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