The First Big Hitch

Finally after a month of travelling we´ve run into our first big hitch. Crossing the border into Bolivia.

What should have been an easy border crossing ended up taking 9 hours and we had to spend a night in La Quacha, the border post on the Argentinean side after initially being refused entry! Let me explain...

It was a day that started really badly and ended up worse. We woke up at 7h. This was the first problem. The bus from Salta leaves at 7h15. We put on clothes and ran all the way with our heavy bags, reaching the bus terminal just in time. In the process we forgot our drinks and food for the day in the fridge. Nothing we could do, so we didn´t worry to much. After 7 hours on the bus we arrived in the horribly boring and dusty frontier town of La Quacha at 13h30. We had to catch the train on the Bolivian side at 15h30. Lots of time.

We stood in a long line on the Argentinean side to get our exit stamps. Then when we finally arrived on the Bolivian side we were denied entry because of a small tear in one of the pages of my passport! We argued and begged, but to no avail. It took about 2 hours of negotiating and meetings and calls. Finally we had to turn back and queue again on the Argentinean side again. By now we had serious headaches, hunger and bladder pains. We were also suffering from the extreme altitude (3440m). We finally got back in La Quacha, found a hotel and decided to go see the consulate first thing in the morning.

After some disprins, food and sleep we woke up the next morning feeling more positive. We went to the Consulate and waited until they opened (late, of course) at 9h10. They made some calls, held meetings behind closed doors and finally started typing a letter. After this it was more calls and waiting. FINALLY they beckonned us over went out the door and started walking! They were taking us to the border personally! Lloyd had to run back to the hotel and get both our big backpacks. He then had to carry the full 30+ kg´s the whole way and meet me on the Bolivian side. After more meetings and calls, they finally stamped my passport! We walked into Bolivia at 13h45.

Bolivia looks very different from Argentina! It is amazing how much one kilometer makes! This side is much poorer and has a much more lively market scene. Most of the population seem to be of indian descent. We did get a good meal for very cheap, about R14 for salad, soup, main meal and dessert and a litre cooldrink.

Because we missed the train on the first day (only runs certain days) we had to take a LOCAL bus. These busses are very cheap and you get what you pay for! It was quite an experience. The road is incredibly dusty and very corrugated (the bus does not have functioning shocks). Certain parts it feels as if the bus is being rattled to pieces! It was only a few hours before we arrived in Tupiza.

Tupiza looks like a cowboy town. It is dusty, a bit rundown and surrounded by beautiful red mountains and canyons. This is the town where it is rumoured that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid finally met their match. It has a lot of charm and it is a shame that we can´t stay here longer.

Tomorrow we are heading off on one of the highlights of our tour. A 4-day jeep trip to Uyuni via the Salares de Uyuni. The worlds highest and largest salt flats. This tour includes the salt flats, canyons, sand stone rock formations, countless lagoons of many colours (including red), a volcano, thermal springs, subzero temperatures, llama meat dinners and a night at the Salt Hotel (made entirely of salt). We are travelling and staying with Valle Hermoso.

I´ll post many photos and details in 4 or 5 days.

Neil

The Pitstop to Nowhere, One Month and 19924.32 km

One month... I can´t believe it has gone so quickly! I have seen so many things these past 30 days and yet it feels if we have barely started. We have travelled, as the crow flies, 19924.32 km! That´s almost halfway around the world!

I woke up with a good feeling. The spider bite (probably) that I suffered in Mendoza is not turning into a necrotic wound. I´ll probably live...

NOT AGAIN!

We are now in Salta and it was a big suprise! For some reason I had the notion that Salta was going to be a desert town or at least dry with vineyards. The only desert here is the green type. We´re back into the humid jungles. Apparently though just a few kilometers west and you do get the dry Andean conditions I was expecting. Salta is a very colonial city, with typical Spanish architecture. Pink buildings, narrow cobbled streets, leafy plazas, little cafés selling cheap lunches and strong coffee and gold-gilded almost gaudy cathedrals and churches. And of course more excellent ice-cream. Argentinean ice-cream is incredible! They have about 30 standard flavours to choose from and they are all SO good... Today we have to do our last shopping before crossing into Bolivia. We have to buy insect repellent and some Argentinean souveniers. We also have to go on the gondola. Salta has a gondola to the top of a mountain overlooking the city. Should be beautiful! But, before we came to Salta we had QUITE a bit of adventure. Our trip to Los Penitentes was amazing. First we had to travel the Andean passes to our destination. This trip was probably the most dramatic and intimidating of the tour. The mountains TOWER over you, many of them reaching heights of 5000m+. The bus trip goes through valleys, tunnels carved from the rock and past strong-flowing rivers. The higher you go the more dramatic and desolate the landscape becomes. When we finally came to Los Penitentes we couldn´t quite believe our eyes. Could this really be the place? The 30 dusty buildings looked silently at us while our bus disappeared into the distance. Most of the buildings were deserted and shut tight. Shutters squeeked eerily in the stiffening breeze. A lone eagle let out a harsh cry. You get the idea...

hum the theme song of the good the bad and the ugly

Luckily there was a very nice restaurant open. I call it The Pitstop to Nowhere. Los Penitentes is barely more than a pitstop on the way to Aconcagua and Chile in the summer and a tiny ski-resort in the winter. They quickly pointed us to our hostel, a pleasant little wooden building.

the view of Aconcagua from our hostel

After we checked in we decided to hike our way to the Puente del Inca, one of the main reasons for coming here. We set of on foot towards the next town, 7km away. It´s going to be easy to hitch a ride, I said. Just stick out your thumb, somebody is sure to stop! We ended up walking 5km before someone stopped, and nobody stopped on the way back. It wasn´t that bad. Walking through the dusty, majestic passes holds a certain unique charm. I felt like a gunslinger. Back in the old days.

hitch-hiking in the Andes

The Puente del Inca (Bridge of the Incas) was worth the walk. It is a huge stone bridge, formed naturally, with a raging river flowing underneath. On the bottom there is an ancient bathhouse containing sulphorous thermal springs staining the bridge yellow. Unfortunately you can´t go down there anymore and we had to be satisfied with looking from above.

sulphur caked Puente del Inca

We hiked back and settled at the hostel with a well-deserving and aptly named Andes beer. After a nice dinner at the local restaurant it was back to the hostel to get some sleep. Alas, a band of decidedly strange foreigners had also checked in. They were mostly Polish I think. They kept on giving us strange disturbing glances whenever they saw us and making wierd noises in the showers... Having just finished climbing the mighty Aconcagua they were also in an extremely loud party mood, and sleep would not come easy this night.

The next morning we went up the ski-lifts to get a nice view of the town and surroundings and then sat waiting for the 12h bus. It is only in South America that you buy a ticket for the 12h bus at 13h and eventually get on at 14h30! Nevertheless we finally got back into Mendoza and decided to go directly to Salta on another 18h overnight bus trip. We have to start moving... Here are some of the promised photos!

mountainbiking around Junin de los Andes

Vulcan Lanín

the black volcanic beaches of Lago Lanín

danger: water is cold and deep

refelctions of Lloyd

I miss you all, but not enough to come home just yet, Neil

Short update

Just a short update, still no photos, I promise they are coming, but this PC shocked me three times through the USB-cable. No way I´m putting it in my camera!

We are now in Mendoza, finally clean and freshly rested. We were planning to go on a wine tour yesterday, but our hostel management made a mistake and the trip was cancelled. Today we are leaving for Los Penitentes, a refuge in the mountains about 4 hours from Mendoza. What makes this place significant is its location close to Aconcagua, the highest mountain outside of Asia. 6962m!

We will come back to Mendoza in a day or two and then do the wine tour and then it´s onwards to Salta.

Neil

Neuquen or waiting for the bus...

At the moment were tired, dirty and bored. We are in Neuquen, the uninspiring little provincial capital of the lake district. It´s not that it´s a terrible city or anything, there´s just not a lot going on. It´s hot, gray and dry and really nothing to write home about. The highlight was playing two rounds of ten-pin bowling for 16 pesos. Our bus for Mendoza leaves at 20h00. We spent our last day in San Martin waiting for the bus. To use up the time we checked our bags into some lockers and then went for a lovely 1h30 horseride in the forests around San Martin led by a Mapuche Indian guide. It was really nice and SO beautiful. We suck at horse riding, though... After that we had some more freshly baked empanadas at a local restaurant. If you don´t know what empanadas are, it is a DELICIOUS little pie filled with meat or vegetables that you can buy anywhere for cheap. It is the perfect snack. Add two or three and it makes a good meal! We finally caught the bus at 19h. When we arrived at Junin de los Andes, an even smaller town than San Martin, we checked into our hotel. It was a bit more expensive but wonderfully worth it. Our room had a balcony overlooking a beautiful little brook filled with trout (hmmm...), and the breakfast was huge. I had three cups of coffee... We had to catch the bus at 00h45 (this morning), so we had a lot of hours to kill. We left our things at the hostel, packed a light bag and rented some bicycles. We spent the first part of our bike tour climbing an Andean pass. It was terrible! I was so tired I almost threw up. The thin mountain air didn´t help. We eventually got to the top and the ride down was spectacular. Worth every drop of sweat. Then we tackled a really hard off-road route. Rocks, mud, soft sand, narrow paths, low branches and thorny bushes. Being an extremely experienced mountainbiker I stopped dead when I saw the mud, tried to put my foot down, found only a steep embankment and then tumbled down the slope with the bike on top of me. When Lloyd came by I was lying with my feet in the air and my head in a ditch! Luckily I didn´t get hurt, just a few bruises and scrapes (and dirt). The whole bike trip was great fun and we´ll definitely do it again. After that we climbed on a local bus to the Lanin National Park. The centre piece of this extremely beautiful park is the 3747m Lanin Volcano. This was extremely impressive! We finally got back to Junin after 22h. Just a few more hours to wait. We arrived in Neuquen this morning bleary-eyed and particulary stupid. We can´t speak Spanish when were tired. We found out to our dismay that there were no buses leaving until 20h. That means another all-night bus ride and still no shower! Cheers, Neil

Promised photos

By now I hope everyone has caught up reading the blog. We´ve been travelling a lot so did not really have the energy or means to update frequently. If I happen to be a bit verbose in my writings, sorry, not going to change! Here is another LONG update!

We finally arrived in Bariloche after the plane has been delayed by more than 5 hours! What made this particulary frustrating was that nobody could tell us what the hell was going on! Most of the planes were late and the weather seemed fine... It also didn´t help being really tired and not getting any sleep or food! All calculated, we went something like 38h without sleeping properly.

Luckily we had a great view from the plane as we approached Bariloche, a relatively small city (population 120 000) nestled in between the Andes, the beautiful Lake Nahuel Huapi and forests. Because we arrived so late, we really struggled to get a place to sleep. February the lake district is THE holiday destination. After dragging our backpacks up and down steep hills we finally found a little family run place. It was pretty nice and cheap. We put our bags down, made some coffee and then it was off exploring again. Bariloche is pretty. Snow covered mountains, a big lake and little stone and wood buildings selling home-made chocolates and jams. It is very touristy, but not in an annoying way.

Although it seemed great, we decided to march onwards. We are getting behind schedule. It was a VERY hectic morning. We decided to walk the 4 kilometers to the bus terminal, when I discovered, halfway, that my waterbottle containing wonderfully cold orange juice was gone. That made Lloyd think and look for his money pouch which, as it turned out, was gone. He quickly ran back to the hostel in a state of panic leaving me with the bags. I started thinking and quickly rummaged through MY bags finding his money pouch, which I thought was my hat! An sweaty, exhausted Lloyd pitched up, just SO relieved to finally get it back! We hurried onwards to the bus stop, learning that all the busses for the morning has gone. Just before we gave up we got a bus that was running a few minutes late and managed to get on in the nick of time.

The journey was probably the most spectacular of the trip. We are now into some serious mountains. The route runs right along the spine of the Andes through ancient forests dotted with huge blue and green lakes and rivers so clear you can see every stone. The roads were not in particulary good shape because of recent snow and road works (most of it was dirt) and our bus got stuck on a steep hill for about an hour. Luckily it was on a construction site and the workers eventually managed to get us over using rocks, rubber mats and construction vehicles.

We finally arrived at San Martin de los Andes at about 18h. And wow... It was worth the trouble! This beautiful little village (10 000 people) is bounded in by the Andes on three sides and another beautiful lake on the other. It takes about 20 minutes to go from the one side of the town to the other.

By then we were insanely hungry and went foraging for food. Venison, steak or trout. We ended up eating parrillada. It was 18 pesos each, relatively expensive (a bit cheaper than a steak) but we were totally defeated by this meal! The owner brought us a reasonable plate of gross looking meats consisting mainly of different organs. We were sorely dissapointed but nevertheless consumed everything which turned out to be pretty tasty (except blood sausage, ugh...) and ate the bread that came with us. When the owner took our plates we were really full. He then put some more plates in front of us. This seemed like a really strange thing to do. He also brought a another basket of bread... Then he put ANOTHER big plate of excellent meat in front of us! Ribs, lamb, a big juicy sirloin each, and some chicken and pork! We asked him if we could take it home and he said no. I proceeded to stuff the big steak into my almost bursting stomach, ate the lamb and then had to retire defeated. We were very close to the point of actually getting sick! We asked him again and this time he said, OK, we can take it home! I was still full this morning...

Lastly, today. It may seem like a quiet, relaxing day, but it is actually a very special day. It is our first washing day! We finally came to the point where it is simply impossible to wear the same clothes again (after more than three weeks).

And with that thought, I´ll leave you with some photos from El Calafate and the Perito Moreno Glacier.

Adios,

Neil

Sleep...

It is now just after 6h. We are at Buenos Airport after having spent the night here trying to sleep on the hard, cold floor, which was, needless to say, not very successful. We finally checked in at about 5h30 only to discover that our plane has been delayed by a few hours further delaying our sleep. At least they gave us some meagre scrappings for breakfast and I get to update my blog!

Sunday was a relatively quiet day which we spent walking around Ushuaia, taking photos and going into the icy waters of the Beagle Channel for a swim (which turned out to be not so cold, pretty much on par with the West Coast of South Africa). We were still having a great time with Kessie, who decided to join us all the way to El Calafate.

Monday morning we had to get up very early to catch our 6h bus, which we almost missed. The 16h bustrip ended up taking 20h. Included in the ticket was: two border crossings, a ferry trip over the ocean, scenery that looks like a mixture between the Karoo and Free State on Valium (it is absolutely flat, with nothing of interest for hours on end, dotted with the occasional sheep, llama or, if you´re lucky, a tree) and moving to another bus because of mechanical problems or something. The trip was not as bad as it sounds, we had good company, and the highlight of the trip was definitely the ferry ride. Midway through the channel we noticed we were being followed. By a pod of Cephalorhynchus commersonii (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerson%27s_Dolphin), a beautiful species of small dolphin! We finally arrived in El Calafate at 02h30 and got in bed at 3h.

Luckily for us, Kessie´s skill as conversationalist and her bubbly personality got us a free ride to the Perito Moreno Glacier (the whole reason for coming) with a very nice Argentinean guy whose name we just couldn´t pronounce. Once again it is difficult to describe the amazing sight of another natural wonder in this continent. The glacier towers 60m above the water and stretches up into the mountains. You can hear the cracks of the ice from far away. After taking LOTS of photos from the view points we got up nice and close by boat and we were lucky enough to see a HUGE chunk of ice break of crashing into the water before us! For more technical information go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perito_Moreno_Glacier.

Yesterday the three of us decided to make a big Valentines brunch. Lloyd and me whipped up some french toast (impressing the locals and getting a few weird stares), we had great sandwiches, muesli, orange juice, fresh fruit, yoghurt and, because I finally cracked and had to buy some, coffee. After that we had to take leave of Kessie. Something we weren´t very eager to do, we will surely miss her!

The long roads and travel time are finally taking their toll on my reading material. I have to get something new before crossing into Bolivia!

Now it is almost time to fly to Bariloche and the Argentinean lake district and there get some SLEEP!

Adios,

Neil

P.S. I will post the photos later, this PC doesn´t detect my camera...

Short update

This is only a very short update. We are currently in El Calafate, a small tourist town. It is built almost solely to facilitate (and in the process take advantage of the tourists) the viewing of the Perito Moreno Glaciar! The glacier is actually amazing enough to allow this! Still, for all its touristy things, it manages remarkable charm and beauty... El Calafate has only one internet server in town and it is SLOW (256kbs for the whole place), so no pictures now! I will update as soon as I´m in a position to do so. We are flying back to Buenos Aires tonight at 20h35 and then to Bariloche at 07h50 tomorrow. That means sleeping at the airport... OK, that´s that... Time for breakfast and packing! Neil

Ushuaia

Quite a lot has happened since we took the plane to Ushuaia four days ago.

My foot was pretty sore from whatever insect or arachnid that decided ravage me. It is now finally healing.

my ankle (taken for dramatic effect)

The flight to Ushuaia ends with a breathtaking view of the city, the surroundings and the Beagle Channel. When we landed here at 20h00 we stepped out into the icy cold of the Antarctic wind and rain. This was going to be cold...

We took the taxi to our hostel, Torre al Sur, which is very nice, homey and cheap. Our room faced the mountains and we got a breathtaking view!

A few interesting things about Ushuaia; it is the southernmost city in the world, it is 1100km from and the launching pad to Antartica, the sun rises at 4h30 and sets at about 22h30. And it is not that cold! The average summer temperature is 9 degrees, and except for the first night it is actually nice and warm (sort of). It apparently snowed quite a lot in the days just before we arrived and the mountains were covered in snow. In the next few days a lot of this melted...

The first night we looked for a restaurant and got ourselves a nice juicy steak and our first wine since we left South Africa. Most of the wine in Argentina comes from Mendoza (which we will fully explore and experience in a week or two) and their principal grape is Malbec. It was actually very nice... We went back to the hostel to get some rest.

The next morning we met up with Kristin, a German traveller and as she planned the same trips and routes as us, we quickly made friends. She is sharing a room with me and Lloyd. We spent the day trekking up one of the mountains to go see the Martíal Glacier. This was an incredible experience even though we did not really see the glacier as it was covered in the newly fallen snow. The trek wasn´t too hard, it took about three hours and gave us spectacular vistas of the city and the mountains. When we got down we were really tired, but not too tired to open another bottle of Argentinean wine to go with our fine supper of beef, chicken and potato salad! After that it was straight to bed.

Me, Lloyd and Kristin sitting in a tree

the trek up the mountain

who´s afraid of snow?

The next morning we explored the Tierra del Fuego National Park. This is a vast park of forests, bogs, mountains and crystal clear lakes. The lakes are many different colours, some are bright blue, others green and still others black. We saw quite a lot of wildlife, but most of all we saw rabbits (thousands)! The Europian rabbit was, for some reason, introduced, along with beavers, and they accordingly wreaked havoc on the environment.

We started our trek at Fin del Mundo, the end of the world. We walked about 6 hours in total exploring the area and ended our trip on the shores of Lago Roca, a beautiful lake nestled in between the mountains. Because the sun was nice and warm and I decided to take a dip in the icy waters! Very refreshing! Back at the hostel Kristin made us a very tasty vegetable soup mixed with noodles. And then we drank some more wine...

Lago Roca

Today is a rest day. We will spend it at the hostel and walking around town a bit. Tomorrow we have to get up early (5h) to catch the bus to El Calafate (16h journey).

Cheers,

Neil

Buenos Aires 2 and the road ahead

The past couple of days we had our hands full exploring Buenos Aires. Like I said in the previous post; this city is absolutely amazing!

Yesterday we didn´t quite do as much as we planned. We moved to a different area of town and a new hostel. We also booked some flights, got something to eat and then took a little bit of a nap. We left everything for the evening! We decided that we would see what the night life was like. Turns out it works a bit different from South Africa. Firstly everybody planning on going out goes to sleep early. Between 8PM and 11PM the streets are pretty quiet. There are a few restaurants or cafés open, but that´s about it. Then everybody starts crawling out of the woodwork at about 1AM! Many of the clubs only opens at 2AM! From there on it´s partying until sunrise and then of to bed to about 9AM or 10AM when the day starts.

We WALKED about 35 blocks to get to the area where all the restobars and clubs are located. Most of the places were still closed or not open on Tuesdays (the rest day, it looks like). We finally found a plaza similar to parts of Stellenbosch with lots of bars and quite a lot of people just after midnight. Here we drank a few beers, before catching a taxi back to the hostel, utterly exhausted at about 2AM.

Today we first finalized our plans for the next couple of days. And then, with yesterday´s LONG walk still freshly implanted in our minds and tired bodies, we did it again! Crazy...

We decided to check out Palermo, a really upperclass area. It is filled with massive parks, lined with trees, designer shops and SO many statues and monuments we grew tired of taking photos!

Our first stop was the Buenos Aires Zoo. It was very cheap to get in and reasonably interesting. It did have many of the South American animals, a very impressive constrictor collection (pythons, boas and all the other squeezy snakes) and a superb collection of butterflies, beetles, scarabs and other creepy crawlies (they were all dead and stuck to a board though).

dude, it´s a llama!

From here we strolled through one of the parks to the Japanese Botanical Garden. This was really nice and we took a well-deserved pitstop here.

Next stop, Recoleta. This fancy neighbourhood is similar to Palermo, but has even more skyscrapers, statues and monuments. The goal of this excursion was the Cementerio de la Recoleta. This necropolis is were all the ultra rich and powerful spend in eternal rest. It is an experience walking through the streets lined with massive crypts, adorned with as much marble and statues as possible. The highlight is supposed to be the Evita Peron´s grave, but it would be shame to go straight there and skip the others.

our way back to the hostel we stopped at the Hard Rock Café for a quick chopp (basically a draught) and then it was all the way to the hostel. Again utterly exhausted! We did get some very good por kilo dinner, three knives and three forks (they only come in threes or twelves) at a big supermarket.

I recently got the first batch of probably many bites and there is an especially bad one on my ankle and the front of my foot. It is quite swollen. It is annoying when walking, but it will probably be OK in a day or two.

We had to purchase our flight for the next part of the trip in advance to keep costs as low as possible and hopefully everything goes smoothly or we could end up stranded somewhere in Patagonia (the south of South America). Everything should be fine, did a lot of planning but still, you never know before you get there.

Tomorrow we fly to Ushuaia, the southern most point of Argentina. It is going to be a LOT colder there, which would be a nice change. The average temperature for February is about 8 degrees celcius. There we will stay a few days and explore the town and the Tierra del Fuego National Park. From there we catch a bus through Rio Gallegos to El Calafate. El Calafate is the hub from where you explore the Perito Moreno Glacier. This should be really impressive. Then we fly back to Beunos Aires where we have to spend the night waiting or sleeping at the airport before we fly of the Bariloche, a little town in the Argentinean lake district. We should arrive there on the 15th of February.

Cheers,

Neil

Rosario and Buenos Aires

Rosario was, how shall we say it, not quite what we expected. Although certain parts were definitely pretty, overall it was a bit grungy. Our hotel was very dodgy; according to our guide book: the rooms are clean and new. Things have changed pretty drastically since then!

the Bandera Monument in Rosario, we went up to the top

a close-up of the statue

The main sights were pretty good though. There is a huge monument overlooking the whole city and you can go up to took pictures. This part of Rosario is filled with plazas and parks and I guess if it wasn´t Sunday, probably a lot more people. We spent some time getting lunch at the beach. A thin strip of sand next to the incredibly big Parana river. After this it was back to our hotel. The next morning it was time to go to Beunos Aires, a 4 hour bus trip. Buenos Aires is amazing! It is a huge, exciting city, with modern and historic buildings mixed together. It is a bit more expensive to stay here, but it makes up for it with the sheer amount of things to do! We are staying in the center of the city. This is where most of the historical building are located as well as many of the shops. Through the middle of the city runs Avenida 9 de Julio, one of the broadest streets I have ever seen. It is 14 lanes!

Palacio de Congreso

Yesterday we went to see the Congressional Palace modelled on Washington D.C.´s Capitol Building and the landmark Obelisk. Very nice.

Buenos Aires Obelisk

We ended the night at the famous Cafe Tortoni. This is an atmospheric café famous for it´s tango shows. It was a very upperclass establishment (had to reserve for the 23h show). The show was 30 pesos and well worth it! The show is just longer than an hour and features singing, great music and some spectacular dancing. Today it´s more exploring, including a trip to Evita´s grave, booking tickets to Ushaia and proper Argentinean steak! Neil

Long bus rides, Carnaval and Jesuit ruins

Lloyd at the ruins in San Ignacio Mini

OK, finally we are sitting in Rosario, about 320 km from Buenos Aires.The past few days were filled with confusion, adventure and quite a few suprises!

Firstly we left Puerto Iguazu for Posadas. When we got there we found out we couldn´t get a direct bus to Rosario before today. This is way too long to spend in this little city (didn´t look to exciting). Because it was already getting late, we decided we couldn´t take a bus to the next town, Corrientes. We would arrive at midnight and we wanted to see the ruins in San Ignacio Mini anyway (50 km east of Posadas). So off we headed to San Ignacio.

This is a really small town. We were worried that we wouldn´t get a place to stay, but the guy at the local tourist office pointed us in the right direction. He talked for about 15 minutes of which we understood maybe 20 words! Here we got a really nice suprise. It was the first night of San Ignacio´s Carnaval! We gathered our things and began walking to La Familia Campestre. A family run camping ground with cabanas. We got ourself a little double storey wooden cabin for 40 pesos. Rustic and basic but very nice! One thing we learned of this little town very quickly is that the people are VERY friendly. We had our first real Spanish conversation and it actually went OK!

After we took a quick cooldown swim, we went to town to scavenge for food and see the Carnaval. South America time works very much like Africa time. If somebody tells you something begins at 9h, fat chance! The Carnaval finally started at 11PM! It was well worth the wait though! Very colourful dancers paraded through the streets samba-ing followed by drummers giving the rythm. Was an awesome experience. We ended up sneaking back to the camping grounds at around 2AM.

The next day we spent exploring the ruins. A bit expensive for foreigners (we get charged more) but very impressive. It must have been amazing in its prime! We got a BIG brunch, the people here give very big portions.

We caught the bus back to Posadas at 13h, bought a ticket to Corrientes (4h30), arrived there at 19h30, bought a ticket to Rosario for 20h45 and arrived here this morning at 7h30. I got quite a bit of sleep, but Lloyd wasn´t quite so sucessful.

Today we will explore Rosario and probably leave for Buenos Aires tomorrow. The area we are staying at is a bit grungy and you can probably rent the hotel rooms by the hour... Nontheless, this is part of the adventure and at least there´s TV, hot showers and breakfast!

Well, I´m off exploring again,

Neil

Fergus, Lloyd, Kevin and me after getting soaked in Iguazu!

Crossing the border and Puerto Iguazu

Yesterday we made our first border crossing. It went really smoothly! I was really relieved because a travel agent in Sao Paulo said it wasn´t possible to go to Argentina without a ticket back. We did go by bus, but they just stamp the passports and you´re on your way.

Argentina uses Pesos and the sign to indicate this is $. Spanish is the national language and I have to say I find it a LOT easier to communicate over here! Portuguese may be similar but it was seriously difficult. At least I can now ask directions, order food, get bills and exchange a few pleasantries.

We met up with some travellers in Foz de Iguazu. An English guy and a Scot, Kevin and Fergus. They are almost at the end of their South America tour and are leaving to tour Australasia, New Zealand and Asia next. They´ve given us some great pointers for the rest of our trip. We bunked up with them in a nice (and cheap) 4 bed hostel and spent yesterday and today exploring with them. Puerto Iguazu is a lot different from it´s Brazillian counterpart. The town is much smaller and there´s not a lot to do, outside of going to the falls. We went to a place where the river seperates the three countries (Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina). There is a monument on each bank, but it`s really not particulary impressive. The food is pretty nice and you get good value for money. It is VERY hot and humid though. Yo tenga mucho calo!

The park, where the falls are located, is very nice. We saw quite a lot of wildlife. A big pack of coaties (the local beastie), wild guinea pigs, lots of different birds and some amazing butterflies. The butterflies are everywhere and enjoy landing on you to hitch a short ride and pose for some photos!

The falls were, once again unbelievable. I have never seen anything like it. The Brazillian side gives you a grand overview of everything. This is needed to appreciate what you experience on the other side. There are catwalks going over a lot of the waterfalls which gives you incredible views on everything! We spent the first part exploring the lower waterfalls and then ended this with an amazing boatride up to to the bigger waterfalls. You end up going under one of the big waterfalls and getting COMPLETELY drenched! Very welcome because of the heat.

After this you go back up to the higher circuit and walk over the waterfalls. And lastly you take a train ride, followed by a walk to the Devil´s Throat. This is the absolute highlight! This is an 80m drop in it absolutely thunders down. The spray goes up WAY above the falls, drenching everybody. In the end you just have to stand there and try to understand what your seeing. It is really THAT impressive.

Tomorrow Kevin and Fergus head back to Brazil and we continue on our tour of Argentina. The plan is to leave for Posados tomorrow, an old Jesuit Mission. It is about a 6 hour bus ride. From there we go to Rossario, the birth place of Che Guevara. That is another 10h bus trip. From there it`s just 4h to Buenos Aires where we`ll stay for a few nights and then fly to Ushaiua, the end of the world.

Cheers,

Neil