Quebrada de Humahuaca

I love mountains and I love colourful things, so what would be better than colourful mountains? Not much, I guess. Maybe really huge waterfalls in the rainforest, or a huge marsh with capybaras, or a hidden paradise-like island with friends, but you can't really compare those. I enjoyed all of them and couldn't decide what is better. Actually, life is quite hard if there are so many things you enjoy, because deciding on what you want more is never an easy choice.

Our stay in the Quebrada de Humahuaca, a dry desert-like mountain range in the north of Argentina, started with us having to priorize what we really want to do as we found out we do not have enough time to see it all. The one thing we knew was: we wanted to see colourful mountains. But there were actually more of them over the Quebrada and there were such cute villages to visit and so much cute stuff to buy at the local markets there.

We did try to squeeze it all into one day by getting up even before 6 to see our first colourful mountain, the mountain of seven colours in Purmamarca, at sunrise. It endet up with us sitting in a local café at sunrise as we were way to hungry to enjoy any mountains. But at least we were strenghtened afterwards for a small hike around and a beautiful view on the mountain of seven colours. Also, I got to try coca tea that is said to help in higher altitudes, as we were at about 2800m. It wasn't especially tasty and I did not feel different afterwards, but maybe it helped a little in the afternoon.

Because in the afternoon we visited the village of Humahuaca and the near mountain of fourteen colours, which was more like a mountainrange as it was so huge and really colourful! To get there, we ascended to over 4300m in car and then we only had to walk a little further to the viewpoint. As I was not used to the height at all, I was worried this would be really exhausting, but to tell the truth, it wasn't. I got a little headache and walking up the path was slightly more exhausting, but that was it. Now I really want to come back for some serious hiking one day.

The mountains that were ahead of us were extraordinary. As I love mountains and for me almost all mountains are beautiful, just the view of mountains that high would have been enough to get me thrilled, but all this different colours really made me fall in love. Also, the thin air up there might have made me light-headed but nevertheless it was amazing!

What made it even better was that we saw many vicuñas on the way down again. Sorry, I do not have a good photo but a video, you can ask me for it if you have not seen it already. vicuñas look a lot like lamas, I do not know how to tell the difference. But we were told that the wool of the vicuña is even fluffier than of the lama and the alpaca which must be heavenly as I bought a sweater of alpaca wool and I have never worn a sweater this fluffy. And it is so warm! I am almost looking forward to being back in winter so I can wear it. Almost.

Until then I will further enjoy the dry almost desert-like heat of the Quebrada and all its cactuses, as long as it lasts. Since we are kind of on a tight schedule, tomorrow I will already be somewhere with a completely different climate and landscape to enjoy. And there will be wineyards! Okay, I must confess it is not hard if you enjoy so many things in life because there is always something to enjoy and be happy about.

Parque Nacional de Iberá

Ibera wetlands consist of a huge area of marshes and is the second biggest wetland in the world. The biggest wetland is Pantanal in Brazil, which is where Ita, my travel companion, wanted to go initially when we decided to head to Brazil. Unfortunately, since Brazil is really big, the Pantanal was quite far from where we were in Brazil, while the Ibera wetlands were quite on our way inbetween Iguazu and Salta. So we decided to go there instead.

In our travel planning it was always a big question mark as we had no idea how to get into the national park and how to actually see something as we cannot discover such a huge national park on our own. We did find out there were tours offered, but just not from where and how we could book them. People all wrote it was so beautiful but there were very few recommendations on how to get there and all from completely the other side of the national park than the one we were arriving from. I guess without Ita wanting to visit the place I would have never made the effort to actually try to visit it.

But now that it was part of our travel plan and the photos from there looked sooo great, we had to find a way to get there. So after intense research, I found a lodge that not only offered tours but also private transfer to pick us up from Posadas, the closest city north of the wetlands, about 3,5 hours of gravel road inbetween the city and the lodge. We read that you should only take the road with a 4 wheel drive, but on sunny days I would have totally been able to drive this street with Antonio (my car). On rainy days, on the other hand, this street most probably just dissolves into mud and even 4WD would struggle here.

We were lucky, it was sunny both on arrival and departure day. At the lodge we got a full program of boat safaris as well as walking tours at day and night. If anybody ever plans to go to Ibera wetlands, I can really recommend to contact Irupé Lodge, they really helped us make it possible to visit the wetlands! Also, the food was really good and we were finally able to have a undisturbed sleep in the very comfortable beds, which is really way better than sleeping in the bus or even waiting half of the night at the terminal for our connection. I am really looking forward to actually sleeping in a bed at night instead.

But nevertheless, we arrived there in the Colonia Carlos Pelegrini, a really small village right next to a huge lagoon of the national park. Already on our drive to the lodge we could watch various different birds, from really small to huge and in all colour variations, just next to the road. At the lodge, we could even watch all this birds from the balcony, and severall times even capybaras came for a visit to eat just next to the lodge in the grass.

We actually did not know much about what we could see here besides the capybaras. So we were really surprised to suddenly find a cayman chilling right next to the boat on the boat safari. And then we discovered there are so many caymans everywhere, we started a game of taking pictures of them and sending them to our friends: "find the caymans in the photo". Also, we could see marsh deer, various different birds and so many capybaras everywhere.

At this point we thought we had seen it all but we wanted a little more time and did a walk around by ourselves to enjoy the weather, the animals and take some more photos. We were told before that it is quite safe here - the mosquitos do not carry any illnesses as Zika, Malaria or anything, the caymans do not eat anything bigger than baby capybaras, so there is really few to worry about. We did find a lot of beautiful places, lots of animals and had great views at the lagoon.

So when we decided to head back, suddenly we spotted something in the woods that looked and walked different like the other animals that live here. Of course we were curious and approached, and saw two small dog-like creatures which were obviously also curious why we were here. As we had no idea what it was, we actually thought of wolves and feared that this might be the baby wolves and mama wolf would be somewhere close by. As we were without a guide and had no idea how to deal with wolves in the wild, we took another way back and asked later what it was we saw in the woods - it were foxes and we were really lucky to spot them.

Since we have not had enough adventure, we also did a night hike on the same day, this time with a guide. When pointing the flashlight at the shore of the lagoon, we could see the eyes of the caymans reflecting the light. Also, calybaras seem to be night active as well, what actually does not surprise me as all they do during the day is eating and sleeping. Also we saw a armadillo quickly trying to hide from us. We were walking the exact same path as in the afternoon, but this time the foxes were gone.

But the most beautiful thing were definitely the stars. Here we were, hours from the next city, on the boat in the middle of the lagoon, almost no light pollution and it was terrific. We actually got up in the middle of the night again to watch some more stars. I really should have looked up some star constellations from the southern hemisphere since we could see every star and even the milky way. It was really a pity when we had to go to sleep again to be ready for the next day and our long journey to Salta.

Cataratas del Iguazu

I have always loved waterfalls. So when I first encountered a picture of Iguazu Falls I totally wanted to know what this place is and where I can find it. And after I started traveling outside Europe, I knew that some day I had to visit the seemingly most beautiful waterfalls I have ever seen a photo of. But it seemed all distant until we started planning this trip. The probably most wonderful waterfalls of this world and I was going to see them!

I actually had no idea how huge they are. To see them all, you need three days to see all of it properly. And, lucky me, my travel companion was as eager to see the Iguazu Falls as me so we took all the three days and discovered any possible spot to look at the waterfalls, starting from the Brazilian side, then switching to the Argentinian side, walking every possible trail and even doing a boat tour. And it was totally worth it!

While we got the most beautiful pictures by walking the trails on the Argentinian side of the falls, everything else were definitely  experiences worth doing. I can't compare it to anything I have done until now, and I have seen quite a lot of waterfalls recently, like Plitvice lakes, Godafoss, Dettifoss, Gullfoss and many more in Iceland as well as the Niagara Falls in December, and this all was only in the last year. 

But nothing can compare to Iguazu Falls, they really are as wonderful as they are impressing. I mean just look at the photos! They are too beautiful to be real. As if they were photoshopped or copied from some travel magazine. Not like some snapshots from my phone camera, just uploaded in here directly afterwards. Really, this is probably the most impressing thing I have seen until now, I still look at the photos all the time, wondering how such a place could even exist.

To be fair, we were pretty lucky with the weather. We had sun, clear sky and clear blue water due to the low tide. Also, we had enough time to enjoy all of it without time pressure and we both are on the same page on what we want to see which makes the whole trip quite uncomplicated.

On the last day at the falls, when we already took all the stunning photos, we decided the day was dedicated to having fun. So we did a boat trip that was pretty cool because it actually brought us down below some waterfalls, like driving right under it. At first you think "I got this, my rainjacket can hold this water back", and then there is the Splash and as if somebody poured a whole pool of water over you, you are completely wet. And then the fun starts because then you stop caring about staying dry because there is nothing that can stay dry anymore.

After the boat tour, we walked one long trail about an hour to one waterfall further away from the others. There you could actually swim and climb below the waterfall, taking beautiful waterfall pictures or just letting the water rain down on you. I can just recommend, if you take the effort to go to Iguazu Falls, take your time there, there is so much more than just taking the one photo everybody has already taken! If it wasn't on another continent, I would totally come back soon.

Curitiba and Ilha do Mel

I have been looking forward to this trip for a long time, when two years ago, on one of the coldest days of winter, I sent a photo of snow and my friend from Brazil sent back a picture from the beach, saying I should come here, they have 30 degrees. So I asked a friend in Austria, who has been in Brazil for a year during school what to do when there. She told me lots of things and then asked me if I plan to go there. I said "maybe" and she told me she wanted to visit Brazil again for a long time but she didn't want to go alone. From there it was fixed, we had to go to Brazil, and Argentina afterwards because I know people there as well, and we are going in winter because it's summer there and escaping the winter is always a good decision.

So when the moment finally came I was so excited I can't even describe it, the whole week before I could not stop smiling. The trip was long, from Graz to Vienna to New York to Sao Paulo to Curitiba. But finally we arrived in Curitiba and were greeted by my friend, welcomed into the home of his family (who by the way prepared the best breakfast I had for a long time). Everybody was so excited for us to be here and really trying to talk english to us so they would be able to get to know us. As we arrived pretty late, we just saw one of the popular going out streets with lots of bars, which was pretty cool because everybody was just chilling and drinking outside on such a warm summer night.

On the next day we went to Ilha do Mel, an island two hours from Curitiba. My friend from Brazil planned and organized the whole trip and it was really great! The island itself is without cars, so you can just walk around or take the bike (if you have one). It is pretty big but most of it is forest and only some paths connect the two villages and all the beaches. And there were many wide and amazing beaches that seemed almost untouched. The whole place felt so magical, and the weather even intensified the feeling.

We were actually glad we didn't have 35 degrees and sunshine because this would have certainly made us two austrian girls turn into a very red version of ourselves within a very short time. Also the most trails of the island are on the beach without any shade which would have been hard to walk along in the hot summer sun of Brazil. So we were lucky about the weather, as long as it was not raining.

We spent our time on the island discovering the island by foot or by bike, seeing the most amazing landscapes and taking the most stunning photos on the way, having brazilian barbecue, learning many new card games, enjoying the waves in the ocean and just relaxing. It was adventurous, exciting, delicous, impressing and im general just a wonderful time.

I really wish I had more time as there is still so much left to discover and it is just such a perfect summer paradise. I even thought about what I would like to do if I came here again and I am sure I could fill a week with all the activities. But then again it would have never been so great without knowing someone to take you there who knows the island and the country who can take care of things I wouldn't even know about. This made me think about whether I did travelling wrong until now.

Because when you are with people who live there, you get to see the real country. They show you places you would else never could have visited, they show you life as it really is, they cook you the real food, they make you meet and get to know even more people from there. You are not just seeing the country, you are part of it. And this is something else entirely. I really loved the experience and I am so happy my friend from Brazil made this happen.