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It´s Craig again. Just trying to slip in a quick blog update before catching the ferry to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay...
In all we spent three nights in Foz do Iguaçu (the town on the Brazillian side, about 40 mins by public bus to the actual falls).
We visited the Brazillian side of the falls first, which is great for an overview of the falls, though you can get much closer to individual falls on the Argentinian side. In the wet season they say there are around 260 invidual falls, but we were there in the dry season so that number was more like 130... which is still a huge amount of waterfalls in one place. The biggest, Garganta del Diablo (Devil's throat) is quite similar to horseshoe falls at Niagara, but unlike when we visited those falls in January, I doubt there´d ever be any freezing going on in Iguaçu.
The next day we went to the Argentinian side, which involved crossing the border (warning: Brazillian customs stamps are huge and quickly fill up your passport pages). We went with a driver organised by our hostel in Foz as the price was not that much more than taking the 3 public buses required to get to the Arg side, and it would be an hour quicker. As an added bonus, our driver came around the falls with us, giving us lots of info about the falls, flora and fauna (if you add the Brazillian and Argentinian Iguaçu National Parks together, it would be the world's biggest national park, so lots of 'nature' around).
It´s hard to say which side we prefered, they both had their postives. The Argentinian side had a lot more bushwalking, and was a full day out. The Brazillian side can be done in 3 hours (we went to the bird park in the afternoon, as everyone we met seemed to recommend it, and were a little let down), but has more rainbows (almost every photo features one).
From Foz we had intended to cut through Paraguay to Cordoba in Arg., but visa were to expensive and complicated, so we bee-lined straight for Buenos Aires (almost 19 hours by bus, inluding stops for dinner and breakfast - it was an overnighter).
We wound up staying in a small hostel in San Telmo in BsAs. The first night, one of the long term residents was leaving, so there was an asado (bbq) on the roof. True to BsAs legend, the bbq was started around 10pm and we didn't eat until 2pm. We had to call it a night at 4pm, being a bit wasted from the previous night's bus journey, but everyone else went well into the morning.
As for Buenos Aires as a city, it's almost too European, after being in Central and South America since late Jan. Maybe it's because we've been to Europe as well... but Buenos Aires is almost too civilised. If you go to the right places, you can still find poverty, and the odd restaurant bathroom can rival Bolivia, but that's not really what we find exciting about South America. There's the tango, but to see it, you have to go to a touristy tango show...
Hmm, that all sounds very negative. BsAs is a great city, lots of cool buildings, parks, tree-lined avenues, and plenty of partying to be had... We've met lots of people who've fallen in love with the city and stayed for months, even at the expensive of seeing other places. But right now, for us non-party animals, 3 nights is enough.
So we're off to Uruguay and the beach! Hopefully it's not too crowded with pre-Easter holidayers from Arg. and Brazil.
Craig
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