Day 162 - Eduardo Simeone

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When a company sets a price for its wares, it obviously wants to set a price that is as high as the buyer is willing to pay. Unfortunately all the buyers differ in how much they want the goods, so typically a lot of customers will actually pay a lot less than they would have coughed up. As a result, companies are always very keen to charge customers differently according to perceived demand - for example setting student or OAP rates is rarely done out of the kindness of their hearts but rather is a commercial decision. In some tourist destinations, this concept manifests itelf as one rate for locals and another for foreigners (who invariably have much more money).

The reason for this mini economics catch-up is to explain what the South American airline LAN are up to. They charge vastly different rates depending on nationality, apparently someone did a test and typically 'foreigners' are charged 3 times as much as locals on popular tourist routes. Our Buenos Aires to Iguazu flight could hardly be more touristy, and we answered 'Argentina' when asked where we were from - other versions of the same website ask for your nationality, but thankfully this one didn't. All went smoothly with a surprisingly cheap online purchase except the confirmation e-mail said something (in Spanish) about the fares only being valid for citizens of Argentina, and other nationalities will not be allowed to board.

We were a little nervous when we went to check-in, thinking we may be asked to pay several hundred pounds more, but all worked out fine. And we didn't even have to pretend to be Eduardo Simeone.

We took some time to read local reaction to the news of General Pinochet's death. The Buenos Aires Herald for one was very much on the side of the anti-Pinochet celebrations. Ed has always been quite a fan of his which can certainly be a controversial view, but Gemma talked him out of wearing a black armband for the day. As a rather random side track, a friend of ours called Ben wore a black armband (and lit a candle) when news came out of Gazza's omission from Glen Hoddle's 1998 World Cup squad.

At the airport in Iguazu we sorted out all our visits with a tour company at the airport. One of the great things about Argentina is that there's no need to shop around because everything is so cheap! Then we went straight to the Iguazu National Park for a look at arguably the most impressive waterfall in the world.

There are plenty higher than Iguazu but they are often just a trickle. Iguazu is just massive. We won't bore you with the statistics on the back of the free map, but suffice to say it's quite some sight. We are going to have 3 visits here. Firstly a boat trip right up to the bottom of the falls. Then a visit to the other side which belongs to Brazil. And finally a walk to the best bit at the heart of the Argentinian side.

The boat trip was amazing. We were left in no doubt as to how wet we would get and were given waterproof bags for our belongings. Not that it should be too surprising that we'd get wet since the boat literally goes under some of the falls. After doing that a few times the boat speeds through some rapids down the river, before we travel back to the visitor's centre in a 4x4 truck. After this we catch a bus back to town, eat an excellent all-you-can-eat buffet, and return to the hostel.

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