Today we had ambitious plans to go from Foz de Igazu, in Brazil, through Paraguay to Posadas in North Argentina, and from there get the night bus down to Buenos Aires the next morning.

We got up early in Foz and everything went to plan, getting off the bus to get through Paraguay immigration very quickly then getting a taxi then a bus to Encarnacion in South Paraguay, just over the border from Posadas. We had heard that although not many tourists came to Paraguay, it was famous for its Jesuit ruins from the 17th century, apparently the best in this part of South America.

As it was on the way we got off the bus at Trinidad to see the most famous and complete of the ruins. They were incredibly unique and well worth the stop-off. They were also deserted, something we had never had before at a UNESCO heritage site, and we were really glad we'd made the small detour to see them. I particularly loved the stations of the cross on our walk leading up the hill to them, it was so quiet and peaceful.

Our luck held as the next bus to Encarnacion arrived straight away, as did the next to Posadas just a couple of km over the border in Argentina. Then it all went wrong.

There is no sales tax in Paraguay so at the weekend floods of visitors come across the border to get some cheap electricals, it's famous for it. Unfortunately we didn't know this and were crossing the border back to Argentina early Saturday evening, so the traffic was standstill. After the bus hadn't moved for 20 minutes on the bridge between Paraguay and Argentina we got off and walked the 3km to Argentinian border control, past all the stationary traffic. However, the queue at the border was massive and we ended up waiting over an hour to get through immigration and customs. As the buses were still stuck on the bridge we then had no way of getting to the Posadas bus station, it took another two hours of waiting, then walking, then waiting again to get a bus that could take us to the terminal. There were no taxis and no ATMs, thankfully a kind man gave us the pesos for our bus.

It was an absolute disaster and by the time we got to the bus station all the over night buses to Buenos Aires were full. It had taken us about five hours to travel 10km. We eventually found an ATM and found a hotel for the night. The only relief was that we hadn't booked on a bus to Buenos Aires as only the earlier ones had the first class service (at a fraction of what you'd pay in the UK), which we would have missed if we'd decided to book in advance.

DISASTER!