So what happened to the bus?! Did it explode? Was there a bomb or a terrorist on board? No alas the build up has beena bit too much and it only broke down. However the mayhem that ensued. Brazillians going everywhere, portuguese rumours being spread around about what we were supposed to be doing. A creepyish guy who had blatantly been perving on Lucy on the bus indicated to us that we should get on the bus after ours so we hopped on and tried to grab any spare seat we could find whilst our own dear comfortable bus lay broken in the corner of the parking lot with a number of randoms considering what might be wrong with it (a popular South American past time). Anyways this second bus eventually left with 2 bus loads of us on board niether particularly happy with the existence of the other as it was a bit cramped now and we got to watch a film (in english subtitles about Rachel Love Hewitt being a w****y devil that grants Alec Baldwin a wish for his soul. It was awful and yet I watched.

Somehow despite waiting 2 hours due to a broken down bus we managed to arrive 2 hours early at 5am. We got a taxi to the hostel and it was built like a fortress and looking decidedly closed. We after a few attempts managed to wake someone up with the intercom, they werençt too impressed but checked us in quickly and we figured weçd manage to get a few hours kip before having to get up to catch the bus to Iguacu Falls (The Brazillian Side).

The Brazillian side of Iguacu Falls is awesome, you can hear it from ages away thundering. It began raining for a bit half way through our walk, which prompted jumps out from beneath the trees to the carefully selected photo points to quickly take photos of us with Iguacu in the background. I also enjoyed a rainbow coloured bubblegum flavoured ice cream whilst sheltering from the rain - it was very tasty.

We also enjoyed laughing at an Italian couple who tried to take a photo of us with the camera back to front and then at an old Japanese woman who successfully had her camera flash in her face (by similarly holding it back to front) and screaming quite loudly in surprise. God knows what she was looking through. It sounds cruel but we had to run away to laugh for quite sometime at it.

Iguacu trully is unexplainable so I suggest checking out the photos (if you are able to - I´m having uploading problems with the blog).

After Iguacu we crossed the road to the bird park that had a number of funky and some rather terrifyingly large birds, lizards, butterflies etc. There were some very cute lovebirds and pretty parrots. There were also some rather evil looing macaws and parrots - I stayed away from these.

Thinking we were on a roll and for once and not encountered a single hinderence to our intended sight seeing plans we decided to get the bus to Itaipu Dam, a massie damn that provides some ridiculous percentage like 90% of Uruguays electricity. We should have known it wouldnt work out when the bus the Lonely Planet Guidebook told us to egt clearly did not exist anymore and once finally arriving found it closed despite being quoted as being open til 8pm (the time being 4pm) slightly dissapointed but not to be beaten we got the bus back towards the hostel which took the most funtastic residential long winded route in the history of bus routes but dropped us off outside a half completed Pizza hut that was serving from the (obviously) completed half. This pleased us greatly and Lucy decided to enjoya desert too.

The next morning we set off early with our backpacks for the Brazillian border. The Brazillian border is a bit of a joke. the bus drops you off at a seemingly arbitrary bus stop at the side of the road, which you cross to a number of offices with no helpful signs, we waundered about a bit before asking (the only) passsing woman where immigration was - a small non descript room. After that we got on the bus again to get to the Argentinian Border this was a far more organised affair. The bus stopped, you got off and were ushered into a queue with a number of immigration desks a la the airport, you passed through this, you put your bag through an x-ray machine, there was a currency exchange and then the bus stop for getting picked up. There was also an additional building which was the Duty Free, but I dont think it was accesible without a car.

So we got to Puerto iguassu (note the difference in spellings now were speaking spanish) bought our overnight tickets for Buenos Aires and dumped our backpacks into storage before getting the 4th bus of the day to Iguassu Falls (The Argentinian Side).

The Argentinian Side is without a doubt better than the Brazillian Side. The Argentinian side has a number of trails going through the forest taking you to picturesque points of the falls excellent for photo taking, it also has a small beach, allows you on to the river, and right up to the falls. It is a result more wild. The guidebook (which must of course now be considered with a pinch of salt) warns of occassional big cats, whilst we did not encounter any there are these ridiculously large racoon things that will slash up anything that resembles food or a container which could be transporting food - proper vicious. And whilst taking a break up a particularly steep set of stairs came face to face literally with the largest iguanna you have ever seen we were both surprised - I screamed.

Once again lookn at the photos. They are amazing.

Back in Puerto Iguassu we boarded our 20 hour bus ride to Buenos Aires, once again with no advance booking for a hostel (we are so so bad at this) and settled in for the long haul. But half way in (YES! Another bus story!) we pulled into a bus station. Peoplen got off we went to the toilet and returned to the bus, where there was no one. We assumed they were still perhaps in the shop and went to look to find a full out restaurant with waiters and all. We had an empanada starter, chicken and potato main and ince crem for desert - all included in the price of the ticket. We were shocked. We were also amused by an Argentinian kid who was fascinated with our crazy skin colour and language and started at us the entire duration of the meal.

We got some sleep on the bus, but it was continually interupted by security personnel checking our bags. Randomly selecting one bag to go all the way through. We had our passports checked twice despite having already obviously gone through immigration. One such check took about half an hour, we thought it was a bit OTT, particularly given the overnight hour when everyone was trying to sleep. But almost exactly on time we rolled into Buenos Aires.So what happened to the bus?! Did it explode? Was there a bomb or a terrorist on board? No alas the build up has beena bit too much and it only broke down. However the mayhem that ensued. Brazillians going everywhere, portuguese rumours being spread around about what we were supposed to be doing. A creepyish guy who had blatantly been perving on Lucy on the bus indicated to us that we should get on the bus after ours so we hopped on and tried to grab any spare seat we could find whilst our own dear comfortable bus lay broken in the corner of the parking lot with a number of randoms considering what might be wrong with it (a popular South American past time). Anyways this second bus eventually left with 2 bus loads of us on board niether particularly happy with the existence of the other as it was a bit cramped now and we got to watch a film (in english subtitles about Rachel Love Hewitt being a w****y devil that grants Alec Baldwin a wish for his soul. It was awful and yet I watched.

Somehow despite waiting 2 hours due to a broken down bus we managed to arrive 2 hours early at 5am. We got a taxi to the hostel and it was built like a fortress and looking decidedly closed. We after a few attempts managed to wake someone up with the intercom, they werençt too impressed but checked us in quickly and we figured weçd manage to get a few hours kip before having to get up to catch the bus to Iguacu Falls (The Brazillian Side).

The Brazillian side of Iguacu Falls is awesome, you can hear it from ages away thundering. It began raining for a bit half way through our walk, which prompted jumps out from beneath the trees to the carefully selected photo points to quickly take photos of us with Iguacu in the background. I also enjoyed a rainbow coloured bubblegum flavoured ice cream whilst sheltering from the rain - it was very tasty.

We also enjoyed laughing at an Italian couple who tried to take a photo of us with the camera back to front and then at an old Japanese woman who successfully had her camera flash in her face (by similarly holding it back to front) and screaming quite loudly in surprise. God knows what she was looking through. It sounds cruel but we had to run away to laugh for quite sometime at it.

Iguacu trully is unexplainable so I suggest checking out the photos (if you are able to - I´m having uploading problems with the blog).

After Iguacu we crossed the road to the bird park that had a number of funky and some rather terrifyingly large birds, lizards, butterflies etc. There were some very cute lovebirds and pretty parrots. There were also some rather evil looing macaws and parrots - I stayed away from these.

Thinking we were on a roll and for once and not encountered a single hinderence to our intended sight seeing plans we decided to get the bus to Itaipu Dam, a massie damn that provides some ridiculous percentage like 90% of Uruguays electricity. We should have known it wouldnt work out when the bus the Lonely Planet Guidebook told us to egt clearly did not exist anymore and once finally arriving found it closed despite being quoted as being open til 8pm (the time being 4pm) slightly dissapointed but not to be beaten we got the bus back towards the hostel which took the most funtastic residential long winded route in the history of bus routes but dropped us off outside a half completed Pizza hut that was serving from the (obviously) completed half. This pleased us greatly and Lucy decided to enjoya desert too.

The next morning we set off early with our backpacks for the Brazillian border. The Brazillian border is a bit of a joke. the bus drops you off at a seemingly arbitrary bus stop at the side of the road, which you cross to a number of offices with no helpful signs, we waundered about a bit before asking (the only) passsing woman where immigration was - a small non descript room. After that we got on the bus again to get to the Argentinian Border this was a far more organised affair. The bus stopped, you got off and were ushered into a queue with a number of immigration desks a la the airport, you passed through this, you put your bag through an x-ray machine, there was a currency exchange and then the bus stop for getting picked up. There was also an additional building which was the Duty Free, but I dont think it was accesible without a car.

So we got to Puerto iguassu (note the difference in spellings now were speaking spanish) bought our overnight tickets for Buenos Aires and dumped our backpacks into storage before getting the 4th bus of the day to Iguassu Falls (The Argentinian Side).

The Argentinian Side is without a doubt better than the Brazillian Side. The Argentinian side has a number of trails going through the forest taking you to picturesque points of the falls excellent for photo taking, it also has a small beach, allows you on to the river, and right up to the falls. It is a result more wild. The guidebook (which must of course now be considered with a pinch of salt) warns of occassional big cats, whilst we did not encounter any there are these ridiculously large racoon things that will slash up anything that resembles food or a container which could be transporting food - proper vicious. And whilst taking a break up a particularly steep set of stairs came face to face literally with the largest iguanna you have ever seen we were both surprised - I screamed.

Once again lookn at the photos. They are amazing.

Back in Puerto Iguassu we boarded our 20 hour bus ride to Buenos Aires, once again with no advance booking for a hostel (we are so so bad at this) and settled in for the long haul. But half way in (YES! Another bus story!) we pulled into a bus station. Peoplen got off we went to the toilet and returned to the bus, where there was no one. We assumed they were still perhaps in the shop and went to look to find a full out restaurant with waiters and all. We had an empanada starter, chicken and potato main and ince crem for desert - all included in the price of the ticket. We were shocked. We were also amused by an Argentinian kid who was fascinated with our crazy skin colour and language and started at us the entire duration of the meal.

We got some sleep on the bus, but it was contnually interupted by security personnel checking our bags. Randomly selecting one bag to go all the way through. We had our passports checked twice despite having already obviously gone through immigration. One such check took about half an hour, we thought it was a bit OTT, particularly given the overnight hour when everyone was trying to sleep. But almost exactly on time we rolled into Buenos Aires.