Day 205 - Colonia to Puerto Iguazu

  Puerto Iguazu, Argentina
Tuesday, March 25, 2008

We awoke to another magnificent sunny blue sky, which was just what the Doctor ordered with a few hours on the beach planned today!

Unfortunately our washing wasn't ready, or at least most of it wasn't dry, but that didn't stop them giving it back to us! So we rigged up 2 clothes lines in our room and did our best to dry out everything before our 10:30am check-out time.

We figured they couldn't really complain when all we were waiting for was the laundry we'd given them yesterday afternoon (why didn't they just go and get it tumble-dried at a laundrette?!) as after all it's rather hard to pack when you don't have half your clothes dry!

Anyway eventually we set off to walk to the beach which was 3kms away, even if it was nearly 2 hours later than we'd expected...

As usual there were no directions or signs to the beach whatsoever, so it wasn't very easy to find but we worked it out by watching the coastline - or more accurately, riverline - appearing to the right side of us.



We walked through a weird little village full of metal shacks and whilst everyone there looked pretty poor, they all seemed so happy, beaming and wishing us "buenos dias" or whatever.

A few minutes later we walked out onto the beach, which was nothing special (particularly considering all the factories located behind it!), but it did have nice soft yellow sand and without a cloud in the sky we couldn't really complain...





The Rio del Plata (the wide river separating Argentina & Uruguay) is almost totally brown, so there was no chance of us going for a paddle, but it was good to soak up a few rays and chill out for an hour or so.



After chilling on the beach (which we had to ourselves) we walked back to the road via a nice little lake tucked away in the woods, which had bright blue fresh water, rather than the brown colour of the Rio del Plata, or 'River Plate', hence the football team.



We wandered back into town to get some lunch and after passing a really good heladoria (ice cream shop) on the way there we worked out how much money we could afford to spend on lunch and still afford a couple of ice creams on the way to the ferry terminal!

We found a mozerella & olive pizza to share with a couple of cokes and we then had exactly 100 Uruguayan pesos left for our ice creams, perfect! ;)



Instead of getting all our packs on (we left them in the hotel when we went to the beach), we got the ice cream and had one last walk around the old town to say goodbye.

We walked down the tree-lined streets...



...to the main square with its ruins...



...to the basillica, with its white walls contrasting nicely with the blue skies above...



...back down our favourite little lane...



...onto another narrow lane with a few 'al fresco' restaurants doing a roaring trade...



...before heading back down another road...



...and admiring one last bit of colonial architecture complemented by the wonders of Mother Nature!

 

After our little walking tour it was packs back on and a quick walk to the ferry station, which was rather less organised than the Argentinian side!

They managed to give us the wrong customs forms and not take our check-in luggage off us (so we had to carry everything on board!), which was really helpful, thanks for that! 

When we got to Argentinian immigration they asked for the piece of paper that we'd been given very casually when we boarded the boat there from BA.

Fortunately we'd both kept them, even if I had to dig through all my papers for a few minutes to find my copy! If we'd lost them or thrown them away they would have charged us US$ 25 EACH for replacements, which is a real con considering that no-one tells you to keep hold of them! Clever ;)

Anyway we made it through safely and it was fun watching the other ferries going past us in the opposite direction, towards Uruguay.



We got good seats right at the front of the ferry and enjoyed watching the BA skyline get closer & closer before eventually the harbour swallowed us up and we were climbing onto dry land again.





 

From the docks we then walked to the bus terminal, caught up on some email and we're just about to board our 16 hour bus which will take us up to the Iguacu falls.

Fingers crossed that we don't get any screaming kids next to us again this time!


Lots of love,


Al & Katie xx