Hello all!

Sorry for the lack of updates, we`re going to try and be better in future! So quite a lot has happened since the last update, including a country and language change!

We said bye to Paraty and went to Sao Paulo with the intention of never leaving the bus station, and going straight to Iguazu Falls, however, we thought we`d give ourselves and have one night in Sao Paulo before moving on. We hadn`t heard great things about Sao Paulo so we initially viewed this stay as a slight waste of night. However, the next day (we had a night bus booked for iguazu and the day free) one of the people who worked at the hostel took us out on a tour of Sao Paulo with some of his Brazilian friends. We rather warmed to the city! It had so much character, the people we met were lovely and the city is just massive! We went to the top of the highest building in Sao Paulo, and there were high rise buildings as far as the eye could see, a never ending urban expanse. We also went to the Japanese district (Sao Paulo has the largest Japanese population outside of Japan... you learn something new every day!) and we had the most amazing sushi, which was a welcome change to white bread, cheese and ham.

Anyway, after our tour we had to rush back to the hostel and leg it to the bus station to catch out bus, slightly wishing we had another night to explore the city. The bus journey was about 14 hour bus ride to Iguazu Falls in a relatively comfortable bus with seats that reclined a bit so you could have a bit of a sleep, but inevitably by the time we arrived the next morning we were knackered and instead of going to see the Brazilian side of the falls before heading over the border to the Argentinian side as planned, we headed straight for Argentina, and our hostel which, it turned out, had a pool. Just what we needed.

Iguazu Falls... all I can say is that they are awesome in the true sense of the word. It`s hard to fathom the sheer magnitude and power of the falls without having witnessed it first hand. The ares around the falls was stunning, there were many trails you could take around the falls to see it from different angles and levels, as well as to just see the nature reserve itself. We saw many a humongous spider and these odd anteater/sloth type animals called coaties wandering around. Overall, an amazing experience and would recommend it to everyone travelling even vaguely near.

After Iguazu we got a 20 hour bus ride down to Buenos Aires. 20 hours may seem like a lot to you (and those of you who know me and my adverse reactions to travelling on the road may be shocked) but it was one of the most comfortable experience me and Laura have ever experienced! The seat were huge and almost fully reclined, we were served refreshments and snacks, as well as dinner and breakfast, and had a couple of movies played for our entertainment. The only thing I can imagine it would be comparable to would be being in business class on a flight. Oh and you also got pillows and blankets! We weren`t served champagne as promised by the lady at the ticket office but that was the only let down.

We have now been in Buenos Aires for 3 weeks and it has been a lot of fun. It`s been really nice getting to know a place and experience what it would be like to live here. Our apartment is really nice, me and Laura are sharing a room and there are two other single bedrooms that have been sporadically filled with people. For the first week it was just me and laura in the flat which was actually really nice after 3 weeks in hostels, and we have proper towels! We were getting fed up with using our `travel towels` which are about the size of a tea towel and just push the water around your body as oppose to actually drying you. Oh, and smell like pickled onions. Mmm. We have met a lot of people through the school we are in, and our spanish is improving every day! We have 4 hours of classes everyday, and the rest of the time to ourselves! We do get homework though. It`s like being 14 again! the nightlife here is amazing and there are so many places to go you woulnd`t get around them all is you spent a year here. We have also been frequenting a restaurant called La Cabrera which does the most amazing steak we have ever eaten.

Ok I will stop writing now, this is a lot to digest and well done if you made it this far down the entry! We will try and be more regular with the blog entries, if only so you don`t have to sit at your computer for an hour trying to get through one of this size!

We miss you all!

lots of love x x