On the road to Rio

We hitched a ride with Lisa's friend Gianina who took us from Foz do Iguazu to a city called Encarnacion in the south of Paraguay.

The drive took all of six hours, and with the roads in Paraguay being pretty rough and bumpy, it felt like a long six hours... We visited one of the Jesuit ruins which, at night, they lit them up and provided tours of the ruins, which was very interesting. It's more interesting if you can speak Spanish, however, but fortunately for us we had Gianina as our translator.

We drove around the south east of Paraguay to see some views of the landscape and had a good laugh taking some funny pictures of each other.

The next stop was Asuncion, Paraguay's capital city and home to Gianina's lovely family. They put us up for five nights and treated us to some Paraguayan food and drink.

We had a couple of days to look around downtown Asuncion and we were taken to some interesting spots such as the local outdoor leisure centre and the parliamentary buildings.

From Asuncion we rode the night bus to the east of Paraguay to the town of Cituad del Este. From there, we got a taxi to the small airport in Foz and flew to Rio de Janeiro, our last stop in our world tour!

This is view of Rio from up near one of the villages on the hillside.

We stayed in the district of Burro, apparently one of the safer ones in Rio. But, being situated on an island inland, getting to the hotel required a one minute boat across a moat type thing. It proved no real problem once we got used to where to stand along the moat.

We didn't waste time checking out the beach in Rio and this what we saw..... people really don't wear an awful lot of clothes on the beach! I think their philosophy is to tan as much of their skin as they can, even if it requires wearing Y-fronts!

We ended up booking ourselves in on a tour to take us around to the popular touristy spots such as Christ Redeemer, the Selaron Steps and Sugar Loaf Mountain. We thought as our time was short in Rio and we had no clue or where everything was, it was probably a smart idea to pay a bit of money and get someone else to show us around.

The famous Selaron Steps was also part of the tour and this was very interesting to see. 

Watching the sun go down over Rio and the surrounding hills from Sugar Loaf Mountain was quite a memorable thing to behold. 

And that was our last night in Rio and our last on the road outside Europe! My parents decided to surprise us when we landed back in Frankfurt airport. Unfortunately we came out the wrong gate at Arrivals and we tapped them on the shoulder. I love the poster they made!

Getting around (and soaked!) at Iguazu Falls, Argentina and Brazil sides

From Buenos Aires we got a flight up to Cataratas International Airport, which lies a short drive from Puerto Iguazu in the very top corner of Argentina. Because our flight was delayed by an hour or so, it ended up being too late for us to visit the falls when we got there, so we had to wait until the next morning.

Getting a ride from the airport to Puerto Iguazu (the small town about a 30 minute-drive away from the waterfalls on the Argentine side) was very easy. There is a minibus service that dropped us off outside our hotel in Puerto Iguazu. Buses run back and forth every 20 minutes to the falls from the main bus terminal in Puerto Iguazu.

The bus from Puerto Iguazu took us to the entrance of the falls (it's about a 25-minute ride) on the Argentine side. Now our plan was to see what we could of the falls, starting out early in the morning, before catching a taxi across the border to the Brazilian side.

The falls are stunning, and it was hard to take a bad photo... being wrapped up inside a jungle, it really is a spectacle to behold.

In about three hours we walked both the lower and upper trails, but didn't have enough time to ride the small train up to the Devil's Throat. We weren't too bothered however, as we knew we were going to get a pretty good frontal view once on the Brazilian side.

When we got back to the town of Puerto Iguazu, we made arrangements with our hotel for a taxi across the border to our hotel on the Brazilian side. There are regularly coaches that go from Puerto Iguazu in Argentina across to Foz in Brazil, and they are much cheaper than a taxi, but they would have taken us into the centre of Foz and not to our hotel on the outskirts. Fortunately for us, we had a really good taxi driver, who was showing a trainee the ropes of taxi driving.

Our taxi driver could talk for England, as he gave us our own personal tour divulging some interesting facts and even stopping for a photo opportunity of the river and bridge where the Argentine and Brazilian borders meet. He also helped with our immigration stamps, so overall it paid off.

We met up with Lisa's High School friend Gianina, who drove 7 hours with a friend from her home in Asuncion to meet us at our hotel near the falls on the Brazilian side. The plan was to drive back to Asuncion in a couple of days time.

One evening we went to see the famous Itaipu hydroelectric Dam on the Paraguayan and Brazilian border. It's the second largest dam in the world in terms of power production, next to the Three Gorges Dam in China. At night, Itaipu is lit up and they put on a bit of a show.

Back at the falls on the Brazilian side, we could see a whole different version. This is a small section of the complete falls... the whole thing is huge!

Among the many butterflies, toucans can also be seen flying about around the rivers and falls.

It's definitely worth visiting both sides of Iguazu Falls, as the Brazilian side shows you parts you can't see on the Argentine side and vice versa. The walk along the falls is amazing and takes you to numerous viewing platforms, with the last giving you a glimpse at the Devil's Throat with a good soaking!

And this is where you can get a good drenching by the wind-swept water. Just around the corner is where they keep the Devil's Throat!

The Devil's Throat, ladies and gents.

On the way out of Brazil we stopped by the river where three obelisks stand to show the three borders - Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. They are just about visible in the picture above, with Argentina's blue and white obelisk on the far left, Brazil's on the left, and then Paraguay's on the far right in the distance.  

(Other travellers who might be reading this and planning a similar trip - if you want to know more details about what we did or just have some questions about the falls and getting around, please ask, leave it in the comments field below and hopefully I can help).

From Chile to Argentina

We went from Chile to Salta, and that was a long day. It involved a whole day on a bus, with a three hour wait at the border crossing over to Argentina. I have no idea why it took this long. It was the slowest border crossing we've ever had… too many queues and too many people doing not very much.

San Pedro de Atacama in Chile is a quiet town, having only a few interesting sites... a lot people use San Pedro to travel elsewhere or explore the surrounding desert.

On the road to Salta...

The two people sitting on the bench were our English travel companions, who we met on the salt flats tour and travelled with until Salta.

The road out of San Pedro is part desert part snowy mountains as the altitude gradually increases...

Salta is not as high up in altitude as San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, so once we landed we were enjoying the thicker air straight away. Salta is quite pleasant compared to a lot of other places in South America. It was a promising start to our Argentine stay.

           

              

We decided to take the horses out for some exercise one day, which was good for them and slightly worrying for us. Actually, come to think of it, riding a horse is a lot of fun, and in true South American style, we were taken out for a three-hour stroll across the countryside.

Strangely, Lisa's horse didn't like mine and, at one point, it lunged at my horse... I spent most of my time trying to steer my horse away from hers...

About two hours in, the organisers hopped off their horses and came up to each of us and said the word ‘gallop’. Now gallop means the same as it does in English, unfortunately, so there really was no confusion. We experienced our horses at running speed, which is more exhilarating if you're not wearing helmets!

My trusty stead had a Spanish name I couldn't pronounce.

We had an amazing lunch as well after the horse riding was over, consisting of all you can drink red wine, beef and chicken on tap. They were almost forcing the food and wine down our throats, but we didn't mind because it was incredible food and the wine was amazing.

We can fully recommend anyone going to Salta just to check out www.sayta.com.ar. Book the half day ride with lunch (a full day ride with lunch = a bruised butt).

The next day, instead having to endure would have been a 24-hour coach journey, we flew to Buenos Aires as a treat. At this point in our journey, we had given up trying to save on money (well it's a two hour flight or 24 hours on a coach... )

Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, is an interesting city with a lot of character. We took a free walking tour around the place to learn about how the local's get on with the day-to-day lives, and about some of its historical features.

There's an old house on top of these tall buildings. Built by the man who ran the factory underneath, the house now serves as an office rather than someone's home.

We found there were a lot of markets in Buenos Aires selling all sorts of things... mostly junk! At the beginning of one of the markets, there was this old woman making not much racket while wearing headphones tapping on what looks like plastic tubs... Look closely, she's wearing a make-shift mouth organ/instrument!

I would love to know what she was listening to on those headphones.

Here are some examples of the sort of thing you can purchase in an Argentine market. It was so random, but made for very interesting viewing to say the least. Keeping a close eye out for pickpockets, we spent the better part of a day looking around markets (I don't even think we bought anything!).

'Mate' (pronounced 'MA-tay') is a cup that people drink a sort of tea out of. You can of course buy the cups anywhere, like at this floor-level market. 

While we were in Buenos Aires we arranged to meet up with Silvina, an Argentinian we met back in Reading, Pennsylvania. She showed us around the La Boca neighbourhood, La Boca is famous for it's colourful buildings, shops and museums (it was where European foreign immigrants first lived) .

Argentina is also well-known for its Tango, having originated in Buenos Aires. We couldn't leave the city without paying a visit to a local club.