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Published: July 18th 2011
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We arrived in Puerto Iguazu having spent 17 hours on the overnight bus with a woman who seemed to talk without even drawing breath for the duration! In spite of this we managed to get some sleep and arrived feeling pretty fresh!
We found the hostel in Puerto Iguazu without any problems, we had booked in advance and had a nice room in the Pop hostel which was close to town. In spite of being called Pop it was not young and trendy and seemed to be filled with couples and families so partying would be limited! It was warm, no actually hot, which was something of a novelty after the last few weeks. We got into our room right away which was a bonus and gave us the opportunity to ditch our bags and go out. We walked around the town and found somewhere to have a few drinks and dinner. Argentina were playing that night and so town was buzzing and we ended up having a pretty late night. Earlier in the evening we thought it best to get some cash for the evening and our excursions so we visited what seemed to be the only cashpoint in
Caroline
The Devil´s Throat town and queued for at least 45 mins. As is ever the way, having found this we came across another dozen or so on our way back to the hostel. There seemed to be quite a number of queues in Iguazu and seemingly this is a result of the border situation and the price difference between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. It would seem that Brazilians and Paraguayans come over the boarder to buy booze, petrol and food, party the weekend away and still manage to save money! This leads to mile long queues at the petrol station at 2am and seemingly the same at cashpoints!
We decided that instead of doing an organised trip to the falls that we would take a bus there and do our own thing which is now something of the norm. After a quick breakfast of medialunas and coffee (for a change), we caught the local bus for 3 pesos for us both there and back to Iguazu National Park. (That equates to 40p for us both!) On arrival at the National Park the guides were really helpful in getting us on our way however ther were a group of Germans who had clearly
Joff
Also at the Devil´s Throat been ripped off by someone in town and ended up paying the entrance fee twice! You didn´t need to be there to imagine the scene! Hilarious! Anyway, there are 3 routes through the park and you can walk most of them but there is a little train which takes you to the furthest away point. It is in fact very tastefully done and it doesn´t spoil the amazing scenery. You can visit the Iguazu falls from 3 sides: Argentina, Paraguay and also Brazil so we were able to see the other countries from the falls. It is not the type of place that one would go if they were in a wheelchair or on crutches, there are a lot of steps and a lot of walking, that said there were quite a number of the aforementioned giving it a go!
The one thing that I didn´t enjoy was the vast amount of people and the fact that no one has any spacial awareness. I think as Brits we tend to queue and be aware of our surroundings, this is something that doesn´t exist here and quite often Joff and I are holding back whilst someone is taking a photo
and there are about 10 people just walking in front. I guess there are going to be tons of people at these types of places so we just got on with it, we even saw the people that had been sat behind us on the bus the day before! Joff and I got separated in the crowds and as I was waiting for him I could hear what sounded like music. It was in fact a Japanese couple singing opera! I wish I had had a camcorder as it would have been a brilliant thing to upload. As Joff approached me he was like "who is singing?" that just made me smile.
We spent the whole day in the park doing the 3 routes as indicated on the map, we caught a bus back to the town and headed to a pizza place for a quick dinner and hit the hay early. The next day after what had become the usual breakfast we had a few things to organise, onward accommodation, travel etc so we headed to the internet cafe to do that, then we went to find the point where the 3 countries: Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet.
Caroline
Standing in Argentina, Paraguay on my left and Brazil on my right The views from there are pretty spectacular and you can see each country has their flag and welcome to on a sign. We walked back to the hostel via the supermarket as it was our intention to cook that evening.
Bruno (I think that his name was actually Hernan or something but we just called him Bruno as he looked like a Bruno) had said that we could cook Parillla in the hostel. It just so happened that Brazil were playing in the Americas cup so Bruno helped Joff cook the Vacio we had bought and we had a lovely steak and salad dinner not forgetting the red wine of course. Bruno showed Joff how you cook Vacio slowly and then you put salt on it to draw out the flavour. He was quite a character and told us where the good places to stay in Brazil, Salta etc were.
We had a great evening and retired quite early to pack and get ready for the morning pickup. We took the airport shuttle at 7am to the airport and the flight was simple and easy. We again took the shuttle on the other side and were dropped just
by our hostel. We were staying in the Exxes hostel in Salta and because it was about lunch time we were able to dump our bags and head out for a quick lunch before our trek. There is a cable car in Salta which goes up the hill so that you can look down on the town, Joff has repetedly said that cable cars are for the weak and made me walk up numerous mountains and hills on our trip! (I think it is actually due to his relationship with heights and such like) In true form we hiked up it in the heat of the day. I must be really unfit because people in Salta seem to do this as their daily constitutional, we even met people in the hostel who had ran up the hill. They were about 12 mind! I was completely exhausted when we got to the top but pleased we had done it. The views were stunning and we felt quite self righteous.
We walked down which seemed quite easy and went via the supermarket to get food on the way home. Again we cooked and there was a nice courtyard where everyone sat
The cable car
looking down on the city of Salta out at night eating and drinking wine. We were able to meet quite a few people and plan the rest of our journey in that evening. We had done quite a bit of research up until that point but not really thought much past getting to Salta and then going on to Bolivia.
The next day we were able to book the bus to Bolivia and we also hired a car to do a 3 day road trip from Salta to Cachi and end up in Cafayete then back to Salta. Having done our jobs Joff once again marched me up to the top of the hill before dinner and bed! The following day we had to be up early as the road trip was about to start!
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