We spent the next couple of days recovering and discovering BA. San Telmo, the area we stayed in is quite a poor barrio of BA, but full of character. A sort of "Montmartre", without the kitsch..The beautiful, and more affluent area of Recoleta, with its eerie cemetary (Not unlike Pere Lachaise in Paris, but bigger.) This is where Eva Peron is buried, and there are regular pilgrimages to see her tomb. That evening (Wed. 29th) we caught a long distance bus up north to Puerto Iguazu, near the Brazilian border to witness the spectacular Iguazu Falls, discovered by the invading Spanish in the 1500´s. Actually, they were sailing along the river Parana one day, minding their own business and almost sailed over the edge. (Images from the "Road Runner" cartoon spring to mind, of Wil E Coyote back-paddling as fast as he can in his little boat,before plunging off the edge, leaving nothing but his eyeballs floating in the air..?? (OK.. stay with me..)

Anyway, we decided to fly in the face of conformity and see the Brazilian side of the falls first,before the Argentinian side,so we took a bus over the border into the town of Foz de Iguazu, Brazil, where we were overwhelmed at the immense power of water as it plunged over the precipice known as "La Garganta Del Diablo", the Devil´s Throat, into the murky depths below. Having never seen falls of this size before I was speechless. The following day, we visited the falls in Argentina..and were glad we had seen the other side first, because this experience was even more spectacular. One of those instances that images such as these just cannot be captured effectively on camera. We did try though. Afterwards, we travelled out to see the Itaipu Hydroelectric Dam, the largest in the world, costing about 4 times what it was estimated, and taking about 20 years to complete. It is situated, geographically,in Paraguay but also serves Brazil and Argentina. We were too late for the last bus out to see it, so we had to make do with a scale model in the info centre! Ah well..prefer the natural wonders myself..

A day later, we were on our way to Asunçion, Paraguay. Caught a bus from Puerto Iguazu (Arg) via Foz D´Iguazu (Brz)into Ciudad Del Este (Pargauay) to Asunçion.(6 hrs) Had to put our watches back one hour, which was a little strange. Stayed overnight in Asunçion,had a look around the following morning, then caught a bus to Resistençia (Arg) (6 hrs)

Had a bit of an "issue" with the Paraguyan border police, when entering Parag. from Brazil, the bus we were on didn´t bother to stop at border control,just drove on through,so we ,albeit naively, figured this was normal and thought no more about it, until we tried to leave Paraguay and were told we actually couldn´t. Well not until we went back into Asuncion and got our passports stamped anyway,and as we had paid for our bus ticket out, that wasn´t an option..so after a heated debate between a border official and me, in bad Spanish, a "payment" was decided upon..initially of US$50.00 each but because of our claims of poverty, he took what we had on us at the time, about US$60.00 worth of pesos, stamped the passports and we were on our way.  Well, we expected this to some degree anyway..South America and corruption go hand in hand I´m afraid. (And I thought Cambodia was bad.) So, after another 6 or 7 hours on a bus we reached Resistencia (Arg.) at about 9.30pm just in time to catch a bus to Salta. (13 hrs) We encountered 5 Police checkpoints along the way, lots of passport perusing and baggage searches and a couple of playful insinuations as to our disposition towards "Marijuana", and we were on our way again. At 8.30am we reached the Tucuman Province, where we changed buses for another 3 hr journey to a small Chaco town called General Güemes, where we changed buses again, for another hour or so, finally reaching Salta at about 1pm. Pretty wrecked at this stage. Found great accommodation in an "Hospedaje", a sort of homestay type place run by three elderly sisters. The rooms are spotlessly clean,large and airy in a very typically Argentinian house. (If one sister doesn´t have a room for you, she´ll ask the sister next door etc..) Only $20 pesos (approx €7.00) per night.  There´s a picture of the virgin Mary and Child over the bed and a crucifix on the wall..so I think perhaps Carmen is trying to tell us something..eh??

So, tomorrow we are going to explore this area a bit and organise to take the "Tren a las Nubes" (Train of the Clouds) on Saturday into the old mining town of San Antonio de los Cobres. This is the highest (altitude)running train in the world and circumnavigates around an area, into the foothills of the Andes..so I am REALLY looking forward to that. We had hoped to take a freight train tomorrow which runs to the Chilean border,but unfortunately it is not actually running tomorrow as its cargo is not sufficient..oh well. Mañana mañana tal vez?

We have decided, due to time constraints, to take a flight from Salta back to Buenos Aires on Sunday, as we have to leave Argentina (with great sorrow) on Monday, for Chile.