Iguazu: Great for waterfalls, rubbish for Wildlife

Hello everyone to the latest update of my travel blog. I am currently writing this from the beautiful town of Puerto Iguazu in Argentina. The town sits on the border between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay and as you have probably guessed from the name is located next to the spectacular Iguazu Falls.

Since I last posted I spent a few more days in Buenos Aires partying the night away in the most enjoyable city I have visited since I arrived in South America. I also occasionally ventured out during the day taking in the Botanical gardens in Palermo and the amazing Recoleta Cemetary, a vast town of mausoleums in the heart of one of Buenos Aires' most upmarket areas. This is home to Argentina's deceased rich and famous (including the likes of Evita).

I then bit the bullet and took the 20 hour bus journey to Puerto Iguazu which was suprisingly painless. Partially because I took a sleeper bus so that I was asleep for half of the jouney and also partially due to the fact that going on a bus in Argentina is a bit like flying first class.

My first impressions of Puerto Iguazu were very good, primarily because my hostel looks less like a hostel and more like a holiday resort. The large hostel has a great bar and its own pool which is great as it's 35 degrees celcius here and humid. This makes a pleasant change from some of the places i've been staying in of late, one particular favorite was the dingy hotel I stayed in on my last night in Montevideo which had cockroaches roaming around and no running water.

Anyway aside from chilling at the hostel pool I spent yesterday walking around Iguazu National Park, taking in the spectacular Iguazu Falls from a number of angles. I decided to walk around the park instead of taking the trains with their huge queue's, this was great as i feel I saw a lot more scenery. I do however regret doing the nature walk at the end of the day. Away from the falls, i thought this would be an opportunity to see some of the wildlife, particularly because there were signs everywhere telling you to watch out for snakes and jaguars (apparently a park rangers child was killed by a jaguar a few years back in the park). On the entire 7 km hike all i saw was something that looked like the result of session between a possum and a badger and a few ants. Oh well you can't win them all.

Tomorrow I leave Iguazu with a heavey heart and head into Paraguay where i'm heading to see some Jesuit ruins near Encarnacion, then onto Cordoba a University (party) town in the heart of Argentina.

I'll speak to you all soon
Phil

From Laid Back to Ladyboys

Hello and welcome to the next instalment of my blog. I am currently recovering from a rather large night out in Buenos Aires.

It was a great night out, but very unusual. I had drinks with people at the hostel before we decided to head out to a club night called Studio 69 at Roxy. This was where it got unusual; as you walk in the door your eyes are drawn to the huge stage in the centre where at first it appears there are men and women dancing in costumes. The club has a very bohemian atmosphere and a Moulin Rouge theme to it, which is all fine and not to out of the ordinary. However, it is upon approaching the stage that you begin to notice something, it is not scantilly clad men and women dancing on the stage, but men and ladyboys. What makes this all the more out of the ordinary, is the fact that this is not some tourist attraction like in somewhere like Thailand, or a gay night, it is one of the most popular nights in Buenos Aires for all young people and it was a great laugh.

Anyway ladyboys aside, since my last post I have not really taken part in much strenuos activity, in fact I have been taking it very easy. After spending a couple of nights in Montevideo, which was pleasant but very sleepy, I decided to head to Punta Del Diablo (The Devil`s Beach). I had been attracted by rumours of endless sandy beaches, great surf, great food and no tourists. All of this was true except for the 'no tourists' tag. Punta Del Diablo used to be a sleepy fishing village only a couple of years ago, however off the back of its reputation as such it has attracted many tourists. Where it used to be a fishing village with a few places to stay, it is now a tourist destination with a few boats. However it is certainly not overrun. There is only one hostel in the town with about 20 beds or so and this is where most of the international backpackers go to, the rest of the tourists are in fact Argentine or Uruguayan`s on holiday staying in one of the many cottages for rent.

I loved it and can see why it attracts so many visitors from it`s own and neighbouring countries. It has an amazing charm about it, largely as a result of it´s rugged looks. All the streets are dirt roads and it is based on a point on the coast surrounded by 4 beaches. Because of this at least one beach will always have pretty good surfing conditions, which I took advantage of, or at least attempted to. It is safe to say I am not the best surfer. To be honest this is probably partly due to the fact that aside from 2 months in Australia 4 years ago and a handful of other occassions I have never really surfed. The result was that I had good fun, got up a few times, but in the end had to give up because I had the biggest wipe out i´ve ever had when a wave i was on collapsed on me.

I ended up spending the bulk of my time in Uruguay there, unfortunately I accidentally deleted the photos on my camera, so you`ll have to deal with photos off the internet.

I then headed to Colonia, which came highly reccomended but I can´t see why. Don´t get me wrong it has a nice enough centre, but there is nothing to do there and I would have felt that it was a waste of time and money if I hadn´t had to take the ferry to Buenos Aires from there anyway.

In conclusion, I loved Uruguay. It was my favourite place on the trip so far. It is spectacularly laid back and that is part of its charm, however the result was that at times I got a little bored and for the first time felt that I could have done with a travel buddy to chat with (it didn´t help that nowhere sold English language books). I get the impression that Uruguay is a good addition to a trip to Argentina as opposed to a trip in its own right.

Speak to you all soon

Phil

Jesus is Watching

Hello everybody, I am glad to say that the Rio Carnival is over and I am alive and well with only a little bit of self-inflicted liver punishment to show for it.

I am currently sitting in an internet cafe in Montevideo (Uruguay) following a 10 day stretch in Rio where I partied in the favellas (see previous blog), partied on the street at Carnival Bloccos, partied at the Sambodrome whilst watching all the parading samba schools and partied in numerous Rio nightclubs and Carioca bars. There seems to be a bit of a running theme here...

In fairness I also took trips up Sugarloaf, spent time on Copacabana beach and visited Jesus.

Apparently Jesus was some Jewish carpenter who could do magic tricks. Don´t ask me why the people of Rio decided to build a big statue of him atop a mountain, but to each their own, I would have built a statue of Churchill... or Gazza.

No but jokes aside, the power of this statue does not really translate into pictures. Firstly it is huge and looms over Rio, often and rather apropriately amongst the clouds high up in the mountains and on a clear day can be seen from almost anywhere in Rio. Secondly and something that you do not realise until you go up there, it is in the most awkward spot to get to in the world and would have been ridiculously difficult to build.

Rio was great, but I am glad to be in Urugauy now. Firstly Brazil is expensive, Rio is expensive for Brazil and Rio in the Carnival is just ridiculous. Put it this way, the Rio Carninal is not for budget travellers. Drinks are not that cheap and public transport is expensive. Taxi drivers know that the only way you can get home is if you use them and thus know they can charge through the roof. Even buses in the day are not cheap when you use a few, which will inevitably happen as you cannot walk anywhere as a foreigner.

Put it this way, in Rio it is fairly safe to walk around specific suburbs, however due to the mountainous setting all the suburbs a linked by tunnels. If you walk through the tunnels you get mugged, not might, you will get mugged (this happened to numerous people in my hostel).

Also everyone clicks onto the fact that tourists need to do certain things around Carnival and thus up the price. For example I was intending to catch a bus to Montevideo from Rio as opposed to flying. This would have taken 48 hours instead of 3, but would have been 5 times cheaper (buses are expensive in Brazil). However because the buses put up there prices and the airlines didn´t it worked out as only $40 cheaper to take the bus and once added costs such as Brazilian accomodation and food had been incorporated it would have been about the same.

Oh well, it had to be done and it was great. 10 days was a bit to long in Rio, a week would have been enough, but it was great. Anyway I´ve gone on far too long, so i´ll speak to you all soon. I´m off to go surfing in Uruguay.

Phil