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BA Part 2
After a fantastic 2 weeks, the first in BA and the second in Patagonia, we returned to BA. For me, it was not without a little trepidation. Could the couple of days here live up to the first week? Silly question. Of course they could! BA is such a fabulous city, I think we could have stayed here for a month and not run out of things to do.
After a tense walk about Palermo trying to find our hostel (we had forgotten to write down the address and could not remember the name - perfect kindling for a heated debate! Fortunately Stavi recognised the lampshade in the entrance - maybe I should question her motivation for choosing hostels more closely in the future?), we headed out for a more relaxed stroll to soak up the last of the afternoon sunshine.
On Sunday, we headed for the Feria de Mataderos, a folk fair on the edge of Buenos Aires. The fair showcases local dancing (and in our case even some traditional Greek dancing, but maybe not for the purists!) and gaucho horse riding skills. The horse riding skills were particularly impressive. At quite a gallop,
The Tango
Feria de Mataderosthe riders stood in the stirrups and attemped to put a little metal spike through a metal ring no more than an inch in diameter (that´s about 2.5cm for the non-imperialists!) suspended about 10 foot (about 3m) in the air. They seemed to start them young - we saw a boy about 6 years old have a go (on an adult horse!), though the ring was lowered for him!
After 2 nights in the worst hostel we´d stayed in Argentina (see my point above!), we were very glad to move to the Vain Boutique Hotel (our wedding present from Kathryn and Deege - thanks again). We were the only people in the hotel that afternoon and got to treat the terrace as if it were our own sipping on our complimetary drinks! To top it all off, I had the best breakfast so far - scrambled eggs! It may not seem that exciting, but after 4 weeks of toast and jam it seemed like luxury!
Iguazu National Park
After a frustrating day waiting for our flight to depart (our airline LAN had changed the time of or flight to a later one on the same day and
Traditional Greek dancing
No kidding, at an Argentinian folk fair... regarded it adequate to just leave a voicemail on my mobile to let us know-my mobile is unfortunately back in England!) we arrived at Puerto Iguazu.
A very sleepy town despite having the Iguazu Park so close. Quite bizzare really but perfectly pleasant.
The park is shared between Brazil and Argentina and you can get different views of the waterfalls visiting each side.
We started with the Brazilian side, much to Kevin´s delight, since we crossed the border in a taxi, adding to the different border cossings we have experienced so far!
We visited the bird sanctuary close to the park which was fantastic. I had such fun chasing toucans which were free to fly in huge cages and seemed so used to tourists that happily posed for photos. That was my excuse to take a few more hundred photos...´
When we had enough with the birds, we entered the Brazilian side and headed straight away for the star attraction, the Garganta del Diablo (or devil´s throat) with breathtaking panoramic views. I cannot really describe the beauty in a fair way neither do I think the photos do it justice (however good a photographer I might be!)
The next couple of days we visited the Argentinian side which is much bigger and a completely different experience all together. So many waterfalls and so much water depite the fact we were told the waters were low!
One highlight was the boat trip we did when our pilot took us under a waterfall soaking us to the bone. Never imagined how heavy the water is!
As we were far too keen we visited the Garganta del Diablo twice from the Argentinian side, once late afternoon and once early morning and we were treated to two different spectacles. The late afternoon was a melllow one, giving me time to take my pictures. The early morning spectacle was so wet from the spray generated from the waterfalls, we could barely stand close without getting drenched again.
We enjoyed every single moment of it though!
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