Hola All,
Hopped on a bus and 26hrs later here we are at touristy puerto iguazu. Had to change at Tucuman and only realised a few minutes before the bus left that the correct time was different to Vanessa´s watch but we made it.
The only seats on the long haul bus were the toilet seats. Well not THE toilet seat but the one next to the toilet on the bus which isn´t the best when it bangs all nights but it actually wasn´t that bad and we had front row seats to the TV screen for the movies. Just when all was getting boring the bus conductor got a game of bingo going. Good practice trying to figure out the numbers in spanish on the fly.
Wow this place it hot. Thought Salta was hot but now it is hot and humid so hope we get used to it quickily.
Good news. Have sorted out our brazilian visas and it only took about 3hr processing. So we should be able to see the pantanal very soon and we mean very soon as the wet season is approaching rapidly and we are flying out of rio on 12 Dec so getting stuck out there for weeks is not our desire.
Forgot to mention the arch enemy of common sense reoccured at the hostel in Salta. The combination shower toilet without a shower curtain. Plenty of backpackers tricked by this one. Where is the shower we ask? close the toilet door and you will see it. So once you have a shower there is water all over the floor, toilet and everything else in the room. Then use a rubber squeegee to push the water from the floor down the drain but it doesn´t work particularly well. Think an engineer must have come up with the idea. Function over form.
Had another argentinian parks and wildlife disappointment. We planned to camp in the iguazu falls national park at their designated campsite but unfortunately they told us we could only camp during daylight hours then would have to leave the park as there were big cats and snakes. Camp during the day? don´t they mean a picnic? It seems wherever there is a national park the bureaucracy gets in the way. Lucky it isn´t this way in Australia as we would never be allowed to camp anywhere with all our dangerous critters.
We will be heading out to the iguazu falls tomorrow to join to congo line of tourists to have a look.
Well must be time to get some sleep now that we can check in. We couldn´t check in until 2pm and checkout is 10am. Sounds like a hotel not a hostel to me...
Adios,
David & Vanessa
