Salta

Urban industrial art in progress

Salta

The morning after unlimited meat and wine we had the inevitable hangovers and I only managed a short walk into town to draw money, passing some unusual urban art under construction, before we were picked up to go horse riding. The barbecue had taken its toll, too, on Stephen, who was also staying at the hostel, and he had slept in and missed the tour he had signed up for; so as not to waste the day, he had decided to join us horse riding.

The gaucho shows us how it's done

I don't quite manage it

When we arrived at the ranch, the gaucho who had picked us up at the hotel showed us how to throw a lasso; the aim was to capture a cow skull on a tree stump. When I stepped up to have a go, he told me three chances and then you run. I tried three times and I got close, but failed. OK, now you run, he told me; so I did. I thought I might escape by zig-zagging, but he was too good for me and I was caught!

I get my just desert

Stephen does it first time!

Joanne nearly does it

Then it was time to set off on the horses. I was pretty nervous, not having been on a horse since I was about seven, on a tame pony in Ireland. These horses were also quite placid, so it wasn't as difficult as I feared. After getting over the initial nerves, though, I started to find it a bit boring, just trotting along, but after a little longer I relaxed even more and found it quite a pleasant journey through the country, but it was still frustrating how slowly we were going. Finally, our gaucho said to us do you want to gallop? and slapped our horses behinds' while geeing them on. At last some real fun! To my surprise the gallop was actually more comfortable than trotting or cantering, because there is only one “bounce” every cycle of the hooves, so there isn't as much bouncing. It didn't last long though, and the horses soon slowed back to a trot without ever galloping very fast. Afterwards the gaucho explained that the horses do this because they are not stupid, and they can tell that the people on their backs don't know what they are doing.

All the way through, Joanne's horse, Caramelo ("Sweetie"), was very badly behaved: Caramelo was determined that it should always be in front, and any time my horse or Stephen's started overtaking, Caramelo turned its head to the side and bit the other poor horse. Poor Stephen's horse, which was really quite small, was clearly bottom of the pile, and by the end of it did not dare pass either my horse or the evil Caramelo.

Me on my horse

Joanne on the trail

Joanne on her horse

Through the undergrowth

At the top of the trail

Authentic gaucho

When our trek was finished and we dismounted back at the ranch, I discovered that my only remaining pair of long trousers had ripped a huge hole right at the crotch! Now I had no long trousers at all.

All on our horses

My horse

Return path

Fighting through thicket

Caramelo on the rampage

Back in town, Stephen, Zdenek, and Lucy came out with us for dinner in a restaurant across the road from the hostel. I decided that I'd had enough of steak and had a traditional stew, but regretted it as soon as Zdenek's thirty peso steak arrived: after all the great steaks we had seen in Argentina, this was the best one – and huge. Meanwhile Joanne decided to give the meat a miss altogether and go for the lentil stew; when it arrived it did have lentils in it, but it also had beef, chorizo, and bacon in it! We were going to have to get up early the next morning so when I saw coca tea on the menu, I decided it was probably just what I needed to help me pack before bed. It tasted pleasant enough, a bit like green tea, and I think it probably did help with the packing.

Spanglish on the menu!

Next morning we got another grumpy taxi driver, who even ignored my buenas dias! then at the bus, the bag handler was refusing to give people their luggage receipts until they tipped him. Not long after we left town, the bus was held up for an hour by yet another demonstration. We only had one more night in Argentina and I was becoming very pleased about that.

written by  The Happy Couple on October 15, 2009 from Salta, Argentina
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Salta

Salta

At the hostel, I was struggling a little with the Spanish when checking in, but the owner realised I was an English speaker and switched from perfect Spanish to English with and English accent. I told him what had happened with the taxi driver and he said that it was no problem to take it off the bill, though he was rather surprised by the story. On Easter Island, Colette had recommended this hostel, telling us that they did the best barbecues if you are there on the correct day. A sign above the desk confirmed we had got it right: Eat and drink all you can BBQ! Wednesdays and Saturdays. We didn't have much time in Salta but Joanne wanted to go horse riding while we were there, so we signed up for the barbecue and, bearing that well in mind, signed up for the afternoon horse riding the next day.

Salta

Salta is meant to be a pretty town, so we had a bit of a wander about, but we were quite tired after the bus journey, and we were still a bit sick of Argentinian towns. It was also very windy and dusty when we first set foot outside, but we did see some of city.

Salta

It's windy when we arrive

Salta

Quilmes negro

The barbecue

Everyone

My meat

Stephen

Lucy and Zdenek

Ricarda, Lucy, Zdenek, and Joanne

Stephen and Ricarda

written by  The Happy Couple on October 14, 2009 from Salta, Argentina
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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That evening, back at Hotel Germano, I asked the receptionist for somewhere mas tipico de Paraguay, not sure (or caring) if the Spanish is correct, and she directed us to somewhere that she admitted was not tipico tipico but they had a few dishes apparently. At the restaurant, which seemed to be an Italian restaurant, I asked the waiter for something tipico and he told me they didn't have anything. So I just ordered a steak done in the house style, which turned out to be stuffed with ham and cheese, and garnished with some more of the same as well as some mushroom sauce. Just a little bit rich!

Extreme steak

In the morning we went shopping in the bajo part of town, which is due to be flooded as part of a dam project, but for the moment, where all the market stalls are to be found. There wasn't as much there as we'd been hoping, nor was it as cheap, but my trouser situation was really out of hand since my “best” pair of long trousers' fly had gone and was only held together by safety pins. Under pressure, I bought two pairs of shorts I didn't really like for more money than they should surely have cost in that country.

Market in Bajo Encarnacion

This will all be flooded soon

Seems they've already started the flooding

Mission accomplished, we loaded onto the bus back to Argentina. Since we had some time, we thought it best to stamp out of Paraguay, which of course meant getting off the bus and waiting for the next one, which stopped and waited at the Argentinian side for everyone to get their stamp. This time, though, there were already people waiting and, by the time we got through border control, our bus was full and pulling off. Joanne ran after it for a bit shouting at the driver, but there was no point: it was full. So it was another wait for the next bus, which we made sure we got on, again leaving lots of people behind. Only a few hundred metres past the border, the bus stopped and the driver indicated everyone should get off, though I didn't catch why. I went up and asked him aren't we going to the terminal and again, I didn't quite get his answer, so we just got off too, at which point we saw why: the bus had a flat tyre. Considering the bus had been so full that not everyone waiting at the border had been able to get on, and there had been people waiting from the previous bus when we arrived at the border, we didn't fancy our chances with the next bus, but the driver just told us to wait. The next bus actually had enough space for everyone, so maybe the previous two were during rush hour.

Rickety old local bus

We had left lots of time to spare before the bus we had to catch in Posadas, but now it was starting to get a bit tight. Luckily it wasn't much further to the terminal and we were soon checked in for the bus. When we got on the bus, I was very disappointed; we had paid extra for cama rather than the semi-cama we had taken before, but it turned out, for me, to be less comfortable than the cheaper option because, in an effort to make everything seem more solid and luxurious I think, there is no space under the chair in front, where you have to jam your feet to be comfortable if you are not short. Instead everything is built to look like a solid unit right down to the floor. The journey just got worse: cama is downstairs on most buses, but so is the toilet, which meant that we were kept awake by people banging the door, then by all manor of hideous odours. As if that wasn't bad enough, the military stopped the bus three times during the night to get on, check people's passports, and on two occasions, removed bags from the boot and demanded to know who the owner was. Thankfully it was never us.

written by  The Happy Couple on October 13, 2009 from Encarnacion, Paraguay
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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We made our way back to the hotel and up the long driveway to check in. It seems even in the tourist industry in Paraguay there is no English spoken. We managed, but the receptionist was one of those people who makes no allowances for people who have said they can't speak Spanish well. The hotel didn't seem anything like as posh as the guide book had led me to believe, and the price the girl at the last hotel had quoted me was a bit higher than in the guide, but it did have four swimming pools, as promised, and there seemed to be plenty of birds around. To settle in, we decided to have a beer by the pool, before taking the plunge ourselves, but by the time we had finished our beers, there was an ominous rumbling and some distant flashes of light. We barely had time to seek shelter before it started pouring with rain and the clouds were so thick that Joanne took some convincing that it was already about 6pm and getting dark: it was only 2.30pm and not because my phone was still in another time-zone.

Too wet even for a toad

How dark it looked before playing with camera settings

It rained...

... and it rained

So we spent the one day we had by four swimming pools watching incredibly heavy rain from the hotel bar. At least the beer prices didn't seem to be too inflated for somewhere supposedly so posh, though they had a terrible selection of drinks and wouldn't even mix cocktails. When I had tried to get some more information about the place online, several days before, I had gathered from the Spanish only site (the English section was “under construction”) that the hotel was for sale, also there was no way to book online, so I hadn't seen sure it was open until our last hotel's receptionist phoned for me. Now I could see why it was for sale: they had no idea what to do with the place, and they weren't charging enough for drinks. Good news for us, though. Here I reflected on something that had been bugging me in Argentina, and was clearly the same in Paraguay. The beers come in three sizes: un litro, tres cuartos, and chico. Chico means small, only in Latin American Spanish, I think: in Spain it means only “guy”, whereas South Americans never seem to use the word pequeño for small. Anyway I have no problem with the chico size: it's 330ml, which is quite small, however the litro bottles are only 970ml, which is clearly not a litre; OK it's only slightly short and maybe nothing to get upset about, even if it is clearly a lie. My real problem is with the tres cuartos bottles, which are only 620ml, far short of their advertised quantity and, in fact, even less than dos terceros I might let them away with on the same grounds as the litro. The most baffling thing about all of this is that the bottles are usually priced according to their professed volumes, rather than the real ones, so buying two chicos is cheaper than buying one tres cuartos, though un litro is almost always the best value, which really leaves little choice...

After an hour or so of non-stop very heavy rain and increasingly close lightening, the power went out. I had just built myself up to ask the tourist-unfriendly receptionist about internet use, only to be told no because of the weather, which I had thought was a bit daft; now I understood what she was saying. Back in the bar I tried to speak a bit with the barman, but found him very difficult to follow as well. He was either speaking Portuguese or Spanish very heavily influenced by Portuguese. There seems to be a lot of Portuguese in Paraguay: in Ciudad del Este, it seems to be most people's first language, but it makes sense there as it's just over the border from Brazil, but here the closest border is Argentina, so I wasn't expecting it at all. After a very uninspiring “buffet dinner” closely resembling school meals, we gave up and retired to our room, which was very nice, to be fair. On the TV, all the channels seemed to be in Portuguese. Strange.

View from our room

Our room

Joanne catches some rays

Our room from across the pool

In the morning it was nice and sunny, so we were out at the pool by 8am. We swam a bit and lounged around until we had to check out, after which we returned to one of the non-resident pools and continued sun-bathing. We had gone there for the pools, so we were going to take advantage of it. One mystery we never got to the bottom of was the fact we hadn't been able to book in for two nights; that had been my plan, so that we would get one full day there, but the previous hotel's receptionist had reported that they were full the second day, however there were very few other guests around. Maybe there was a huge tour group arriving later that day, or maybe the receptionist had got it wrong, just as she had with the price, as I discovered at check-out: she had told us 350000 guarnies for the night, but it was only actually 200000, which is really quite cheap. Maybe I should buy it and do it properly; I'm sure there's money to be made there.

Nice sunny view

Non-resident pool

Best shot I got of the birds!

Our only other plan in Paraguay was to visit the Santísima Trinidad del Paraná
Jesuit ruins which are near Hotel Tirol; after the ruins in Argentina, we weren't that excited about it, which partly explains our extended sun-lounging, though we did finally get around to ordering a taxi, not at all sure about the buses we might be able to catch.

written by  The Happy Couple on October 12, 2009 from Hotel Tirol, Paraguay
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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The ruins were much less developed than the ones in Argentina: no museum, no rebuilding going on, no buttons to press for a description in your language. Joanne thought it was even less impressive than the Argentinian ruins and, to be fair, they were very similar, though this one was a bit smaller. However, it was in a nice hilltop location, whereas the Argentinian one had felt rather claustrophobic, and I preferred the untouched, falling-apart-on-its-own appearance. Parts of it seemed to be in better condition without the construction and it just seemed like a lovely place to hang about. Hanging about wasn't in our itinerary, though, and we needed to get back to Encarnacion, unsure of the bus timetable as we were. Having seen what I understand are two of the best examples, I wouldn't have bothered with Jesuit ruins. They're just not that interesting. But I didn't know, and at least I do now.

We hiked the half-kilometre or so back to the main road and did our best to shelter for the sun as we waited for the bus.

written by  The Happy Couple on October 12, 2009 from La Santísima Trinidad del Paraná, Paraguay
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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I had a secret plan to book us into a posh hotel for the next two nights, so I couldn't tell her. I told her I'd ask the receptionist for advice but actually asked her if she knew and would book for us Hotel Tirol, which our guidebook suggested as a place to visit for its bird sanctuary or the swimming pool, also mentioning that this former favourite hangout of the King of Spain is surprisingly reasonable to stay at. It turned out that they could only take us for one night too, although Hotel Germano were able to take us back again for our last night in Paraguay. Joanne was still unhappy about the accommodation situation so I had to spoil my surprise about Hotel Tirol before she continued into an inconsolable despair about how we shouldn't have come to Paraguay; Joanne hadn't wanted to enter Paraguay in the first place and Ciudad del Este had been enough to convince her, whereas I had wanted to spend quite bit longer than the three nights I had compromised on, but Joanne's time was running out and she really wanted to get to Bolivia.

The girl on the desk had recommended an “international restaurant” nearby so, to make life easier, we just followed her advice instead of spending the time to find a more traditional Paraguayan place as I would have preferred. The “international restaurant” turned out to be a Japanese restaurant, where the sushi was very good, and much cheaper than it had been in Japan! Judging by the clientele, it was one of the posher restaurants in Encarnacion, but the prices were extremely reasonable compared to Argentina, and the Paraguayan beer we had was far superior to that horrible, tasteless Quilmes stuff that is ubiquitous in Argentina.

Judging by the short walk we had around town, it was a very religious place: the schools had religious names; the parks had religious names; there were banners up promoting religious festivals; there was even a hairdresser called El Niño Jesus; and when we got back to the room I discovered that the chest of drawer next to the bed contained a copy of The Gideon's Bible in Spanish and English; I don't know how many years it is since I last found one of these in my drawers.

Beef and egg soup

The next morning, in pursuit of something a bit more authentic than Japanese, we went next door to the basic-looking cafe. Feeling brave, I ordered something in the breakfast section that I had no idea what it would be, but turned out to be a very tasty beef and egg soup. As it was late morning and other people were drinking beer, I thought it would be OK to order one myself, and it arrived in one of those very civilised bottle containers for keeping beer cool. We hadn't seen one of them since Thailand and Cambodia, but it was very hot in Paraguay, so it made sense. As we ate, two flies landed in beer, reminding me of the unlikely coincidence in a joke Andre had told in Montevideo (stop me if you know it):

A Scotsman, an Englishman, and an Irishman are all in a pub having a beer. Coincidentally, a fly lands in each of their beers at the same time. The Englishman pushes his pint to the side, saying that he can't possibly drink it now; the Irishman nonchalantly picks the fly out, throws it away, and continues drinking; the Scotsman picks the fly out of his beer, lifts it up to his face, and shouts at the fly “spit it oot!”

Nice cold beer

We had time for another little walk around the town before our bus to Hotel Tirol, but there really didn't seem to be much to see. Compared with everywhere we had been recently it seemed a nice, laid-back place, where people were just going about their business, but it was also extremely ugly compared to anywhere we had been for a while. I think, other than Asunción, Paraguay is not about the towns; what a shame we were only going to be out of town for one day! We left most of our luggage at Hotel Germano and waited at the bus station.

written by  The Happy Couple on October 11, 2009 from Encarnacion, Paraguay
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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First stop, though, was San Ignacio, a place famous for the Jesuit ruins there. I didn't know much about the Jesuits but there are plenty of examples of their ruined community buildings all over this part of South America, abandoned when the King of Spain expelled them, then destroyed during South American international wars. I didn't really know what to expect of the ruins either, but thought we should check them out since we were in the area.

In the town of San Ignacio it was the first time we had seen anyone who looked more than slightly native American. And the tragedy is that the South American Indians here, Guaranis I think, were probably the poorest people we had seen so far on the continent. They all seemed to be living in the streets and they looked utterly miserable. Maybe not so much has changed in Argentina since Guevara's time after all.

We were a bit unsure what to do when we arrived. I tried to tell someone that I was looking for tourist information, but I think he understood simply that I was wanted information and pointed us in the direction of the ruins, rather than somewhere we could maybe store our bags for a few hours, get a map, and maybe access the internet to book a place to stay that evening. We stood around contemplating lunch and where the entrance to the ruins might be, rather than the exit we were standing outside, when a woman came out of one restaurant, and invited us to leave our bags for no charge. I'm not sure if she was explicit or hinted that we eat at her restaurant, but we were quite happy to do so anyway.

Lots of birds around the ruins

What would Dan Brown make of these symbols?

Entrance to the ruins

Church entrance

Tree growing through a wall

Even here they can't resist grafitti

The ruins themselves were not very exciting; actually they were quite impressive, but any ruins on the same trip as Angkor have to be really impressive to be of much interest. They seem to be rebuilding large parts of it but haven't got very far yet.

Living quarters

The stonework has seen better days

Original tiles! Wow.

Reconstruction work

Central courtyard

A big cactus

When we finished at the ruins, we picked our bags up from the restaurant where the staff kindly told us where to wait for the bus. After half an hour of waiting, I was starting to get nervous about the possibility of our intended hotel filling up before we got there, but a bus arrived shortly after and we were in Posadas soon after, where we quickly and easily caught a bus to Encarnacion, across the border. At the Argentine border post the bus waited as almost everyone got off to get stamped out, then at the Paraguayan side the bus stopped and the driver looked at us meaningfully. We had considered not bothering with Paraguayan stamps this time, after all the hassle at Iguazu, but a few other people getting off the bus persuaded us it would be OK. As soon as we got off the bus the others all wandered off in the direction of no-mans-land, where they probably lived, but it looked like the bus was waiting, so it would be OK after all. The queue for the immigration officials wasn't very long but it wasn't moving very fast, and one of the two windows was taken up by an official having his lunch. After a couple of minutes, the bus crept forward, the driver craning to analyse the situation briefly, before putting his foot down and disappearing.

Luckily the next bus was along in only fifteen minutes but by that time I was convinced all of the rooms in Encarnacion would be gone. After longer on the bus that I expected, with no sign of any bus terminal, the bus stopped in the street, everyone else got off, and the driver asked us where we were going; el terminal I said, but he pointed backwards and said something about fifteen blocks. Surely the point of a terminal is that the bus terminates there? It looked a bit dodgy where we were so, completely against our usual policy, we took a taxi. Before we got in I had to tell the driver that we had no guaranies, but he said it didn't matter, he would take pesos, dollars, euros, anything.

written by  The Happy Couple on October 10, 2009 from San Ignacio, Argentina
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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At the bus station there was already a bus waiting which said “international service” on it, and when I asked if they went to Ciudad del Este, the driver said yes, then something about frontera. We paid and got on the bus and then the penny dropped that he had probably been saying that we would be dropped at the border where it would only take five minutes to walk across the bridge. I wasn't totally sure, though. We really should have waited for the bus which actually said “Ciudad del Este” on the front, because that one goes direct and just transits through Brazil so you don't need to go through their passport control. At the Argentina-Brazil border, the bus just went straight through and I began to believe I had misunderstood, but when we got to Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil, the bus just pulled up to the bridge to Paraguay without going through any borders. This was a bit of a problem because we hadn't been stamped into Brazil and now we were about to try and leave it. We just had to brazen it out: en transito, I announced confidently to the border policeman as I handed over my passport, but it didn't work. They were quite nice and only lightly scolded us, reminding us that we had to get stamped on our way back. “Bus the bus didn't stop” we said, but he just said that we have to ask the bus to stop.

The other slight problem with the bus we had taken was that someone at breakfast had told us that their guide book (Lonely Planet) warns that the bridge is too dangerous to walk over, so you should not do it. It seemed OK, so we just walked and, although there were definitely a few unsavoury characters hanging around in no mans land, they didn't seem any more dangerous than you might encounter on a walk into Glasgow city centre. Certainly during the day with so many people around it didn't seem at all dangerous; maybe at night I would have second thoughts. At the other side we found passport control and asked them to stamp our documents.

Ciudad del Este, at least at the border, is quite a crazy place; we hadn't seen anything like that level of activity since Asia: there are loads of stalls lining the streets, touts who offer you cards then try to drag you into their preferred photographic or computer shop. It does seem a bit dodgy, but I certainly wouldn't have put it down to “the Arabs” our Israeli room mate had warned us about; in fact I didn't see anyone I would have recognised as an Arab. The city is apparently known as the supermarket of South America because of all the contraband goods smuggled in from Brazil, but even the legal goods are probably cheaper than Brazil because of taxation and the relative value of the currencies, cost of labour, and so on. At first it was a bit over-whelming, but then I decided to follow a tout or two, just to find out where the computer shops were and try to get some kind of feel for the prices. The prices were much higher than I expected and nobody seemed keen to haggle much, probably because of the tout's cut, I thought. I had checked the prices on Google UK the night before and it was definitely not looking like a good deal here. It was very confusing because electronics are supposed to be cheap in Ciudad del Este. Is Britain just really cheap for electronics now?

We decided we had to try it without the touts, but it proved quite difficult because I didn't know Spanish for hard-drive (disco duro it turns out – doh!). I had picked up a word from the box of one of the hard-drives offered to me by a tout, but I think that just means “storage” or something and I kept getting confused responses and it all just seemed to be whole laptops and mobile phones everyone was selling. Finally someone pointed us to a particular building, which was very different from the shiny, flashy shops, with lots of products in the windows, we had been taken to before: it seemed very sedate in comparison to the rest of the town, with people just sitting behind desks. After a couple of tries we found a computer place (with no products on display) and, when I asked, the woman brought up a catalogue on her computer and was able to show me the price on the screen, rather than plucking one out of the air. The price was much lower than any we'd had before, but their smallest had more capacity than I needed. A nearby shop with the same setup had a smaller drive at an even lower price. Cheaper and much more respectable than all the showrooms. Unfortunately we had been misinformed by people who had told us you could use Argentine Pesos for everything: it seemed to be the only currency they wouldn't take there; US Dollars, Brazilian Real, and of course Paraguayan Guaranies were all OK, but I hadn't drawn any yet, but we didn't have to worry because there was an exchange downstairs. US Dollars, in which all the prices were set, was their preferred currency.

Job done! Now all we had to do in Paraguay that day was get a bus to the Hydroelectric project which was the world's largest until the recently built Chinese dam. I'm not much of an engineering geek, but who wouldn't find the idea of a mile-long machine room exciting? Unfortunately our hangovers had dented our organisational abilities and we hadn't registered that the guide book had no map of the city. It had an address for tourist information, but without a map what use is that. They really should have a tourist information at the border crossing. I tried asking people for directions to the bus station, which the tourist information is supposed to be close to, but it wasn't the right bus station and we were getting hungry, hot, thirsty, and tired. So we had to give up and find food instead. We had been told that you can get Asian-influenced food, very different from most South American fare, but we couldn't find anywhere selling food at all, save for a couple of empanada stalls. We were making our way back to the border, increasingly defeated, then just at the border we spotted a food hall. It was disappointing and not Asian, but we just wanted to eat.

We stamped out of Paraguay, crossed the bridge, and stamped into Brazil, mission only partially successful, but the hard-drive was the main thing. Now we wouldn't have to delete non-backed-up photos.

written by  The Happy Couple on October 9, 2009 from Ciudad del Este, Paraguay
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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Garganta del Diablo

Even at the entrance to the cataratas park, we couldn't work out what was what. Why is Brazil so confusing? The tickets were split into entrance and transport. Did we need the transport? What was the transport for? We just asked for two foreigner tickets and paid the amount, then we were back outside again waiting for another bus. Ah – the set up isn't like Argentina: you pay at the entrance to the park which is a few miles from the falls.

View across to Argentine side

View across to Argentine side

The Brazilian side isn't as breath-taking, mostly because you aren't as close to the awesome power of the falls, but it does afford very nice panoramic views of more-or-less everything, which you can't see in Argentina due to the your proximity: you can only ever see one little bit at a time. Unfortunately, we were there at the wrong time of day: the view was a bit too dazzling because of the sun right behind the falls; morning would have been the time for the Brazilian side, but our stupid guide book didn't think to mention an obvious detail like that. Nonetheless, details like the impression of the clouds constantly rising up out of the forest are very nice, then la Garganta del Diablo is actually better on the Brazil side: a platform takes you out onto a lower level calm bit, halfway down the cascade, so that you are facing the main force of the deluge, while precipitously hanging over the next stage of the cascade. You can see much more of this spectacle from Brazil.

Gorge up to Garganta del Diablo

Steamy forest

Garganta del Diablo

Garganta del Diablo

Walkway to the edge of Garganta del Diablo

Steamy forest

Then we were waiting for a bus again, back to the park entrance; then another bus to take us to the changing point, where we could finally get our bus to Argentina. But we went past where we expected the change to be, even though a German guy we had started talking to had asked the driver in much more proficient Spanish than mine to alert us when we should get off. Finally he asked someone else who told him to get off now. Then we were waiting again, and the time of the last bus was approaching, but it arrived before we started giving up, however there was one more obstacle to clear: we had to get our passports stamped out of Brazil. We were thinking about not bothering because we had no plans to re-enter Brazil, but then some other people stood up to get off and we thought it would be OK with others doing it; the bus would presumably wait. But as soon as we were off the bus, it left, and only then did we notice the other people had not got off, but just sat down again. The stamps took no time and the poor German guy had got off with us for no good reason as he hadn't been stamped in, so would have been in trouble if he'd tried to stamp out. Some passersby told us the border crossing here is three kilometres long and very dangerous, and that there was only one more bus, so we had to get it. When the bus arrived we showed our tickets, which are still supposed to be valid for the next bus, but the driver said “wrong company, twenty minutes more”. We had been told this was the last bus and it was definitely after last bus time now, so we weren't taking any more chances and we just paid again. At the Argentinian side the buses wait.

Waiting for the bus

What a stupid stupid system: all this pointless competition when they could have an integrated public transport system; this stupid system of not waiting at the border; and finally, why isn't there at least a tourist bus, travelling from Puerto Igazu direct to las cataratas on the Brazilian side? And another travelling from Foz do Iguaçu direct to las cataratas on the Argentinian side. They could be buses that wait on both sides of the border and they could charge double what the two-bus combined trip costs and most tourists would do so happily to avoid all of this hassle and uncertainty. The Brazilian side was nice, but not as impressive as the Argentinian side, and by the end of all that, we wondered if it had been worth the effort.

Back in town, our grumpy mood was amplified by the discovery that nearly all the eating places were closed by 10pm – on Friday – which is worse than Glasgow! And this is supposed to be Latin America, where people never even leave the house before 9pm. The place we did find was packed and I was struck again by how many fizzy drinks, particularly Coke, South Americans drink. There would be tables of families with two big bottles of sugary soft drinks in the middle of the table; no wine and no water, in fact you don't seem to be able to buy big bottles of water in restaurants, just two-litre bottles of pop! How strange, it's not a children birthday party; even tables with just adults had the same. They may not be alcoholics, but they must have a terrible rate of diabetes.

written by  The Happy Couple on October 9, 2009 from Foz do Iguacu, Brazil
from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon
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In the morning, I went to the desk to “reconfirm” our booking and the guy on duty said sorry we're full. The one we had asked the day before was not on duty, but he had been standing at the desk until I appeared, at which point he immediately disappeared. Great. If we had known the night before we could have made arrangements and been ready to move, instead, we had to scrabble about online trying to find another hostel with available space. Marco Polo Hostel, just across from the bus station, where we had originally planned to stay until I read how lovely the other one was, had space in the dorms, so we booked it.

I had no money to pay the hostel we were leaving because I hadn't thought I was going to need to draw it yet. This situation was quite tricky because nobody in that hostel spoke any English and I didn't have the Spanish to get across what I wanted to say: we are furious, your colleague told us there was no problem, this is totally unacceptable, you'll just have to tell the people moving into our room that you made a mistake, and so on, were all a bit beyond my limited grasp of the language. I managed we are very angry but it fell apart a bit when he asked me why and I tried to explain. I really need to look up the perfect past in Spanish, or whatever they call it. To add insult to injury, he insisted we leave one of our bags behind until we could return to pay the bill. That would mean an extra journey and wasting more of the day. I should just have sworn at him in English really, I'm sure he would have understood, although it was really his colleague I should have been shouting at.

Spinach canelone garnished with (meat) estofado

So we went up and dropped one bag, checked in, drew money, went back down to the first hostel, paid, took the other bag to the new hostel and dropped that off. So much of the day was gone by that time, we realised we would have to extend our stay in the area by another day to do everything we wanted to. And we're on such a tight schedule in South America! So we checked in for the two days and our two days at the falls had grown to four and it was already lunch time. Following the well-known maxim that there's no vegetarian meal which cannot be improved by the addition of some meat, the delicious spinach cannelloni I had for lunch came topped with delicious meat stew.

Then we rushed back to the falls to find out if the water level had fallen enough overnight, with no rain, for the boat trips to be running again. We were in luck and bought our tickets just inside, in case they changed their minds by the time we got to the landing platform. The bottom path which takes you right down to the waterside treated us to another perspective on the falls. The flow may have been a bit less, but it was no less impressive. We got on the boat and the driver zoomed backwards and forwards around the island, getting nearer and nearer to the spray each time. Eventually we were getting soaked, but I couldn't see anything at all because the water shoots away from the impact with such force that it hurts too much to keep your eyes open. I wish I'd had some goggles with me! Or even if I had been prepared enough to put my sunglasses on they may have offered enough protection to see something. The whole thing only lasted about twenty minutes and I didn't really think it was worth it. Joanne really enjoyed it, though, and so had everyone else we knew who had done it. I just thought it was OK; maybe if I had been driving the boat it I would have enjoyed it more. After the boat we had been planning to take another short hike to another part of the falls not on the main trails, but it started to rain and we decided against it. Just as well because, when we got on the bus, it really started to rain again. Perfect timing!

Where the boat goes to and fro

Boat in the spray

Joanne wet