Luaggae, Che, oedema and Iguazu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Luggage... Kinda
Right, so I caught the ferry from Colonia to Buenos Aires on Saturday morning. I spent the walk to the port in Colonia plus the hour it took to get to Buenos Aires, joking with a Swiss bloke about how my backpack (that I was forced to check in by staff at the port) wouldn't turn up when I arrived in BA... BAD MOVE!!! Turns out that it isn't quite that funny when you go to pick up your backpack and it's not there! Luckily there was a lovely Brazilian couple who were in the same boat (figuratively and literally). EVENTUALLY we were approached by a woman working for the boat company who informed us that our bags were put on the wrong boat and that we'd have to get a taxi to the other company's port to pick our stuff up... Luckily THEY would foot the taxi bill! But we weren't so lucky with the taxi driver- MANIAC!!! Made it to the port in one piece, grabbed my bag, hoofed it to the bus station, bought a ticket to Rosario for the next bus, sprinted to the bus platform and was on my way....

Che... Kinda
I arrived in the afternoon in Rosario and went for a wander around that night.. It's a gorgeous city! When I got back to the hostel I was glad I splashed out and got myself a single room for the night- talk about LUXURY! (Not really, but it GREAT to be able to stretch out in a double bed again!..) I spent the next day furiously trying to see as much of Rosario as possible. I went up the war memorial which has great views of the city.. Had a look at the market by the river.. Went to the house that Che Guevara was born in- which was CLOSED (boo!.. but I guess that's to be expected on a Sunday!).. Then hoofed it to the lovely park to go to a couple of museums within the park- CLOSED!.. So I figured that I'd hike to the Che memorial statue, which was in the middle of nowhere! I got there, and it was literally a statue of Che in an unmown field.. Oh well! With sore feet, I headed back to the hostel for a quick kip before I went on the 16 hour bus trip to Puerto Iguazu..

Puffy ankles are NOT attractive!
I KNOW it's my own fault for not putting on the TEDs that I have, but when I evetually made it to Puerto Iguazu, I had ankles the size of my calves! After a rest, they were feeling a touch better, and I popped out to the adjoining bar for cheap daquiries and caipirinhas- YUM! Met a great group of people and had a huge laugh, before a refreshing night of sleep...

Yesterday was Iguazu falls day (for the Argentinian side). It was so amazingly breathtakingly spectacular! You can get so close to some of the falls that you can feel the pressure of the water! And get drenched in the spray!.. Fabulous! You can catch a little train up the the Devil's Throat where you get close to a whole heaps of falls together, and have to shout to be heard over the noise of the falls!

The falls are surrounded by parkland, and surprisingly (because of the huge number of tourists in the park) there are heaps of animals to spot! There was a group of monkeys up in the trees throwing fruit at us!.. There were coatis EVERYWHERE! They rummaged through bins and jumped on picnic tables after food- (they are VERY cute looking animals, google em!).. Despite how cute they looked, I wouldn't have stood between one and food! There were turtles in the water, lizards running around.. AWESOME!

Today I was meant to be heading to Brazil, but my plans were thwarted! It's daily occurrence that the power goes out in Puerto Iguazu- and it's usually for a good couple of hours.. Which makes it hard for the consulate (that is only open for a couple of hours a day- coincidently the same kinda time the power goes out for..) to photocopy my stuff for the visa!.. Anyhow, there are worse places than Puerto Iguazu to be stuck for a day!.. I will be up at the crack of dawn to get this visa situation sorted out once and for all, then on my way to Foz do Iguaçu, on the Brazilian side of the border.. After that, there'll be a long bus trip (with TEDs in situ) but not 100% sure where to.... Curitiba? Sao Paulo?... I'll sort that out in the next day or so.......