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Ben was supposed to be arriving back in Buenos Aires on the monday afternoon, but his flight was cancelled due to the (and I have been informed that it was only a very little!) snow, so he didn't arrive back until Tuesday night! So with two more days in Buenos Aires, I met up with Tina and Alex, the girls who had worked in my hostel in Santiago that I got the bus back to BA with, and spent Monday and Tuesday showing them all the sights of BA that I had previously seen! But I did get to see La Boca in the day, which was much more interesting than in the evening when we had been nefore and everything was closed! And it gave me something to do and some friends to hang around with until Ben came back!
The plan had been to spend Wednesday night in BA as Ben had got in late on Tuesday, then get the bus to Paraguay on Thursday, spend a few days there and make our way up to the Paraguay side of Iguazu falls, then cross the border back to the Argentina side and then go to Brazil. However, on our way back from the station having bought the tickets to Paraguay, Ben's passport was pickpocketed on the metro! (you have to take your passport to buy international bus tickets) This lead to a couple of days of joyous fun; going to the police to get a police report, going to the embassy to get documents for an emercency travel document, going back to the embassy the next day to finish them because its only open in the mornings, changing our bus ticket as we could no longer go to paraguay, sorting out and sending off documents for a replacement passport etc etc. A whole load of hassle, and a warning: DON'T LOSE YOUR PASSPORT!
It turned out that the emergency travel document is a pain in the ass as you can only have 5 countries on it, and you have to provide the EXACT dates you will enter and leave each country, which you then have to stick to, and you have to show them a ticket into the last country you have put before they issue it, and Argentina doesn't accept it so we couldn't go into Paraguay and get back into Iguazu falls... and since we are going to more than 5 countries and we don't know when we're entering and leaving each one, we just put Brazil and bought a ticket into Brazil and will stay there until the new passport arrives (6 weeks, 8 maybe).
So after our first experience of crime in SA they started coming thick and fast! The next day a guy ran up to Ben on the street and tried (but luckily failed) to grab his iphone out of his hand then ran off and jumped onto the back of a motorbike and rode off - NB. be suspicious of all motorcyclists... an when we arrived in Brazil we found that all Ben's dollars and pounds had been stolen out of his backpack, wither when it was left in the luggage store or by the shifty bus luggage man - NB beware of shifty luggage men and luggage holds! We weren't, however, as unlucky as a guy Neil that we met, who had been pickpocketed of his money and cards one day, and then mugged and beaten up for his passport another day (since then we've heard he's also had his iphone stolen in rio!)
We did manage to sort out the emergency travel document and finally leave BA for Puerto Iguazu where we visited the falls! They really were incredible, as you round the corner suddenly a whole panorama of different sized waterfalls come into sight! You can also get a boat onto a little island where you can walk up even closer to the falls. There's another enormous waterfall called the devil's throat where you walk right up to the edge of the cliff and you can look down over the waterfall, you can't even see the bottom because there's so much spray coming up and it makes lots of rainbows from the light!
There was also an unecpected amount of wildlife at the falls, not all enjoyed by myself as I prefer to see them from a short distance, not actually running at me! There were a lot of coati's, which are a lot like racoons, and had some pretty cute babies, but we were warned that they DO bite annoying tourists, so the large gangs off them eyeing you up in the middle of the paths were slightly ominous! There were also some giant lizards, about the size of your arm wandering about the trees and path, some giant black catfish in the river above the falls, toucans and eagles in the sky, and apparently snakes although luckily we didn't see any as I didn't belive Ben when he told me there was a 'Danger, snakes!' sign (but I saw the photo proof later!)
We managed to meet up with unlucky Neil again for a meal, spent another day just lounging by the pool, and finally left for Brazil! Goodbye Argentina, we enjoyed you at first, but by the end you left a sour taste of crime in our mouths!
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[email protected] I am not impressed with Ben ,he needs to pay more attention to his possessions . Mum x