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Published: September 10th 2007
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Salta
Salta was our first port of call in the lovely country of Argentina. It was a right mission to get to (transition day is never much fun) the border crossing from Villazon in Bolivia to La Quiaca took forever, causing us to miss our seven and a half bus ride to Salta, though lucky for us we were able to board the next one leaving that afternoon. Once over the border from Bolivia, you instanly notice the decreasing amount of poverty that surrounds you - it's almost hard to believe you're on the same continent and that these two bordering countries are so economically and politically different.
You wouldn't read about it, but we arrived on a long weekend - the entire city's accomodation was booked out except for a hotel charging 125 US a night!! (thats like a weeks accomo for us). We got lucky and ended up meeting someone who knew someone that owned a hostel, and although his hostel was also full he rented us a room in his own house!! which worked out very well as we ended up having a cinema sized flat screen telly with cable and as they were hardly ever home,
we pretty much had run of the house.
Not a lot going on in Salta, though we just stopped there for a bit of a breather after our salt flats tour and geared ourselves up for the twenty-seven hour bus ride that lay ahead to get up to Iguazu Falls!
We did however manage to take a cable car up San Bernado Hill to get a complete view of the city and I was actually jumping out of my skin at the sites of all the shopping malls and supermarkets!! (no more buying dodgyfood off street sellers- joy!!)
Iguazu
As I mentioned before, we took a twenty-seven bus ride (longest one so far) all the way from Salta to Iguazu and surprisingly it wasn't as painful as we thought it would be. Argentinian buses are the best we have ever travelled in - recliner seats, snacks and coffee and even the latest in DVD releases (also in Engish would you believe). The heat hit us pretty quickly once stepping off the bus....we were finally down to a normal altitude and being close to the dense forest of the Iguazu National Park meant we felt the lovely humidity too.
Our day trip to the falls was unforgettable, we arrived there right on opening time and took a walk first to the upper and lower falls and pretty had the whole place to ourselves it felt like. The park is so much bigger then you expect it to be, the lower and upper falls alone are over 2km of walkway and then it's another kilometre to the ever powerful Garganta del Diablo or Devils Throat as it is more commonly known. From here you get to witness the Brasilian side of the falls meet the Argentinian side and words can't describe the power and energy of the waters there.
The parks people have done a magnificent job at planning out these walks amongst the falls (you wont believe how close you get to the falls) whilst at the same time conserving the National Park and all of it's flora and fauna.
As it was my birthday in the Uyuni de Salar and we didn't really get to celebrate it properly, we took the one hundred euro my brother Troy gave me whilst catching up in Amsterdam and booked a two night stay in a four star hotel in
Iguazu. We even had a proper bathroom so I could have a bath and drink champas of course!! We pretty much drank and ate in style all weekend and when we checked out, we were only charged for one night!! Quality - Happy birthday to me!!
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires we found to be a really expensive city but also very glam. They are big on their leather goods (you can almost buy anything made out of the stuff), fur coats (like the ones in style back in the 80's) and most importantly steak. yep, not really a city for the vegetarians. We finally got to treat ourselves to a decent cut of beef and a fine Argentinian Merlot. Life doesn't get much better than that! We actually caught up with a couple of crazy Canadians also that we met on our Pampas tour of the Amazon basin.
We did a day trip to the charming and very colourful town of La Boca. It's the neighbourhood that summarises the history of the Italian immigrants who arrived to the country to conquer "America". It's also the area where the Tango and the passion for football developed and of course
home to the Boca football stadium where Diego Maradona and Carlos Tevez once graced it's pitch. The mythical museum street called Caminito is picturesque with all the houses painted colourfully and many of them sporting life sized dolls on the balconies and their windows. There is also Tango dancers everywhere you turn. The whole place just feels like it's stuck in a time-warp.
That concudes our time in South America. We've had seven weeks of ups and downs and highs and lows but all in all it's been a great experience for us. Now we're off to a vaguely normal country..... yippee..... South Africa here we come!
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