We hadn't been setting the alarm the last few mornings, we'd been taking it easy knowing that breakfast was served until 10:30am. The alarm was set today and a bit early for our liking. We needed to be up and out and on our way to the airport for our flight to Puerto Iguazú.

We'd been in Buenos Aires for 6 days and apart from some clouds on the first day, we'd had sunny days with blue sky. The cloud was back this morning though and it seemed to be a recurring pattern - weather was bad on days we travelled, but good while we were staying in a place. We did consider ourselves lucky.

It can't have been long since Argentina updated its smoking laws, because despite hotel rooms having No Smoking signs everywhere, people still seem to smoke in them. Worse than having a room smelling of yesterday's smoke, the smell of fresh smoke was coming through our bathroom vent. Equally annoying was that we might be accused and charged for smoking in our bathroom so David got on the phone to complain and left housekeeping to investigate.

We decided to have breakfast before we packed our bags, we're well practiced at it by now and such a routine thing doesn't take long. Check out was quick and we were able to pay using a credit card instead of our cash. The exchange rate was a bit poorer, but we had booked the hotel based on a US dollar rate so it didn't vary as much as had we booked with a Peso rate. We changed some more dollars for pesos at reception, because we were unsure what the rate in Iguazú might be or if we could even exchange at a 'blue' rate, it was illegal after all.

Our taxi took us to the airport Aeroparque, which is very close to the city centre. The driver charged us 100 pesos claiming there were extra charges for road tolls and airport tolls and not having exact change for the price shown on the meter, we were forced to suck it up. It was less than the 120 pesos the hotel had told us it would cost, so not a big deal.

We had given ourselves plenty of time to get to airport and with a quick trip we had loads of time to spare. We had a wander round all the shops but once again, didn't buy anything. There was even a Hard Rock Cafe, but no money changers.

As we waited on seats overlooking the runway, the weather was looking really bleak, the visibility was reducing by the minute until the heavens opened over the airport.

Our flight was delayed although it was probably nothing to do with the rain, it had eased off and all the other flights were still going. The flight eventually boarded and we left a rain in Buenos Aires behind for the sweltering heat of the jungle.

We had hoped that we might get a sneak preview of the Iguazú Falls from the plane as we approached the airport but jungle trees kept it hidden, all we could see was the plumes of spray blowing upwards. It took ages for bags to come off the plane and even though Maria went off to queue for bus tickets, she still hadn't reached the front of the queue by the time David joined with the bags. The couple at the front of the queue were taking ages and seemed to be booking every possible trip. In the end, Maria interrupted them and discovered that there was another booth outside in the arrivals hall. By the time we joined this queue and made it to the front, we were told there was only one place left on the bus. Fortunately, they quickly decided to put another bus so we managed to save 100 pesos. A taxi would have cost us 220 pesos (about $18), which seemed quite steep for a 15 minute journey.

When we arrived at Kerana Oga, we were told that there was an overbooking and we were offered a different room for tonight and would have to change to room we'd book tomorrow. They immediately said that tonight's stay would be free and we'd only be paying for two nights instead of three. The room was okay so we considered it was a fair compromise and accepted. The room was probably normally used by staff, it was nowhere the advertised size of the room we'd booked and the bathroom was squashed into a corner and so small there was no dedicated shower space, it was like a campervan where the shower is over the top of a toilet.

The bus station was only a couple of blocks away over a gentle hill, so it didn't take long to wander over and enquire about buses to The Falls on both sides of the border. The border between Brazil and Argentina is plumb in the middle of Rio Iguazú, which means it's also in the middle of the Falls. The guide books suggest that if you have the time, you should visit the Brazilian side first, then the Argentinian side. We had two full days here, so we decided to visit Brazil tomorrow - there was no need to buy tickets, we could just get them in the morning.

We walked another two or three blocks towards the town centre. It was incredibly quiet, perhaps because it was mid-afternoon on a Sunday. We found the tourist information office at end of the main street. The building looked shut, but David tried the door anyway and it opened. We walked into the gloom and the guy on duty seemed only too keen to talk with us. Not only did he give us answers to all the questions we had, we had an interesting conversation on Argentina's problems relating to tourism.

The last piece of advise we were given before we left was to go to La Feirinha, the street where the Brazilians come to shop and eat, because it's a lot cheaper than elsewhere in the town. It wasn't far away either, just a couple of blocks on the other side of the town centre from where we were. It was like a market with stalls selling olives, cheese, cured meat, wine and beer. They all had tables and chairs in front of their stalls and there didn't seem to be any free seats anywhere, it was packed.

We wandered round the whole market before we settled on Gela Guela, which had an upstairs open terrace, for a beer. We ordered a litre bottle of beer to share while we perused the menu and looked to see what food was being served at the tables. It wasn't a big menu by any means - empanadas, steak, fries and mixed platters of olives, meat and cheese. We settled for some olive and cheese pies and a portion of fries. It was easy to see why the place was popular - the beer was ice cold, the empanadas were freshly made to order and the fries beautifully crispy. And the best bit was it was very cheap. Cheap enough and good enough to order another couple of beers and some more empanadas. Overhearing conversations, it seemed that everybody else was from Brazil but perhaps we should have guessed that when we were originally handed menus written in Portuguese and priced in Reals.

As we left and headed back to our hotel, we were approached a few times by small children selling trinkets - it's been quite a while since we've seen that. We stopped at Freddo's for an ice cream dessert before a bit of supermarket shopping. We needed a packed lunch for tomorrow's trip across the border to Brazil, we'd been warned that cafe's in the park were really expensive.