At some point if you're travelling in South America you're going to end up taking a long bus trip as buses are the commonest form of long-distance travel. Latin America used to have a good rail network, largely built by British engineers in the nineteenth century. However it has now all but disappeared save for a few suburban networks and some tourist trains, such as the one from Cusco to Machu Picchu. And for some reason cheap air travel hasn't taken off here i...

Not a song title today but a film. 'The Mission', starring Robert de Niro and Jeremy Irons it tells the story of the Jesuit missions established in Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina in the 17th and 18th centuries to convert the local Guarani community to Christianity. However this is not the usual tale of Christian missionaries seeking to Europeanise, and in the process effectively exterminate, a local indigenous people. Rather the Jesuits, whilst setting out to co...

Paraguay! One of the least well known countries in South America. Landlocked with a population of just under 7 million it has, until recently, been relatively isolated with an air of mystery about it. In the nineteenth century it attracted a number of groups looking to set up utopian colonies - German anti-semites (including Nietzsche's sister), Australian communists and Mennonite missionaries all came looking for their version of nirvana (none found it). A succ...

From one amazing phenomenon to another, but this time a man made one. The Itiapu Dam is a joint venture between Brazil and Paraguay and dams the Parana River on the border between the two countries. Like the Iguazu Falls the statistics are impressive. It is 7.2km long and 225m high. The lake it created is over 100km long and 7 km wide. It can generate 14,000 megawatts of electricity - perhaps enough to supply the electricity needs of over 10 million European hom...

Awesome is a word so overused that it has come to lose its meaning. However sometimes one comes across a natural phenomenon that truly merits the description. The Iguazu Falls, Cataratas do Iguaçu to give them their Portuguese name (we are still in Brazil) is one such. The raw statistics are impressive. Generally considered to be the largest waterfall system in the world consisting of between 250 and 300 separate falls (the exact number depending on the water l...