hi guys,

last full week started :) at the moment i'm already in brazil, but wanna tell you about my last week in Argentina

So, left B.A. by an other overnight bus to Cordoba ... was supposed to be a nice city, i mean it was ok, but nothing real special ... so i decided only to spend one day here and just walk around the city ... the highlight of Cordoba was the hostel dog, looked like Luna and was really cute ... except of some colonial buildings there is not much in Cordoba (ok, i was only one day there so i can't real judge about Cordoba) ... decided to go the next day to Villa General Belgrano, a small village 80 km south of Cordoba which was founded by Austrians, Germans and Suisse people ... but when i arrived there, except of copying the architecture of the Alps nothing really was like in the 3 countries ... nobody spoke German there (as in some travel books was mentioned) .. but they have some local breweries (i didn't visit one as the tours were in spanish), and 3 times a year it's busy there ... in april when there is the festival of the viennes cake (Sachertorte), in July at the festival of the "chocolate alpino" and of course in October, when "auzapft is" :) so it was not that village i expected ...

the next days i went by a 22 hours bus to Iguazu falls, which are the biggest water falls in the world ... my hostel was quite nice ... although it's winter here it was quite warm during the day, so my hostel had the kitchen outside just under a roof ... after arriving there i jumped on a bus to get to the national park there to see the waterfalls ... i guess you already saw the pictures, they are real huge and stunning ... i also made some videos which will show you the dimension of the falls better ... spent two days there and the second day was even better, as i did a boat trip close to the water falls ... i got totally wet, but our belongings were protected in a waterproof bag ... but my trousers were completely wet and i forgot some changing clothes ... thanks god, it was quite warm so my cothes dried the next hours ... there is also a small island called San Martin Island where you also have a nice little beach ... everbody who did the boat trip to the falls was there to get dry again :) ...

so all in all, it were 2 perfect days (there was also perfect weather, so a lot of rainbows were created by the sun and waterfalls) i decided to go the next day to the brazilian side of the falls ... Brazil has only a small part of the falls, but the better view ... so i booked a guided tour (as this was more comfy as i wanted to take all my luggage with me) which also took us to Paraguay to the biggest water power plant of the world (built by Paraguay and Brazil) called Itaipu ... to be honest, this tour was a waste of time and money ... got picked up in the early morning, went straight to Paraguay (before we had to cross Brazil) and then had a guided tour through this powerplant .. it's huge, but i didn't understand a word as the tour was only in spanish ... at least, i got a german leaflet so i could read afterwards all the details ... then we wasted a time with "shopping" in Cuidad del Este in Paraguay ... nobody baught something and as it was saturday we stood about 90 mins at the border to get back to Brazil ... what's happening on the street between Cuidad del Este (paraguay) and Foz de Iguazu (Brazil) is just madness ... big big big traffic jam, everybody is crossing the street whenever he wants, people are selling every kind of absolut useless stuff ... just horrible ... so we waste at least 2.5 hours which led to that, that i couldn't go to the brazilian side of the waterfalls (which was the only interesting part of this tour), as my bus left at 5:40 pm from Foz ... between we had lunch (which was good, but it was already 3 pm when we left the restaurant .. of course, it was again all you can eat) ... the driver took the other guys to the national park and me to the the federal police of brazil (as i had to immigrate officially - if you just enter brazil for visiting the national park you don't get a stamp in your passport) and then he took me to the bus station (at least i didn't have to get there by taxi) .. but i was pretty upset that i missed the brazilian side ... anyway i "just" missed the panoramic view and spent 2 awesome days at the bigger argentinean side of the falls ...

so all in all, Argentina is a beautiful country and the most important thing, it's really cheap for us ... people are nice, if you try to speak spanish they help you where ever they can, the food is good but mainly steaks and pasta and pizza ... i enjoyed the time here although it's winter and sometimes was really cold :)

as mentioned, i'm already in Brazil in Florianopolis .. also very cold :)

about brazil and my last days i will write the next time (maybe when i'm already back in austria)

cu soon, christoph