picture at the edge of the falls, so Meghan and I decided to snap a cute one next to this love trash can that advises tourists not to feed the animals! : )

LA GARGANTA DEL DIABLO! The devil's throat! Today it was flowing at one million liters per second! The power is astounding!

The panoramic view from the lower trail! See that little boat in the distance, those are the boats that took us right up next to the falls : )

Just a little gift from God as we left the park!

Las Tres Fronteras. Brazil on the right and Paraguay on the left.

In the province Missiones, it's so hot that they prepare mate with juice instead of hot water. Meghan and I tried "terere" or "mate frio" and drank mate and watched the sun set : )

Our Guarani host, showing us how they construct their houses. They only cut the wood when there is a full moon because the houses last 6-7 years that way. If they cut the wood when the moon is partial the houses only last a year a year or two.

Trap 1: ?

Trap 2: ?

Trap 3: ?

The cutest kids that sang to us : ) I got a video, it's priceless