Round the World with Ann and Katie

Well I can’t follow that really and I apologise in advance for the rapid decline in the spelling, grammer, typing mistakes etc.  So after waving Ann off to the airport I had a couple of hours to spare before getting the bus out of BA.  Most of this time was acually spent trying to sort out our on going problems with Western Union, which I thgink we finally managed.  The only good thing about Western Union is that they have given me lots of practise in complaining about things in Spanish.  I’m sure this will be useful in the coming months.

So, after another long overnight bus journey I arrived in Puerto Iguazu at about 9am.  After finding the hostel, having a shower and breakfast I decided I was going to have a relaxing day doing not a lot.  The town itself is quite small so it didn’t take long to find my way around.  Just outside the town is the Tres Fronteras where the borders of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil meet by 2 rivers.  Other than a nice view and a few stalls selling souveniers there wasn’t a lot to see.  But after the chaos of Buenos Aires it was good to have a quiet day getting used to the tropical heat and humidity.
The next day I had an early start so I could to the national park before all the big tour groups arrived.  This was worth it as it meant I arrived at one of the main sights, the Garganta del Diablo before the crowds.  This is another place where it is impossible to describe and photos won’t show the true scale of it.  Its about a 1km across bridges over the river to the top of the falls.  From the start of the walk you can here the noise of the water but you can’t actually see it until you get a lot closer.  The walkway goes right to the edge of the falls where there is a huge mass of water plumitting over the edge of the cliffs.  Because of the amount of spray it’s impossible to see the river at the bottom.  On the walk back across the river I spotted a cayman.  I spent the rest of the day doing various walks to different areas of the waterfalls.  Despite the number of views of waterfalls I had, even at the end of it they still seemed impressive.  In the afternoon the main area of the park was very crowded so I escaped to a less visited area on a longer walking trail through the forest.  As it was a bit quieter there was a bit more wildlife around including Coatis (a kind of racoon?), a lot of lizards, birds, butterflys and strange insects.
Today I decided I still hadn’t had enough of waterfalls and went to Brazil for the day to see the falls from the other side.  On the Brazillian side ther is just one walking trail that you can use without a guide, but it gives a better panoramic view of all the waterfalls, which you don’t really get on the Argentinian side.  This gave a much better perspective of the area and it was well worth the trip.
After thinking of various plans on where to go next, I’ve decided to stay in Argentina and travel to Salta.  Unfortunatly this means yet another long bus journey tomorrow, another 23 hours.

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