I’m sitting in a middle seat. In fact, this is the second time in a middle seat this week. Honestly, this is the first trip in four years where I have found myself in a middle seat – aside from those few occasions when I was flying at some desperate hour to get home from some desperate city after some desperate customer call when I was too desperate to complain about it.

Oh, who am I kidding? I totally would have complained about it.

I’m sitting in the middle seat because she is staring out the window at the verdant, exotic, green panorama of Northern Argentina and smiling, and when she smiles I get all squishy inside and suddenly don’t mind that my elbows are bruising my kidneys while I type. And when I get squishy inside I frequently feel compelled to lean over and breathe in her ear causing her to immediately blush and giggle, and when she does that I totally forget about the pain and discomfort of bruised kidneys.

Blushing Canadians and bruised kidneys aside, I have to accept that she probably deserves that spacious window seating if only to tolerate my stench for two hours on this aircraft. Let’s just say that Iguaçu is a bit sultry, and my supply of clean clothing has long been exhausted. With the exchange rate being what it is, I’m seriously considering just purchasing a new wardrobe back in Buenos Aires and burning my bags. Sure, I know the combustion of non-natural, petroleum-based fibers isn’t exactly eco-friendly, but seriously, the stench from my luggage isn’t either.

We spent the last several days on the border of Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, hiking and boating around the spectacular Iguaçu Falls. I’m told they are one of the seven natural wonders of the world, bringing my personal total of visits to three. I’m tempted to see if I can knock off the other four on this extended sojourn if only to say I have done it.

The things I do for a good bar story. And you think I’m boorish and long-winded already. I’ll be positively unbearable by the end of this trip.

Iguaçu Falls are a collection of dramatic waterfalls plunging as much as 80 meters over glistening basalt cliffs. The Falls are smack in the middle of a rain forest, and lizards, monkeys (still hate monkeys), monitors, snakes, coati, and toucans are fairly easy to see. The coati and monitors are perhaps most common as both don’t seem fearful of humans and are often hanging around trails and snack-bars for fairly obvious reasons.

The falls themselves are spectacular, and I seriously lack the vocabulary to accurately describe either their magnificence or immensity. I can say that despite the heat, humidity, throngs of smelly tourists, and my own overpowering stench, I am thrilled we made the decision to visit them, and consider my self blessed to have been fortunate enough to see them with my own eyes. Seriously people. Pictures only tell a fraction of the story. Your first thought at the sight of them, and seriously, there are hundreds of them, are usually something along the lines of “holy shit” (this trip will make a poet of me yet). Of course, Gary, my climbing partner and confirmed adrenaline junkie would probably have seen them and looked for paddleable lines with his kayak, scoping out 100-foot drops and thinking, “Yeah, I could do it.”

Thankfully for my mother, I totally lack instinct for adrenaline-fuelled self-destruction.

Well, almost totally. I think our next trip will be river rafting in Bariloche, but I’m sure that is totally safe.

We spent our first afternoon visiting the falls from the Brazilian side of the park, giving myself another opportunity to completely butcher the Portuguese language, and spent all day yesterday on the Argentine side. We even took a boat out to the mouth of several falls to be drenched beneath its spray.

The Brazilians offer boat tours along the river on the upper part of the falls, but I opted out of that trip. Honestly, just seems like a spectacularly bad idea. I’d rather not be on the top of the falls when the engine seizes and the driver starts screaming at everyone in Portuguese to “Paddle, dammit! Paddle!”

With the exception of the mosquitoes that have been using me as their own Italian all-you-can-eat buffet every night, Iguaçu has been without incident. The other night one managed to take a sip from the tip of my already prominent proboscis while I was sleeping, leaving me looking like I had just been smacked in the schnoz. A pugilist in a parasitic prizefight, and kids, I’m totally the loser.

I have been in desperate need for a chiropractor – the result of an improperly loaded daypack. Unfortunately, knowing my short-bus Spanish, I’m just as likely to request a plastic surgeon as I am a doctor of chiropractic care. With my linguistic prowess, I’ll walk in looking for a back adjustment and walk out with a breast augmentation. Then again, my back may still hurt, but at least my new tits will keep me sufficiently distracted to care.

Overall, the trip thus far has been nearly perfect, sore backs and swollen noses notwithstanding. Argentina is a wonderful country, and I have not missed the pace and the progress of SoCal even once. I may not have found any answers in the Argentine wine, but I have found a wonderful, if tragically temporary travel partner I couldn’t be happier about.

The flight is about to land. Even in South America they have rules on airplanes. Chickens and goats totally welcome, but a laptop might interfere with the landing.

Until Bariloche, hasta.