Up the Rio Uruguay

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We decided to leave Punta del Este one day earlier than planned. Since there was not much to do there in bad weather, we rather had an extra day in the Thermal Baths in Salto. After some very fortunate and seamless bus connections we arrived in Salto after 8.5 hours.

Salto is the second biggest city in Uruguay with population of about 150 thousand. Like most other parts in Uruguay we encountered very few non South American travelers. It comes over as a practical city (simply a place to live) with just outside of it various thermal springs with 'resorts' built around them. Resort is probably not the best word, as they are relatively low-key swimming pool areas and aquatic parks. We spent two and a half days here enjoying warm and hot pools as well as the slides at a water park.



From here we took the ferry across the Rio Uruguay to Concordia, Argentina. We had booked a night bus to Iguazu, so we had a few hours to spend in the city before our bus trip. Not knowing much about the city we picked a nice green spot on the map in the hope to find park. It was indeed a very nice park! There were a lot of people jogging and biking; others were picknicking or visiting the ruin of a Castello. One very friendly woman ran after us to check whether we were aware that if we took a left we could get a nice view of the river. Later we encountered a candy salesman. We were not interested in buying anything, and after declining his offer we had a nice conversation about where we were from and what he knew about our countries 😊 A few moments after we walked away he called after us and ran up to us to offer us some free candy from the goods he had for sale. “Cuanta costa?”, “No, nada. Es gratis”. Very nice experience.



We walked away from this with a very positive impression of the city. Friendly people, very active and sporty; probably a somewhat wealthy town. Later at the bus stop we met an Argentinian who had lived in Switzerland for 20 years (Winterthur, not far from Zurich) and now lives in Iguazu. He was in Concordia for business and told us that though he had to be here occasionally it is a very dangerous city. Best after dark to not walk around he said; even in the center you might be robbed of your cellphone at gun- or knife-point. We were extremely surprised to hear this, especially after our own short experience in the city. Strangely the Lonely Planet did not mention anything about this, though I did find an article (“Poor Eat Garbage As Argentina Descends Into 'Hell'” - http://www.rense.com/general26/poor.htm) that paints the poorest city in Argentina as a horrible place. We found this a very striking example of how, as a traveler, forming your opinions about a place on a limited view may lead to getting a very wrong impression. I guess we happened to have walked off in the right direction...



The reason one can find the town Puerto Iguazu in the guide books is for the majestic Iguazu falls. And they are incredible! It is a combination of the massive volumes of water crashing down as well as the fact that it is composed of many waterfalls over a large area. Everywhere you look there are waterfalls. Take a look at the photos we added to get a better idea of what I mean. On our first day here we went to the Brazilian side of the falls, which gives a very nice panoramic overview. On the second day we visited the Argentinian side where you can see the falls close-by from above as well as below.

Also we visited a bird park here, as it came highly recommended by the owner of our guest house. Though it was sad to see some of the bigger birds with partially clipped wings to keep them from flying, it is professionally run with beautiful tropical birds.



And then, when time came to pack our bags, the owner of our guest house let us know that there was to be a big strike the day after. Just when we were planning to fly to Salta (not to be mistaken with Salto where we came from). After some phone calls we found out that our flight was canceled since pilots were also striking (sorry, I can't help but give a shout out to Google Now which – unlike the airline - notified us of the cancellation shortly after it took place). The unions are unhappy with the government, and are demanding a reduction in taxes. The government on the other hand is unwilling to give in as they claim that the requested policy changes would only affect <10% of the union's target audience. They see a political motive behind the strikes, in light of the upcoming elections.





In any case, we now fly out tomorrow, which gave us two more days in Iguazu. Luckily we have few things fixed in our plan so it was not much of a problem to change things around. It gave us the opportunity to visit some less obvious but very interesting attractions in the area. The photos below tell the story.

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