We were rudely awaken from our extremely comfortable night bus to be told we were in sao paulo an hour before we expected at around 5am in the morning. As we wanted to leave for iguaçu falls the next day we decided to stick around for the ticket booths to open and book our seats. We had been told they opened at 6am but as that came and went we were told that they opened at 8! So after a few more hours we finally managed to get our seats out for the next night and off we trotted to the hostel.

Although there are nicer areas of sao paulo further out, we decided to stay in the centre to make the most of our whistle stop tour. Later on we realised why they tell you to go into the quieter neighbourhoods when vikki and nick were told to remove their extremely grotty plastic watches as someone might see it as a sign of wealth and rob us! We did try and say that if they want the watches they really could have them but decided we were probably best to listen to the advice, although it did make us suspicious of everyone who walked within a metre of us. Nick´s ankle was pretty swollen so we decided to go to somewhere that might be easy to get around. We settled on the zoo then promptly made him go to the first aid centre where 3 women mothered him and bandaged up his foot. We also managed to get a wheelchair which was quite amusing to push around the extremely un-wheelchair friendly zoo. He was also now only mentioned in first person with constant referrals to "the foot". After we had enough fun laughing at him in a wheelchair we headed back to the hostel for the monstrous task of doing our laundry. After putting 2 loads on the iron-age machines were clearly in it for the long haul so we left them to it and headed out for our food. Sao paulo´s best cuisine, due to its massive influx of japanese and italians, is sushi and pizza so we headed off to the pizzaria recommended to us by the guys in the hostel. This was when we were stopped by the security guard and told to remove anything that gave any inkling that we had money on us which probably didnt put us in the best frame of mind as we headed into the ghetto to the restaurant they recommended to us. After a distinctly average pizza we thought we had risked our lives enough to get there so a taxi home was better. When the restaurant told us they had no phone we had to bite the bullet, luckily not quite literally, and walk back. We did feel a bit bad as we jumped out of the way of every local that came near us, and we checked for youths behind every bus stop but this is Brazil and you really cant be too careful!

Our bus to Iguaçu left in the late afternoon so we decided to go to the park the next day as we were told there was a good museum there and that you had good views of the city. After wandering for a bit we realised that we couldnt find the musuem so settled for a view of the city so that at least we might have something to show of sao paulo other than a dodgy night out and a visit to the zoo. As we stood on top of a bridge with views of the city on both side we had some idea of the magnitude of Sao Paulo. For literally as far as you could see in both directions there were sky scrapers filling the sky. As we drove out of sao paulo later that night on our night bus we saw just how far the metropolitan spread out and could understand how this is the biggest city in south america.

As we had left buying our tickets to Iguaçu a bit late we could only get a bus to the Brazilian side so we had to navigate ourselves over to the Argentinian side where we were staying. The Iguaçu river separates the two countries and the immigration posts were either side of the river so we had to get off on one side, get our stamps, wait for another bus, go over the river get off again, get our next stamp and then get back on the bus to the argentinian settlement.. Long winded to say the least! The hostel we had chosen to stay in had been recommended by a lot of people and we could immediately see why, the pool was massive and the bar even had a happy hour! It was a lot more like a hotel than a hostel and we just relaxed in the afternoon infront of the pool.. Bliss!

As I mentioned earlier the Iguaçu river separates argentina from brazil and another tributary separates paraguay from the other two at one point where the two rivers join you can see the borders of all three. Very close to this point there is a massive waterfall, iguaçu falls which are actually over 250 waterfalls and thus attract a lot of visitors. As the falls are on the border you can see different parts from the two sides and we decided to go to the brazilian side first as they arent meant to be quite as good as the argentinian side. As you walk through the jungle park which surrounds Iguaçu you get bigger and bigger glimpses of the main waterfall before coming face to face with the main falls. On the Brazillian side you get to see hundreds of rainbows created from the spray of the waterfalls and the panoramic views of the falls are amazing. The next day we witnessed the other side of the falls where the majority of the smaller falls reside. On the argentinan side there are longer walkways through the park and you see thousands of butterflies and racoon like coati´s who like to steal visitors lunches from their bags. We took a boat trip which after a drive through some of the rapids took us under the water fall for a baptism, and we were well and truley drenched! After walking around some of the smaller falls we realised we werent going to get everything done that day so took advantage of the half price second day entry and came back. We still had the best bit to see which is called the devils throat, you walk about 1km over the delta above the waterfall, where we were lucky enough to see the caiman that resides there floating down the river, until you come to the largest waterfall where you can look right over the waterfall into the river below. As this is the largest single drop in the park the noise is deafening and the mist rises well above the falls. After a walk around another trail it was time to head back to get our things and join our luxourious argentinan bus to Buenos Aires, champagne and all!