A week in the stunning 'south-up' of Argentina and Brazil

225+ waterfalls, few American tourists, cheap wine and chocolate, and giant rabbit-like rodents. What more could you want?

Hi cacti! This week’s newsletter is basically a travel report because it’s the most far-flung trip I’ve ever taken. I’ll be returning to my regularly scheduled programming soon.

We just returned from a trip* to Argentina and I’m still processing how wonderful it was, even if there was a major flight delay, a missing suitcase (mine), and a cranky 11-year-old who repeatedly asked why we couldn’t just go to Florida instead.

Prior to this trip, I had never been farther south than Costa Rica. South America is enormous. I wondered: Would crossing far, far beyond the equator feel different? The seasons are flipped, after all!

And yes, it did feel so different. In a lot of ways. Winter was the least of it.

Geographically: I didn’t take a picture of it, but there was a beautiful artwork in our Buenos Aires airbnb that inverted the typical map view of South America, so that Antarctica was “north.” And why not? I thought. Why do we always have to show the planet with our hemisphere on top? In outer space, there is no up or down.

I’ve since learned the artwork was a type of “south-up” map orientation, used to challenge typical Western beliefs:

A south-up map orientation, via Wikipedia

Case in point: The first “blue marble” photo taken in 1972 by Apollo 17 astronauts was south-up, but apparently NASA had to reverse it to conform to “certain cultural norms,” according to the World Science Festival. Here’s the original:

Hello, Africa. (Why am I not shocked that NASA felt pressured to show the Northern hemisphere “on top?”)

Culturally: We used to live in Mexico City and I assumed Buenos Aires would feel a lot like the DF. Nope. The culture is distinctive. Even strawberries go by a different name! (frutilla). Beautiful blue-and-white Argentinian flags hang everywhere, and the Parisian architecture is well-preserved, partly because unlike Mexico, they don’t get ravaged by earthquakes every few years.

Also lovely: Street crime is minimal and the tap water is safe to drink. But the best thing of all about Buenos Aires? DRIVERS DON’T HONK. On my first day, I kept thinking “why is it so quiet? I’m in a big city?!” Then someone broke the silence with a rare honk.

The other best thing? Most of the tourists we encountered were Brazilian, not American. I heard more Portuguese than English.

Ecologically: OK now for the really good stuff. We took a three-day side trip to Iguazu Falls, the “the largest waterfall system in the world.” Las Cataratas de Iguazu divides Brazil and Argentina. It’s easy (and recommended) to visit both sides.

We spent our first day on the Brazil side. Recent heavy rainfalls made Iguazu thunderous and intimidating. Every viewpoint was stunning.

Incredibly, this is just one small part of the falls. Over on the left, it keeps going and going.

I fell in love with these plush-crested jays, which reminded me of the green jays I recently saw for the first time in South Texas. How are jays so incredibly diverse in plumage yet so similar in disposition? The way this couple chattered immediately gave them away as corvids, aka beautiful crows.

The most insane thing we did? A zodiac boat tour of the falls. I was so scared I didn’t really get to enjoy it, but my kiddo and husband found the class 19 rapids thrilling.

This was the calm part. The terrifying part was the ride getting there, via a small canyon filled with MASSIVE CHAOTIC WAVES.

I don’t know how they build these walkways, hopefully they use a lot of harnesses?

The next day we toured the Argentinean side. An extended walkway traverses over the top of a long string of the waterfalls. Thanks to the good weather, we basically spent an afternoon inside a rainbow.

I held onto my phone very tight to take this photo.

Oh, and this heron grabbed my attention. She knows how to live:

I would have loved another day at the park just to take rainbow photos. (Who wouldn’t?)

My brain exploded at this point.

Also, the local butterflies love people:

The “88” butterfly is an iconic symbol for Iguazu, and you can see why.

Butterfly moustache.

We then flew back for a few more days in Buenos Aires, where both the husband and daughter caught terrible head colds (my over-reactive immune system finally came in handy). We didn’t get out as much as we would have liked, but we did make it to visit one of the many large city parks, where we mingled with bottle trees and Patagonian cavies that roam free at the eco-parque:

Best tree ever if you want a slimming look.

Patagonian cavy (or mara), a type of rodent that looks like a deer-rabbit.

So… yeah: It was all so different. Delightfully different. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to go back, but I hope so. It’s life-affirming to visit a world full of creatures and vistas I’ve never seen before, to have butterflies follow me while a rainbow shines overhead (!), and to ponder the world south-up.

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*I keep fighting the urge to explain that we found steeply discounted airfare via Escape ATX and that the dollar is trading very strong right now against the Argentinean peso. We don’t normally roll this hard.