So as per usual my best of intentions have gone awry and I have failed to write in this journal for far too long. So here is the condensed (lazy) version of the last few places we´ve visited.
After returning on an early morning flight to La Paz from our trip to the Bolivian Pampas near Rurrenbaque we immediately headed to Indigena Tours to book ourselves onto a 3 day Salt Flat tour near Uyuni. The end result being that we left La Paz again at 9pm that night. No rest for the wicked I tell you! The 3 day your looked like the perfect choice for us as it would enable us to be dropped at the Chilean border on the last day and from there we could catch a bus over to San Pedro. Having said that I would not recommend the 3 day Salt Flats tour to others. Go for a day and see them and then get yourself back into Uyuni for sleeping. It was freezing cold and the concrete bunker style buildings that you sleep in are pretty bad. I have stayed in some fairly crappy accommodation over the years but these places, combined with the -20 degree temps overnight rate as some of the worst. Admittedly we did see some cool stuff on the 2nd day (like pink flamingos in algea lakes) but nothing so amazing that it made it truly worthwhile. However for us it was a means to an end to get to Chile and as you know, Nadia and I are pretty good at making the best out of any situation so it had it´s fun moments.
Our border crossing into Chile was hilarious, we had a bus driver on a dodgy little bus that must have counted the number of passengers about 10 times and kept coming up with different numbers. He was however very helpful when it came to filling out immigration cards and pointing out the main streets in San Pedro. San Pedro by the way is a tiny little town with only about 10 streets anyway - all unpaved and the biggest dogs I have ever seen in my life all just lazing around in the dust. After being out in the desert for 3 days with no bathing facilities we were very excited to be able to finally have a shower once we booked into our hostel. Sadly, no water for 2 hours! So we went and wandered the town for a while, put in some much needed laundry and organized our bus ticket to Salta which would enable us to get over to Puerto Iguazu from there to see the Igauzu Falls.
Things of note for San Pedro: Do not use the ATMs unless you really have no other choice. The power cuts quite frequently and like me your card will be swallowed! It´s OK though as the lovely if slightly crazy little man in the shop next door has keys to the machine! Only in Chile hey...? Can you imagine shopkeepers in Perth being given keys to the ATM next door!?! Also if your laundry is supposed to be back at a certain time...count on it being at least 2 hours longer than that :-)
Salta (Argentina) - Not much to say about it really, seemed like a nice place with a pretty main plaza and lots of little shops and cafes but we were just there overnight before getting on another bus to reach Puerto Iguazu.
Iguazu Falls when we finally got there to see them were amazing. They are huge and thunderously loud with spray and mist rising up from them to drench everyone who comes close. Nadia and I took lots of pictures and then spent time just gazing at the enourmous volume of water just pouring over the edge. Very hypnotic I have to say. We also walked around the trails and explored the park a bit, enjoying all the butterflies and coming across coatis all over the place (see pics on facebook). Then we headed down to the base area of the falls to jump on one of the speedboats that darts in, around and almost under the waterfall. It was fantastic fun but we came out absolutely drenched from head to toe.
Things of note for Puerto Iguazu - We got our Brazilian visas there and it only took 24hrs as opposed to waiting a week in Buenos Aires. Also the HI hostel across from the bus terminal is a great place to stay.
Next stop was Buenos Aires and we loved every minute of it. On the first day we went on a bike tour to get ourselves orientated to the city and then we spent the remaining days wandering back to all the places we wanted to see more of. The underground and the buses are really wide reaching and easy to navigate so it made our exploring so much easier. The city itself reminded both of us a lot of Paris purely by the type of architecture and the style of the street layouts. It was clean and friendly and the sun was shining for us so we couldn´t have asked for more. Daytime fun included going to the area of La Boca where we ate lunch while we watched a tango show, wandered up and down rows of painting and photography stalls and just generally soaked up the vibe. Nights we ate steaks, steaks and more steaks. I highly recommend La Cabrera - it was the nicest meal I have had in a long time, and not just while backpacking! We also went out drinking, dancing and spectating when the tango dancers were too intimidating :-) All up our time in Buenos Aires was brilliant. *We stayed at a hostel called Milhouse and it was huge, new, clean, great staff and good breakfasts.
