Souvenir Plate from 1974
Digital photos 2019
Excerpted from a letter written on April 17th, 1974 from Asunción, Paraguay to my parents in Mexico City…
I just spent the afternoon at my friendly travel agent…that always picks me up when I’m feeling depressed. Have decided to go to Iguazú Falls this weekend…finally! I think I’m about the only person around who hasn’t been there yet…now is supposed to be a good time to go after the Easter crowds. Art said he’d go with me even though he’s been. So we’ll take a midnight bus Friday, have all day Saturday there, and come back Sunday. I’ll be sure and get lots of pictures. Have you been there?
On the bookshelf in our upstairs office there is a quaint small sized souvenir plate with a black and white photograph of two young people standing with a background of Iguazú Falls. The slim long red-haired girl is me and the long-haired guy with the bell bottom trousers, platform shoes and sexy paisley shirt is Art. The plate is the one kitsch knickknack we own and it sits on a black wooden plate holder. It is proof that we did go there 45 years ago when we were “courting” in Paraguay. We bought the plate on a whim when a photographer trying to make some money took our photo at the falls. Ultimately Art took it home to his mother in New Haven as a gift. We were not married then nor even engaged.
The Paraguayan flag...
Ceil kept the plate on a shelf in the living room with other keepsakes. I’m not sure she knew the significance of “the plate” but sensed that there was something important about it. Why else would she have kept it? When we’d go “home” to visit after we were married, we always looked at the plate and were reminded of the many carefree trips we took on long weekends to get out of Asunción. It wasn’t until Ceil moved to Florida and the New Haven house, was sold that the plate came back to us. Art’s sister called to ask if there was anything we wanted from the house. “Only the plate…” was Art’s reply. For years afterwards we’d joke about what valuables would we gather up if we suddenly needed to evacuate somewhere. “The plate,” was always on the list.
When we were planning our recent trip to Buenos Aires I suggested we visit Iguazú Falls, 45 years later. The truth was I didn’t remember anything about that first visit except what I see on the plate. We saw it from the Brazilian side because the plate says Brasil. I mention in my letter taking the bus from Asunción to get there so it was about a six-hour ride.
“Great,” replied Art. “Maybe we can pick up another plate …”
“Not sure the guy is still there,” I joked… We booked the trip to Iguazú Falls for late November.
This time we were on an Aerolineas Argentinas plane from the Buenos Aires city airport for the hour and half flight to Puerto Iguazú on the Argentine side. We had a guide, a booking at the Hotel Las Orquideas and an all-day walk through the park with an excellent guide….something we most likely did not have 45 years ago. Sadly, there is a gap in the my letters that my mother so carefully saved. No follow up to reporting on Iguazú in 1974 when I came back from that weekend. The plate is the proof that we went.
Miles of man-made walkways
Not surprisingly Puerto Iguazu Airport and the Parque Iguazú on the Argentina side is set up now to handle many tourists efficiently. The travel agent representative who picked us up at the airport told us they have even started direct international flights from Spain because there are so many European tourists wanting to see this natural wonder of the world.
On our one long day at the falls following our excellent English-speaking tour guide all the way , we clocked nearly nine miles of walking. The walkways that take you above, next to , in front of and behind the falls are engineering marvels. Trying to imagine workmen laying miles of these wooden and metal walkways so close to the dangerous falls was unimaginable. We viewed and photographed waterfalls from every angle always in awe of their force, majestic beauty, and changing skies around them. We saw monkeys, toucans, coatis (long snouted racoons), and tropical birds throughout the park while we spent a good part of the day soaking wet from the boat ride underneath the falls and the tropical rain storm that blew in in the afternoon.
Toucans
Coatis
Tourist boat goes underneath the Falls...
Up close and dangerous...
We were reminded that we now live in the twenty first century - the Digital Age. There was no nice man with an old fashioned camera waiting to take our picture by the falls. Instead the daring photographers, dressed in complete rain gear, board the motor boat launches that take tourists under the falls and ride the waves while they snap away with their digital cameras. When we got off the boat and shed our life vests they were there ready to sell us “a package” which was a link to an online site so you download photos - all for a fee, of course. No kitschy plates anymore. We declined it all and for a moment I think we both might have been thinking the 1970’s were not so bad. We always have our plate on the shelf to look at.
2019
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