With our slightly bonkers 'traversing the continent in 3 weeks' route so we could see Iguazu Falls before our final destination of Buenos Aires, we had to cover some serious PieRat miles.

The pass back into Argentina on the Ruta 52 was utterly glorious; riding through incredible ravines with jagged and multi-coloured rock formations, crazy cacti and monster hairpin bends, it felt like the Andes were giving us one final huzzah as we said our farewells to this wondrous mountain chain of over 4000 miles in length and our companion since Colombia.

Back on the wild camping, we pulled off what must be the world's longest and straightest road (Ruta 81 anyone?! Gahh) to pitch up among the kapoc trees. A nifty spot, or so we thought, until out of the middle of the spikey undergrowth came two gun wielding, and worryingly shaky, narco cops. Apparently this is a known route for drug running from Bolivia and after checking all our documents and entry stamps, they left us with the choice of staying where we were to battle it out with the banditos or move on. It was now getting dark, but not really wanting some trigger happy cops or indeed ne'er do wells to come across our sneaky spot in the middle of the night, we went to the police checkpoint and pitched up there. All well and good until the generator kicked in and ran until 4am. At least we had our mini bottle of coffee flavoured "cognac" that we picked up from one of the indigina villages en route to help us out.

The only interesting things on this road, apart from the mountains of rubbish heralding the nearest village, was spotting all the wildlife, and of course, roadkill paydirt - normally a freshly dead horse/cow/anteater to break up the monotony.

After an emergency stop at a thermals, the landscape changed to savannah, with tall grasses almost covering the herds of cows grazing as we approached the border with Paraguay. The way to the ferry was lined with shacks, made out of 2x4, covered in corrugated iron and plastic sheeting, a sobering sight.

Arriving in Asuncion we had yet again the standard hoohah of Aduana for the bike and migration for us, coupled with the problem of none of the ATMs accepting any of our cards plus the accent being crazily difficult to understand made for a slightly stressful new country experience. However, the capital was a fun place to spend a couple of days, doing laundry, fixing tent poles (yes, again) and exploring before more miles across Paraguay, dodging the terrible driving here, possibly the worst we've come across this trip!

Camping near the Brazilian border, we were studiously watched by a little girl, always a tad disconcerting. Alas, that wasn't the *most* disconcerting thing, as when we went to the baño, we saw thousands of tiny glowing lights in the grass. "Ooohhh", thought Imogen "fireflies or glowworms!" Errr, no, it was a galaxy of spider eyes reflecting in the torch beam. We did see a couple of them running about, and they were NOT SMALL. Heebie geebies doesn't even begin to cover it!

We swung by Itaipú Dam, nicely bookending our trip, as we'd been to Grand Coolee and Hoover in the U.S., before yet another crossing, this time into Portugese speaking Brazil. It was utter chaos riding past the vast swathes of duty free malls lining the border road, but we found a money changer and some emergency alfojores before camping up near the falls for our one night in the largest country in South America.

Yes, Iguazu/Iguaçú is as spectacular as everyone says, and we were fortunate to be able to see them from both the Brazilian and Argentinean sides, meeting up with a fellow traveller who we then spent a fun evening with, drinking an unwise number of 2-4-1 cocktails in a Mexican restaurant near the tres fronteras of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina.

Scooting on down we then entered our final (new) country, at number 17, Uruguay.

So, who knows anything much about Paraguay and Uruguay?! Excitingly, Uruguay has thermal pools which were seriously needed as it was below freezing when we had camped up, which made for a fun leap into the warm waters after running over the frost covered grass in our swimmies and flip flops!

Uruguay is also home to two UNESCO sites, the lovely city of Colonia, which gave us our first view of the Atlantic Ocean this trip, and Fray Bentos, yes, home of the pie-in-a-tin, so beloved by us Brits with its fascinating museum and (disused) factory.

With just one final border crossing to do, we rode back north to enter back into Argentina and get the TIP and papers for the motorbike to send to Dakar Motos, the freighting company.

Of course there was one final fly in our year long travelling ointment - nationwide general strikes.

Do we make it? Does the Africa Twin get to fly back to Blighty? Does our camping gas bottle hold out in our final few days in South America? Does Santander bank charge us the equivalent of 7 litres of wine for using a Santander ATM? Does Imogen make any more "penultimate" blogs? The answer to these plus all our fun facts and figures in the next penultimate blog...

Photos as usual on Imogen Burman-Mitchell's Facebook page.