Our last (relatively) luxury bus service in Argentina took us from Buenos Aires to the northern sub-tropical city of Puerto Iguazu, in the comfort of full-cama beds in the front window seats upstairs. After a pretty decent sleep on now a lot bumpier roads, we arrived into a small, humid and lush green town and made our way to the hostel along the red mud covered streets, which seemed to be a trademark for the area.

The main reason to make one's way all the way here, is of course to visit the Iguazu Falls: a jaw dropping collection of 275 waterfall drops in a total length of almost three kilometres, accessible from both Argentina and Brazil. For us, and particularly for Shaun, seeing the falls through his own eyes was a promise he'd made to himself in his early teens, so it was clear from the moment we started planning our travels back in 2010 that we wouldn't miss it for anything.

By some strange sense of purpose, we decided to spend an extra day recovering from the epic week of gluttony in Buenos Aires and so, decided to postpone the first visit to the Brazilian side of the falls to by one day. This proved to be one of the better choices of our travels so far, as the next morning we woke up to a tropical thunderstorm, which didn't give in until early the next day. The pouring rain turned the town's streets into mini-rivers, flooded our hostels swimming pool and soaked us to the bone when we had to brave it out of our room to get some dinner - quite a change from the snowfall at Ushuaia a little over a week ago.

Over the next couple of days we covered the falls from both the Brazilian and Argentinian sides, both easily done from the hub of Puerto Iguazu. The Brazilian side offers more panoramic views of the falls in all their glory, whilst in the Argentinian side you are literally right in them, so prepare to get wet.

We spent a half a day and a full day exploring the falls on both sides respectively, and whilst they were worth all the hype - the falls were stunningly spectacular in all their power and beauty - the experience was (yet again) slightly dampened (no pun intended) by the whole mass-tourism-gimmicky side of it all. Shaun aptly described it as Alton Towers/Australia Zoo/Jurassic Park - like experience. But I guess it is unavoidable.

Sheep-herding, endless queuing, cheeky Coatis (local weasel/racoon like mammals) made aggressive by tourists and their food aside, the last stop on our tours, Garganta Del Diablo (Devils Throat) - waterfall made it all worthwhile, it is difficult to grasp that these places exist on this planet, and we get to see them. Before our departure we also took an evening stroll down to the river Iguazu, where the three countries of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet, worth a photo, but don't forget the mosquito repellent!

With the falls now behind us and Bolivia ahead of us, we took another bus ride across the northern part of the country to the city of Salta, where we'd spend a day before heading towards the border towns of La Quiaca in Argentina and Villazon in Bolivia.

The journey was one to remember, and mostly not in a good way. The first part of it went quick, and we spent an hour or so in a bus station in Posadas with Shaun watching (or rather following twitter updates) with poor wifi City's match against Everton (a win that they very much needed - and got).

When our connecting bus turned up and departed we got about 500 meters from the station when we pulled into the bus company's garage where the driver and staff tried to fix the air conditioning. During the hour we were stationed we were treated to a soundtrack of the worse imaginable Argentinian pop and s*** R&B full blast - truly one to rival our experiences in Cambodian bus journeys. To add insult to injury, in front of us for the whole journey was an older mother and her 7-8 year old son, who must have had some mental issues. He kept fidgeting, moving the seat up and down, switching the lights on and off, crying when his mum went to the toilet - the lot. He tried to get our attention in any way he could, but we we'd had it at this point and just waited for the night to bring us some rest. The morning I woke up with him leaning against his fully reclined seat and staring at me with an evil smile. Devil Child we called him (shudder).

Salta itself should have granted a longer visit: it is a beautiful town with colonial architecture and plenty of great bars and restaurants. Juan, our friend from Buenos Aires recommended a particular one, Doña Salta for their Empanadas.

Tired and hungry from our 24 hour bus journey, we got to the hostel and started thinking and planning our time in Bolivia, realising to our disappointment that we'd have very little time before needing to make our way to Peru for the Inca Trail. What made matters worse was that Shaun had to choose to miss one of the big games in Manchester City's title race, as we'd need to move quickly and squeeze in a 4 day trip to the Uyuni Salt Flats.

Eventually we decided that decision are better made with some food in our bellies and made our way to town from our hotel with only one purpose: empanadas. The day didn't get any better when after a 20 minute walk in the heat we were turned away from the restaurant which was closing for the afternoon.

We walked and walked with Shaun now very 'hangry' (the state you get into when all you want is food and everything pisses you off), before we finally found an open restaurant and ordered a meze of Mexican tacos and Argentinian llama - definitely a consolation. Determined though, we did make it to Doña Salta twice over in the next 24 hours before our departure; truly worth it.

After a full days wait for our half past midnight bus to La Quiaca, we got to the bus station and followed on our pact to try scope out for other travellers to befriend for the border crossing into Bolivia.

As the bus pulled in (a disappointingly old and tattered one from Andesmar) we met with Eva, a young solo traveller from Germany and Marlene & Ralf from The Nertherlands. We agreed to pull together and as we were rattled into sleep in a freezing bus headed to 3000+ metres, Shaun and I truly felt that we were leaving Argentina behind.

This was the beginning of the gritty and real travelling we'd missed.