Our decession to continue from Bolivia to San Pedro in Chile was the biggest mistake we have made. San Pedro is small ex-mining town of not more then 3000 people at foothills of altiplano on the north tip of Atacama desert. This is hot, extremely dry and dusty place with cold nights where one is tired just by doing nothing. Shortly after stepping off the bus from the border we realise there is no quick way out of this place because both bus companies providing service to Salta in Argentina have sold out all seats for Sunday. Today is Friday and the next available bus to Salta leaves on Tuesday so we have to kill four days in the most over-priced village of this continent. For simple room we have to pay A$85 per day and this is real shock as we used to spend not more then A$30 elsewhere. Everything here is excessively expensive and we wonder what happened to local competion - it certainly does not work here. These four days cost us over $500 and no fun! We warn everyone to think twice bofore heading the same way.
Tuesday finaly arrives and we gladly leave San Pedro never to return again. Bus trip to Salta is somewhat awarding with beautifully coloured mountains and ten hours went quickly. We spend only one night at Salta as we need to move to the eastern side of Argentina soon. Before boarding a 25-hours bus to Iguasu Falls we enjoy relaxing lunch on the main plaza soaking up Argentinian buzz. We leave Salta at 3pm but do not get too far as jobless protesters blocked the highway, holding the traffic still for four hours. Everyone is restless but by 7pm the blockade is over and we start to move again to reach Iguasu Falls by 5pm on Friday. It will be quite nice to stay in this lovely town full of restaurants and cafes to enjoy last few days in South America. On Saturday we need only few hours to see Brazilian side of falls and we catch local bus to get over the border. Now is the begining of wet season and falls are already huge. Incredibly large quantity of water rolls over edges and raging water below creates clouds of mist which immediatelly transforms into rain everywhere in vicinity of the falls. In minutes we are completely soaked wet and luckily I have not drowned my camera. Full sun and 30C temperature dry our clothing while we are having a cup of cafe with chocolate cake. We can not wait to see Argentinian side tomorrow which is even larger and apparently more spectacular. And it was. This time we take swimmers in case we get wet again. And guess what? We got completely bucketted in seconds while standing on a platform some 3-4 meters from one massive waterfall and posing for a picture. This place is incredibly large boiling and raging hell of water and the name Throat of Devil for the biggest one is very appropriate. And yet the river feeding the falls above looks so peacefull and tranquil that one would be tempted to explore local wildlife on a kanoe. Not a good idea!!!
Sadly, we have to leave this small and pleasant town of Iguasu Falls on our journey to Central America. Catching an overnight bus to San Paulo in Brazil completes our wonderfull, exciting and very enjoyable ninety-days trip through colourfull South America.
