From lots of water to a lot of city..

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I crossed the border after seeing the Iguazu falls on the Brazilian side. The Argentinean side is not called Foz but Puerto de Iguazu.
Here I ate my first real huge steak 'bife de chorizo' that was amazing, together with a nice red wine! I stayed in a hostel conveniently close to the bus station. I didn't have much luck with the weather though, although the first day was great! After that it was pouring rain. Because of this I've visited the ´cataratas´ (waterfalls) twice. The first day I had no raincoat and got absolutely soaked. The second day, I ran into the 4 Germans I've met in bonito and got a poncho of one of them. But got again soaked. But maybe the boat ride was the one to blame this time. The boat seriously goes underneath 2 waterfalls and we had an extra go because of a young girl shouting 'otra vez, otra vez'! But this was at the end of the second day. I actually started with a 6,4 km hike in the park, but not a lot of people do this, so it was quiet. I saw monkeys, birds and a huge purple butterfly. Encountered the 'tigre' which is a 3cm big ant, which lives solitary and found the 'hidden' waterfall. After this I did the ´normal´ trails along side, above and underneath the falls. Because of the rain it wasn't so busy. It also made a group of vultures cuddle up together in a tree. Besides visiting the falls I had some variable contacts, what means dinner every night with different people and again different people for breakfast. The town of Puerto de Iguazu is also way nicer than the Brazilian side: it's smaller and more cosy.

After my wet adventure here I booked a bus towards Buenos Aires. I actually felt like a princess on this 17 hour bus ride, especially after Bolivia. They served coffee, tea, later on a snack, then dinner (2 dishes), got myself a pillow and a huge blanket. And that's not all: the guy woke me up and gave my breakfast in my seat, great!

Well Buenos Aires, city of Tango! You have beautiful really green areas, also a lot of skyscrapers though. But you can go from poor e.g. La Boca, to Posh e.g. Palermo. Parks, statues, architecture everywhere! I walked and walked and subwayed my way through this huge city. I shopped, I stopped, I had nice dinners, I looked for red-door-bars, I had a drum & base night in a club, I drank wine and more wine. I've met a Mexican 'Austin Powers' who turned out to besides a bubbly person also my personal guard. Loads of people, I got annoyed by noisy dorm mates, I visited markets, I watched people doing the tango on the streets, I got harassed in the streets, stared at in the subway, barked at by dogs. So much to tell so much to see. It's such a vibrant city. With beautiful areas, rich and poor, clean and smelly streets. Gorgeous people all over, history and more history. I passed by Maxima's dad's house, visited Uruguay in between, saw a weird looks-like-a-town cemetery, nice designer shops, laughs with waiters. Stunning city where I definitely will return. Now am looking forward to go more south, closer to seeing whales, penguins and so on. Tonight my first train ride in Argentina.

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Comments

[Ulrich]

Nice pictures !
Hoi Anouk, Ik was zelf bezig mijn blog op te starten en was uit nieuwsgierigheid eens op jouw blog gaan zien :) Blijkbaar was het de moeite om wat meer in het park rond te dwalen, ik ben zelf alleen maar tot de watervallen geweest. Jij gaat nu blijkbaar ook naar patagonia toe. Voor mij zal patagonia mijn eerste stop zijn als ik op 11 januari er voor een jaartje tussenuit ga :) By the way, sorry voor mijn wat passieve aanwezigheid in Uruguay, was er niet helemaal bij met mijn hoofd en voeld mij een beetje fucked up :) Ik wens je vooral veel amusement ! See ya uli