Puerto Iguazú is the place to stay when visiting the Argentinian side of the falls, and very little else, although you can see both Paraguay and Brazil from the hill overlooking the town, where the Rio Iguazu meets the Rio Parana. And this was as close as we got to Paraguay (it's on the left, Brazil's on the right):
Our week in Buenos Aires was spent just walking around the different neighbourhoods. In brief, as Nicole's already written about them, they are: Microcentro (the commercial district); San Telmo (arty and bohemian); Palermo (lots of parks and open space); Puerto Madero (previously derelict, now being redeveloped - think Docklands...or Glasgow´s GEAR project as Mr Bee would say); La Boca (very colourful, but pretty scummy away from the main streets) and Recoleta (most famous for its cemetary). Anyone who´s anyone in Argentine history and politics is buried here. And as well as that, they also have a road named after them in every single Argentinian town, which means the road names are identical, in every single Argentian town. Sarmiento, Roca, San Martin, Yrigoyen...they´re the British version of Station or London Road - you find them in every town.
And seeing as we've had no picture of it yet, this is La Boca:
We took a day trip up the coast from there to Tigre, which caters for Buenos Aires´yacht owners and yacht oglers (though very few yacht rockers). To get there we took what I think was our first train of this trip (yes I´ve kept a list of all the different types of transport and yes I am that sad) and throughout the whole journey (and back) various people would walk up and down each carriage selling pretty much anything - in no particular order: scissors, plastic yellow tablecloths, socks, chewing gum, sheets of stickers, flashing lighters, hairbands and phonecards were all on display Del Boy style. Furthermore, for every single item there was at least one buyer in our carriage alone, which goes to prove that you can pretty much sell anything to people, regardless of whether they need it or not.
Be careful what you eat, and try not to drink the tap water. Two guidelines that most Brits would try to follow when travelling abroad. The tap water is apparently drinkable in Argentina, but we´ve still been drinking plenty of it bottled. Our lunch most days has been bread rolls filled with either packets of meat or chees. Usually you´d expect those two foods to come in seperate packets, for obvious reasons, but not so on one occasion:
The meat-in-cheese was bettered only by what we found in one of our ever-so-safe bottles of water - some sort of insect curled up dead at the bottom:
Suffice to say, I ate all the cheese, but we decided to leave the rest of water.
Argentina is divided up into numerous provinces. These provinces each have teir own police forces which like to stop vehicles at various checkpoints within their province. In the north our coach was stopped and searched for any trace of drugs coming over the border from Brazil or Paraguay. In the south, I think they just do it to fill their day. On one journey, in the space of 24 hours, our coach was stopped at four times, three of which were by the same provincial police force. Fair enough if it was going to be a quick five minute stop like they managed up north, but when it takes half an hour each time to write down the details of all passengers on board, it starts to get a bit tedious.
We spent a few days in El Calafate to see firstly the Perito Moreno Glacier and secondly the fantastically named Mount Fitz Roy. The glacier is huge, and for those of you who were't listening in Mr McKay's geography lessons, it's one of the only advancing glaciers in the world, meaning that huge chunks of ice fall from the front as you're standing there watching.
Mount Fitz Roy (or Cerro Chaltén) meanwhile is the highest peak in this section of the Andes, so we spent a day climbing it (or at least just hiking nearby). This is as near as we got:
And now for the Attenborough bit (David not Richard). We've seen so much wildlife here we could probably have made our own episode of Planet Earth. Penguins, whales, seals, sea lions, porpoises, guanacos, coatis, monkeys, rheas, cormorants, vultures, woodpeckers, too many gulls, loads of butterflies, a thousand horses, a million cows, a billion sheep...and an armadillo. About two thirds of the way down the country, on the Atlantic Coast, is a national park called Peninsula Valdes and this is where we saw the vast majority of what's listed above. It was our first missed bus of the trip that originally meant we couldn't actually get to the peninsular, but this turned out to be a blessing as it mant we had to hire a car (it was a Chevy '99, how bizarre). That way we could get to see as much of it as we liked.
The Southern Right Whale comes down to the warm waters of the bays either side of the peninsula to breed and give birth. They weren't in a particularly playful mood, so unfortunately I wasn't able to get that iconic Patagonian postcard shot of their tail fin before they go back under, but they swam close enough to the boat (and the coast) nonetheless. Excuse the uneven horizon, the boat was moving somewhat.
As for the penguins, we've now visited three colonies while we've been here, so I'm all penguined out. The biggest of colony is in Punta Tombo, it's the largest nesting ground of Magellanic Penguins on the continent. There were penguins...everywhere, I kid you not. As far as my little eyes could see, half a million of them. And only one of them tried to attack me.
The only breeding colony of Southern Elephant Seals in South America is on the peninsula...
...while Punta Loma is home to a sea lion rookery.
The porpoises meanwhile (Nicole assures me that's what they were) we spotted all the way down south, when we were crossing the Magellan Strait to Tierra Del Fuego.
For those couple of hours we were in Chile, before we passed back into Argentina again on our route to Ushuaia and the end of the worls, which is where I'm writing this from. It's nowhere near as cold as I expected it to be, even up on the mountains in the snow, but then again, it's nowhere near anything really.
Foz do Iguaçu to Ushuaia via Puerto Iguazú, Buenos Aires, Puerto Madryn, Puerto Pirámides, Punta Tombo, Rio Gallegos, El Calafate and El Chaltén - 3962 miles
