Brazil, Argentina & Paraguay in 2 days

From leaving Sao Paulo, Brazil we were about to arrive Foz do Iguacu to do the Brazilian side of the Cataracts Iguazú Falls one of the best in the world, when I discovered that my camera was not in the bag where I left it. 10:1, one of the pricks on the bus had it and I immediately had enemy´s everywhere. Worse than loosing a Canon Ixus 60 was that my 1 gig card had photos of Manaus, Sao Paulo and the end of our Amazon river trip and they were in the hands of a theiving cock head.
The wost thing was that It was the only time, I mean only time in 2 months that I had not travelled with it in my pocket on a bus and it was even rarer that Lisa did not take the bag off the bus when she got off. This meant a trip to the cop shop to get the needed docmentation to claim on insurance, and after 12 hours on a bus I was not impressed. All I can say is Karma mate!

That said, we checked into another cheap dodgy hotel on the Brazilian side and set off to
Foz de Iguazu
Brazil side of the fallssee the falls. Talk about impressive, they´ve set it up well, you can get up close and personal, many photo opportunities - which you can see in this blog. It doesn´t take long to see the Brazilian side maybe 2-3 hours and then you can grab a bite to eat if you can afford it. It´s setup for the tourist dollar and they bus you in like you´d expect on a European tour, for those people interested in hopping into an inflatable dingy and getting wet and close to the falls, I recommend doing it on the Argentina side - its half the price.

The next morning I woke to the news of the riots that went on in Sao Paulo the day before and these disturbing images of this group - unknown to me at the time who were part of a kidnapping ring who were all gunned down and paraded on the TV - vigilanty style. This happened apparently over the border in Paraguay - the place we would go the next day. The rest of the day was spent visiting ITAIPU - largest power plant on Earth - 12 600 MW of Hydro Power, which was
Itaipu Dam Brazil
These water pipes are 10m in diameter - hugeputting out around 10.8 GW the day we were there. It had a good tour and yes the engineer did come out in me, if only for a moment to pose for photos. It produces around 27% of Brazil´s energy consumption and nearly all of Paraguay´s. The weather was crap the day we went there so I apologise for some of the photos. Dowdell and Dave, you have time to google it, Gorrie, you definately have time and Rhett, well.... Wots Appening?

From there we left for Argentina! finally! out of Brazil, in search of better hygene and a decent feed. And a feed we got, you can see a noticable change between the two countries. Argentina appeared organised, cleaner and almost European.... and with the crash of the Peso some years before, everything was cheap. We checked in, grabbed a couple of good coffee´s and some Italian to bring us back to health. The next day we headed to Cataracts Iguazú Falls Argentina, which I think is even better. It takes you right to the edge of the devels throat - the main waterfall where you get a real appreciation of the shear volume of water that flows.
Leaving Brazil
Chau!There´s lots of little walking trails around the falls circuit and you can spend the best part of the day there.

We had read in the Lonely planet that you could splurge and have a buffet lunch at the Sheraton, so to break the day up we did just that. For 85 Peso´s each (30-35 AUD) we shelled out for what would be a button breaking experience. I think I had 5 servings of the best looking food that we had seen since leaving Australia. You could feel the goodness entering your body with every decadent mouthful. Hummn I´m hungry now....
Anyway we headed off the next day from Argentina, through Brazil without stopping (for Brazil immigration) and over to Ciadad de Este in Paraguay, the electrical shopping Mecca for the region. The bus takes you past the immigration point and if you blink you´ll miss it. We were immidiately hounded as we were well acustomed to, and we proceeded to grab a taxi and head to the bus station for a bus to Asuncion, Paraguay´s capital.

Many travellers choose to bypass Paraguay, we didn´t know why the capital was a really nice place and the people were
Me at the borders
Photo of the Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay borderreally friendly, you couldn´t spent too many days here, but if your going to Buenos Aires from Foz, it doesñ´t add on much time if any. We had found a cheap hotel, when we got up the next day some of the ceiling had fallen in. The owner politely can with broom in hand to clean up the room. At these prices they weren´t about to offer a replacement room. We went out for a while to look around and when we came back, we got a replacement room, even more had fallen down. If I had a scaling bar I think I could have got half the roof down.
Two days later after being introduced to Mate and the ¨Milanesa¨we were off to Buenos Aires - the Paris of Sudamerica.

Argentina Finally!

Foz de Iguazu
The devils throat - close up on the Argentina side
Lunch in Argentina
Me after consuming way too much at the Sheraton
Bus To Paraguay

Presidential Palace, Asuncion, Paraguay

Our Caving Roof
Pic of the roof in our room, deciding to fall in around us
Lisa with a Chippa
They like these cheese tasting donut things in Paraguay

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