The Argentine preferred method of travel and Iguazu Falls

Bueno. First of all, thank you to those that are posting comments--it is so exciting to know folks are actually reading this thing!

In our last episode, the intrepid young travellers (or not so young, depending on how you look at it) were happy to be returning to Argentina, home of the hot men, from Uruguay, home of nasty dogs and not so hot men. The most exciting thing for us about Urugauay was the coffee service. $42 pesos (about $1.75) gets you your own coffee pot, steamed milk pot, sweet popcorn, juice, and small basket of sweets. Not shabby.

Anyway, we are done with that now. We took the rapid ferry back to Buenos Aires, which takes about an hour. The river was really choppy and it did occur to us that they had not played the safety video upon embarkation and here was a time in which it might be possible to need it. Although the only thing you really learn from the safety video is that if the boat goes down, you are going to drown.

Anyway, we went directly from the ferry terminal to the bus terminal to catch the 18 hour bus that would take us to Iguazu Falls. The bus was actually pretty comfortable and we had gone first class to get the seats that recline all the way (about $60). They serve dinner, wine, played a movie we couldn´t hear, and had a snafu with the reading light that would not go off. The steward guy finally came over and covered the light with luggage stickers to block out the intensity of it. The light finally burned out about a half hour before we reached Iguazu. Not a bad trip though. No comments necessary about the attractiveness of the on board bus steward.

At the bus terminal, there are a bunch of people trying to tell you about thier accomodation and we decided to take one that she said was just a few blocks away. This being only a week or less post dog, it was important that we not have to walk for an hour with our heavy packs to find a place. Of course, with her directions, it did take roughly that long to find it. Anyway, we finally found it, checked in, took cold showers--apparently adverstising caliente agua is more a hope than an actual reality sometimes--and took off for some lunch. Found a little place nearby that we could sit outside, have a bottle of wine for 6 pesos and a milanesa and just chilled out for a while.

That evening, we had arranged to meet with Rosina, a woman I met on the Lonely Planet website, and her friend Pam at the post office in town. We hung around about for about 15 minutes and this van pulled up and an attractive man (imagine that) got off and called my name. Expecting Rosina to be a woman, it took me a few minutes to realize she was in the van and this guy was the tour guide showing them around town! Anyway, we went with them to see the sites of the city and then have dinner. The night was a lot of fun as there were 4 people in the tour group, the others were 2 guys from Canada, and the personalities involved were all very different from each other so the conversation was really very interesting. You can´t ask much more than that as it makes things quite entertaining. I am glad that it worked out that we all got to meet in Iguazu and they were both really great ladies. They were on some kind of blitzkrieg 5 day tour of BA and Iguazu though, and must have slept for about 3 days upon return!

So the next day, we went to the falls. I am not going to really try to bother to describe them, because it is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen and words and pictures do not do it justice. I only recommend anyone who can go in their lifetime should do so! We had the most perfect conditions: The weather was sunny but partly cloudy to keep the direct sun off of you, temp around 68 degrees, no bugs, no humidity, and no tourists! This is the off season, although for the life of me, I can´t see why. Also, there was so much water in the falls that one of the islands was closed and some of the boating excursions were closed due to the embarkation points being under water.

I will attach the pictures here and let them speak for themselves:

http://s176.photobucket.com/albums/w190/sweidmann/Iguazu%20Falls/

We returned to Buenos Aires on another overnight bus, spent an evening there, and then got on another overnight bus--this one about 12 hours--to Mendoza, which is the wine capital of Argentina. Stay tuned for additional chapters in our continuing saga on why we loved Mendoza, the discovery of food other than steak, ham and milanesa in Argentina, and our attempt to get at the root of the good looking men conspiracy.