Santa Fe & Rosario

Neil:

After experiencing the stunning beauty of the Iguazu falls in northern Argentina our journey has taken us south towards Buenos Aires stopping via the cities of Santa Fe and Rosario. Before we headed south however, we couldnt resist a quick trip over the border into Brazil, our objective being to see the Brazillian side of the Iguazu falls or if the sun stayed in bed, we had the backup of visiting the Itaipu Hydroelectric Dam (Nicky was praying for the sun).

The weather turned out to be overcast and grey, so a trip to the dam was made. Itaipu Hydroelectric Dam is currently the largest hydroelectic dam in the world and was built as a joint venture between Paraguay and Brazil. It supplies 14000 megawatts of electricity and Paraguay sells most of its 50% share back to the Brazillians. This paragraph is boring to those not interested in this kind of stuff but it is impressive to see and has some awesome facts attached to it .......

Fact 1:The amount of steel required to build the dam was enough to build 380 Eiffel Towers.
Fact 2:The pace of construction was equivalent to building a 20 storey building every 55 minutes.
Fact 3:The earth excavated to build the dam was 8.5 times greater than that of the Channel Tunnel.
Fact 4: The dams length is nearly 8km or 5 miles.

I love facts.

After id absorbed all this information, i woke Nicky up and we went back over the border into Argentina and got an overnight bus to Santa Fe. It was a long 17 hour trip, it took a few hours longer than it should.

The delay was caused by the protests that are all over Argentina at the moment, something to do with the farmers being angry at the government for heavily taxing farm produce exports. All the protests we've seen have been peaceful enough, they just block the roads with tractors and trucks while burning a tyre or two.

Santa Fe is a fairly typical Argentinian city with a few colonial buildings, street cafes and restaurants and some impressive churches. We only spent a day there which was enough but well worth the visit. We struggled to find a hostel and instead stayed in a 3 star hotel that cost nearly double what a private room in a hostel would cost and was pretty dirty and noisy. It makes you realise how good hostels are at providing value for money.

From Santa Fe we left for Rosario, a funky city on the banks of a river. Id better let Nicky do some typing...


Nicky:

Rosario is described a the typical argentine city and it really was a great place to spend a few days. The river area is having a bit of a revamp and among the warehouses and old guys fishing off the wharf are some pretty cool cafes and restaurants. Further into the centre there are some great shops (how I am not coming back with a new bag full of shoes i do not know!!( Rosario is also the birth place of Che Guevara so we visited his house and the flag monuement, which is a massive building dedicated to the man who designed the Argentine flag. Possibly the only dissappointing thing is that next to this monument there is a memorial to the men who died during the Falklands and it is tiny in comparison, it hardly seems fair. The weather was gorgeous in Rosario so we spent some time in the park reading and sunbathing before it got a bit cold and we headed for the nearest bar...

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