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Published: August 22nd 2007
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Arriving late at night in Salta, we abandoned camping cuisine for a quick Macdonalds, and after about a fifteen-hour bus journey, nobody was complaining! We were immediately hit by the differences. People here were a mixture between indigenous and Hispanic, and their western clothing and polished appearance made us feel like stinky vagrants after our free-camp and bus journey! The campsite was nearby, and everybody went straight to bed.
Salta was a smart, modern city with large squares lined with restaurants, trendy bars and a beautiful artisan market. It was not hard to pass a few days here, and we set to work on our present buying offensive with mucho gusto. Another group meal was on the cards, and although dubious about the idea, we headed out for a steak dinner in the world renowned steak country.
Separate tables promised easy bill paying, and we scored ourselves a great bunch of dinner companions for what was to be the meal of our year. The steaks were as large as a big dinner plate (no exaggeration), and thanks to some good advice, we shared a tenderloin with accompaniments of chips with cheese and cream, and a beautifully dressed salad. A
great bottle of Argentinian red completed the taste sensation. This was the best steak we had ever had. One of the waiters cut the steak in half using a spoon to prove how tender it was - really melt in the mouth delicious! A few more glasses of not so good red wine in a bar completed the experience.
The icing on Salta´s cake was a day out with Richard and Ollie, to a zip-lining course on the outskirts of the city. Through a landscape of mountains, lakes and rivers, we were hooked on by a competent instructor, before whizzing through the air from one end of the wire to the other. After seven lines of adrenaline-fuelled fun, we zipped back to base for a tasty barbecue lunch, prepared on-site.
The doubts about Budget expeditions were coming to a head, and a decision needed to be made. A whole year of travelling couldn´t end like this. We decided to regain the control of our destiny and booked a flight, planning to leave the group in Foz Do Iguacu and go it alone until Rio!
We arrived back in town for a spot of Internet, and discovered, to
our horror, that our blog - yes, this very publication - had been corrupted. Thousands of people´s blogs from the previous three months had been lost due to a human error by the creator. We were devastated, and spent hours that evening, trying desperately to recover and rectify it. This explains some of the anomalies you might have noticed recently. Satisfied with our efforts, we crammed a cheeky macdonalds down our necks - excusable under the circumstances - and went back to the campsite to see our friends.
Then, the second frustration of the night occurred. Foolishly we offered to do a snacks and drinks run to the village shop. we ended up being there about forty-five minutes, while the world´s slowest man bumbled about in disorganised chaos, failing to understand a single part of our order. We finally arrived back, and stayed up until the small hours in our friends cabin, playing cards and drinking, etc.
A long stint of driving ensued the following day. We free-camped by a petrol station for about four hours´ sleep, getting up before sunrise - again - to make our way to the Iguazu Falls. A great campsite awaited us in
Puerto Iguazu, with hot showers, a barbecue area, a football pitch, and even a play area with crufts-style see-saw planks (lots of fun!).
The next morning, we boarded the bus for our big day. We had been looking forward to these stunningly beautiful waterfalls more than any other thing in South America. We had only seen pictures, but we were not to be disappointed by the reality. The two-hundred and seventy-five Iguazu Falls straddle the Argentina/Brazil border, and we were scheduled to see them from both sides. Our day on the Argentine side began proper with an exciting boat ride around a section of the site.
We pulled on our rainproof ponchos and waited with excitement before feeling the full spray of these breathtaking attractions. We followed this with a slow walk around the same section, taking countless photos from each of the designated view points. After lunch, we took a train ride up to the ´Devil´s Throat´, a gargantuan waterfall that leaves you, literally, open-mouthed for long periods of time. The last activity was an eco-boat safari along the Rio Iguazu, which felt a little tame after everything else that day. We took the train again to
the exit and jumped on a bus back to camp.
After spag-bol for dinner, we were persuaded by our friends to hit the town for a night out. We were so pleased that we had agreed to go. It was one of the most fun nights out we had had in a long time; cheesy nineties dance music, free cocktails, dance-offs. David did his caterpillar. A guy called Barry did the old pants trick (that is taking them off without undoing your trousers - yes, we were all dumbstruck).
We left for Brazil the next day after lunch. Lucky really, coz us two slept in!
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