Iguazu Falls & Buenos Aires

After 14 hour bus journey and a trip across the brazilian border to Argentina, we arrived at our next destination Puerto Iguazu. This is a smallish town on the brazilian border but is busy busy with lots of tourists coming to see the main attraction, the Iguazu Falls.

We stayed in a hostel just outside the town which apparantly used to be a casino so it was pretty impressive, albeit with lots of creepy crawlies (but thankfullly no cockroaches!). Being used to the expense of dining in Brazil, we were delighted when we saw how cheap argentina really is, bottle of wine in the hostel was 13 pesos which is around e2.50!! I'll take two thank you

We spent the first day on a tour of the Brazilian side of the falls and a trip to the dam which they built on the Paraguaian side of the falls. The Iguazu Falls got more and more impressive as we went on. It was overcast and raining that day but it didn't really matter as we got soaked from the falls anyway. The following day we saw the falls from the Argentian side and it was just incredible - we went for a quick boat ride in to some of the waterfalls - feeling a brief im drowning moment - got absolutely drenched but it was good fun.

We met a gang that were staying in our hostel and we all went into Peurto Iguacu for something to eat, we got the nicest steak dinner, wine, desert, the works for around e20 each! Chuffed with ourselves we decided to hit the town but it was dead (something resembling Ballinamore on christmas day) as the country was on a day off and celebrating 200 years of independence!

19 hours on a fairly comfy bus and the next destination was Beunos Aires. We took a tip and stayed in the America del Sur hostel in the city centre which was nice and had good facilities. We had been running around so much that we decided to stay in BA for a week or so before moving on. We did a city tour on the first day and realised how big the city is but it is really easy to get around with the subway and buses. We made our way to the Boca Juniors stadium and had a tour - didn't manage to get in a game but the tour was interesting. Apparantly the stadium seats 50,000 and 47,000 seats are reserved for Boca fans, doesn't leave the opposition with much encouragement! We also went to see the resting place of Evita herself - Recoleta cemetery - which has hundreds of tombs about the size of small churches! We walked for ages and Murf was surprised when I was freaked out at the amount of coffins you could see through the tombs 'windows'! I was a bit surprised myself but it was very freaky!

We heard that it was worth going to see a bongo show when in BA so we were delighted to hear that the crew were putting on a special show to mark the anniversary of Argentina's independence so off we headed to Ticketmaster (Ticketica) and with the help of our two new Oz friends, went and danced the night away at BA's cultural venue. A great night was had.

I was disappointed to realise that the sun was not going to come back out after we left Brazil - well not with any tanning use anyway. And it was starting to get pretty chilly in Brazil so we had to take to the shops to stock up on woolies. Wandering around the San Telmo markets on Sunday I had to give in and buy a hat and scarf! I also had to invest in a pair of shoes and a jacket, even less impressed at having to spend the money. That was one part we did not plan for - wouldn't have minded a trip home to dunnes!

We also fitted in a day trip to the Uruguaian town of Colonia - a 6.30 start was cold and dark and we spent the day in Colonia cycling around to see it all. The weather was lovely and we took a trip to the beach, albeit in jeans and jumpers By 6pm my legs and my back side were beginning to feel that I had been on a bike for the best part of the day and by the time we made it back to the hostel at 11 we were well and truly wrecked!

En route to Rosario for the next leg of the journey and hopefully will make it to see Ireland play in the Under 20 Rugby World Cup against France.