Not Quite as We Planned Brazil Trip - Day 4

On Wednesday morning, Thigo met us at the hotel. Technically, it was a free day, but all the students, Wimon, and I decided to go on a tour of a Guarani village that Wimon had arranged for us if we were interested. The village was in Argentina so we had to cross the border again. Well, when we got there, we were behind 6 other buses, and had to wait over an hour.

Like usual, the students handled the wait without complaining, although they did come up with unusual ways to entertain themselves like trying to see in how few seats they could cram themselves... and esp. how many people they could put in the back seat. Eventually, we crossed the border and headed to the village.

The Guarani are native to South America, they originally lived in areas ranging from northern Brazil to Uruguay. There are several villages in Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. In most of these villages, the Guaranis have decided to go back to the old ways as much as possible. One of the men from the village, whose name I forgot, showed us around.

Thiago and the man took us into the forest to show some of the old traps. Because they know that many animal are endangered in the area, they no longer hunt, but they still teach the old ways of hunting.

After the tour, our guide and some of the children sang a couple of songs from their religion for us. They were pretty good singers. They are standing in front of a traditional hut. Many of the people in the village still live in similar huts. The government came in and built houses for them, but most families choose to live the traditional way because the new houses were not blessed.

They do some farming including growing pineapples. In the village, they also have stands at which they sell handcrafts to tourists. We bought lots of stuff. Thiago thanked us for supporting them and being so interest in their way of life.

We then headed back to Foz do Iguazu. We said good-bye to Thiago and then we headed into town. Wednesday also happened to be Amanda's birthday, so we let her pick our restaurant for lunch. She picked Pizza Hut. Now you may think that sounds really lame, but you just do not understand how good the pepperoni pizza was. We didn't realize how much we had missed "American" pizza until we had some. We really enjoy the food here, but it was nice to have something from home.

After lunch, Kate, Joyce, Abel, and I headed to the main tourist street and looked around a bit. It started to rain so we grabbed a taxi back to the hotel.

Wednesday night was the World Cup Qualifying match between Argentina and Uruguay. The winner would make the World Cup, the loser would to go to a play off with a team from another division to make the World Cup. Almost all the students and I piled into my room for the match. We sang "Soy Celeste" a lot and cheered for Uruguay. But while Uruguay dominated for the first 3/4 of the game, Argentina managed to pull off a 1-0 victory in the last few minutes. Uruguay will go to the play-off with Costa Rica.

Thursday morning we had free to rest and pack. After checking out at 11, we had lunch then started our long drive home. We entertained ourselves with paying games, visiting, reading, and napping. I was surprised when at 11 PM, I as the only one on the bus reading and not trying to sleep. I soon went to sleep too. We arrived back in Montevideo around 9 AM. It was a great trip. But it was great to be home.