Arrived to a fairly gloomy weather here in Salta and after two nights on buses back to back decided to have an easy day. Landry, lunch, “007” at the cinema and a great middle east style restaurant for dinner. Saturday we went to an Estancia for a day of horseriding with a HUGE Asado for lunch and a lot of red wine, think the wine helped us relax with the horses and we all galloped in the afternoon with the Gaucho riding aside us one after another. Stunning scenery with the Andes on one side. Huge stew for dinner and much more red wine. Chilled day today, another huge Asado for lunch before we left the Estancia with us all walking a little awkwardly after the six hours riding the day before. Fantastic place, sooo relaxing did not want to leave.

We left Iguazu on Wednesday evening at 9pm, and arrived at Corrientes at 6.15am the following morning. Another very comfortable bus ride! We had till 9pm before we boarded another night bus for Salta. We were not very hopeful about what to do in the city, Lonely Planet is not very kind about the city! We left our bags at the station and headed into the city for an early breakfast. We stumbled across a lovely art deco cafe and managed to wile away two hours. The weather was gorgeous, probably my first really lovely weather day in the two months I’ve been away. And then everyone we met from shop keepers, waiters, tourist information people were really friendly and nice. We spent the morning wandering around the cities parks, and principle buildings. We had wanted to go to the art museum but it was closed for building work. We had a nice long lunch with some excellent fish, which I later found out was catfish. We spent the afternoon on the beach by the river, before heading back into town for some empanadas, and now back on the bus for thirteen hours on the way to Salta.

Our impressions of the city. Yes it’s a little average and not huge amounts going on, but: Nice people, good food, great weather, and a nice chilled change from BA and off the tourist track after Iguazu. And we had a great day together, 8 out of 10!

So after seven weeks I have finally left BA, having learnt some Spanish, spent far too much, and eaten way too many empanadas! Took a very comfortable night bus north to Iguazu falls, left at 9pm, arrived at 2pm the next next day. Bus luxury lived up to our expectations! I’m travelling for the first week or so with two friends before we split up to go our own way, so we were able to take a three person room with ensuite in a hostel, easing my way into hostel life slowly!

Iguazu is a major tourist destination, and our hostel was more like a cheap holiday hotel with a very nice big pool. We left BA with weather around 22, arriving fifteen hours later to a very tropical and hot 30 degrees! Monday afternoon we chilled round the pool and had an early dinner in town. Tuesday we went to the falls on the Argentinian side. Even though I knew it was going to be a tourist zone I was still pretty taken about by how busy it was and the set up. To be far it’s all been done really well so that you can see so much of the falls very close. There are a couple of different routes, and a small train ride (like something from Alton towers!). At times you had to wait to get a decent view as there were so many people, but it didn’t really take away from anything. Unfortunately the weather was torrential so before we had even got near the falls we’d bought some very sexy ponchos! There had been huge rainfall the previous night across the country, and we’d driven from BA for ten hours in very heavy rain, BA actually flooded quite badly in areas. The upside to all this rain was the river was ferocious! And the waterfalls were even more dramatic. The downside to the rain, weather was it wasn’t so good for photos. But we had a lot of fun mucking around, and two of us went on a boat ride under the falls just to make sure we got really wet!

On the Wednesday we went to the Brazilian side. And we were quite a bit luckier with the weather all though it was threatening every moment with another huge downpour! We also went to a tropical bird park, which was quite good surprisingly. The Brazil side is not as dramatic for getting as close to the falls, but you get a much better panoramic view and can appreciate the expanse. We also saw quite a bit of wildlife, which the day before in the rain we’d seen none.

The falls were truly amazing. I’ll let the photos do the talking!