Turns out my Spanish wasn't that bad.....I'm only comparing that to my Portuguese!

So, as promised and expected I stayed up all night in Salta before my early morning flight from Salta to Buenos Aires! It’s great, cos I suck in the mornings, but if I'm still awake in the morning from the night before than I'm more than fine! I did sleep on the whole 2 hour flight, but worth it! Arrived in a rainy Buenos Aires morning, checked out the town for a bit before grubbing up!

Looking out over Salta

Pretty chilled first day around ‘just-another-city’ before having some awesome Tango lessons, which is defiantly easier then Salsa. Loved it! Then watched a live Tango show with free food and alcohol…..happy times. Before a night (and possibly early morning) out in Buenos Aires! It is an expensive city!

Casa Rosada

Nice art work for a Shopping Centre!

I gotta admit, I really didn't think much of BA when I first arrived there, but my initial comment of ‘just-another-city’ defiantly faded more and more with the more time I spent there! I woke up on the Sunday with another chilled out start. Before checking out some of the smaller suburbs around the city. On route to La Boca, there was a free music festival going on in the Plaza de Mayo for Argentina’s Memorial Day. After watching a band of about 200-300 drummers, and loosing everyone, Monica and I headed down Defensa Street towards La Boca. Whata street, I didn't enjoy the crowdedness of the street nor the markets, but everything else that was going on, more then made up for it. We stopped off at a bar on route and started chatting with a local family for a few hours or so! The Argies really don’t hate the English, but seem to really like us….that did really pleasantly surprise me!

Estadio Alberto J. Armando, home of Boca Juniors.

The following day, Claudia and I spent more time checking out the city, as it was our last day together before parting ways! Definitely another touristy day, but when you’re only in a city for a short time….why not!?! Later that night, a group of us went to see La Bomba de Tiempo, which was followed by me loosing everyone again so a followed the drums down the street to a local club, where after making new friends, I randomly found my old friends! Great last night in Buenos Aires and great night with some great friends that I had spent about the last 5 weeks with. Thank you to you all!

The sun setting over Obelisk down Av. 9 de Julio

After yet awaking on another early morning after having ‘I dunno how much sleep again’ I woke up to catch the ferry to Colonia, Uruguay! After arriving in the small beach town, I soon realised that this wasn't the place for me, and set about not really achieving much! It sounds like a snobby spoilt thing to say, but I'm kinda over walking around small towns just for the sake of walking around! It did have a real 'New England' feel to it though.

The sun setting on my run!

The following day, made my way by bus to Montevideo, the capital town of Uruguay. Again, sadly, not really too much too say. Very chilled out city, and most things, if not everything, is closed over Easter…not great! Not great at all! After 2 nights there. We headed about 3 hours back north to a small ranch, El Copihue, near the town of Mercades. It was good fun, pretty warm and pretty chilled out, a couple of days of volleyball, fire (definitely singular there), drinking, dry bread, horse riding, 10 miles runs……Yeah, it was OK, but bit too chilled for me, especially after the previous few days of not really being able to achieve much. I don’t wanna sound like I'm complaining, cos I really know that this would suit some people perfectly, and I'm not complaining, I'm just being honest and saying that it’s not me. Beautiful though!

Lunch at a sit at bar and grill!

The stadium where the first ever World Cup "Final"ish was played. Shame the museum was closed on that day!

The beaches in Montevideo

More tourists tryna chase a cow!

Uruguay's a really nice country, I just think I was in the wrong places at the wrong time, so not really too much to do! I know a few people that would more than love the areas I stayed at though!

A late morning start, saw us getting the bus across the boarder and back into Argentina where we stopped in  a small town before getting (another) 15-16 hour night bus (and the last one for me for a long while) to another small town where we got a bus to the Brazil boarder then another bus to Foz Do Iguaçu That morning/afternoon involved a trip to the Brazilian side of the Iguaçu Falls. Pretty amazing. It was kinda of thee same (for me) as when I did Colca Canyon, Peru, in that the view is amazing, but you get off of a bus and walk 3 meters and that’s it, you’re there. And for me personally, too many tourists walking round kinda takes the nature out of it (and this was a fairly quite day for it), but still it is so impressive and well worth checking out.

The sun setting on my Argentinian bus ride!

WELCOME TO BRAZIL

Ingri, I and Kristin at the top of the falls

And that afternoon/evening I had a short, brief spontaneous trip to Paraguay. I has about a 10-15Km bus ride to Ciudad del Este, crossing the boarder with as much ease as crossing the England/Wales boarder….none at all! It was really amazing to see how different the two towns were, and so close. Bit of a culture shock really. Not the poorest part of the world that I've ever been to, it was just amazing to see how different these two places are, from so close, just because you cross a boarder! Crazy. After a brief visit to Paraguay, the night’s activities involved beer, and ‘all-Mike-can-eat’, and I never learn, I purposely didn't eat all day so I can get my R$22.50 (about $11.25 or 7.50-8) worth, and even after eating way way too much in that ‘all-you-can-eat’ deal in that church in Queenstown, New Zealand back in August where I couldn't move after it all, I did it all again! Well then they bring all kinds of crazy meat to your table (beef, chicken, rabbit, chicken heart, lung.......on....and.....on....) even after you've already filled your own plate, and they make it hard to say “no”, plus I don’t wanna say ‘no’

Ciudad del Este from from Brazil

Crossing the bridge/boarder

Safety first!

And crossing back into Brazil!

Can't really comment too much on Paraguay as I really wasn't there for long at all, but it really was amazing to me to see the massive massive difference between Paraguay and Brazil from only driving for about 20 minutes! Bit of an eye opener, probably not the poorest country that I've ever been too, it was just so close to such a rich area!

 The next day, was the Argentinian side of the Iguazú falls, crossed the boarder yet again to Argentina (I think I was asleep the whole way). And honestly, the Brazilian side of the falls is impressive, but the Argentina has it so so SOOOOOOOOOO much better, really! So impressed. We did the boat trip in the morning, and I thought that the best part of the day was over…..it really got more and more impressive!

Lisa and Ruk

I wanted to add an awesome video of us going under the fall 'here' but my internet is being crap again! SORRY!

eine andere stollen

Funky dancing

Monkey

Baby monkey

And ending the day at Garganta del Diablo

Ruk finally got a butterfly to land on here....well, after stealing it off of another woman!

Leaving Argentina for the third and final time....

...And...

....Entering Brazil for the third and final time!

Yet again, an early morning followed that night, so Vicky and I obviously figured it’d be better staying out till flight time (as opposed to waking up late for flight time), which included hanging out with the weirdest locals I ever met, really and the longest short walk home I have ever had (trust me I was pretty sober, it was long). Took the plan from Iguaçu to Sau Pedro, then a sleepy bus ride to Paraty.

A picture of Paraty's old town taken from Paraty's new town

Arriving there 2 days ago. in the late afternoon, not much to really report from the first day, but earlier yesterday Monica, Vicky and I hired bikes and rode them to Tarzan. Hanging out there today really reminded me of my Australian lifestyle. Loved it!

I read this (in Mikeish) as Tarzan's Crazy bar!

Poço do Tarzan

And....

...Cachoeria do Tobogã

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The view from Morro do Forte

Pararty

That was yesterday, today I left Paraty earlier this morning and headed to Santa Luzia where I caught the ferry across to Ilha Grande, which is where I currently am, and as it's raining (or was, it felt like now was a great time to update my blog!

Jurassic Park.....AGAIN!

OK, so between working on this and now, I had a break, for a run whilst it was still light, which turned into a run along the beach / swim / work-out! Amazing, amazing place here, I didn't have my camera on me at the time but I will have to update it in my next post, but the sunset was amazing, although I didn't actually see the sun set, the red behind the mountain range was awesome. Still though Denke immer an Dich

Order and Progress
I have wanted to come to Brazil for as long as I can remember, so it seems like the best country to end all of my travels on! The only disadvantage is that I really can't speak any Portuguese apart from the obvious, so I do miss tryna speak my bad Spanish! However, so far, so impressed with it, not at all a let down, and so far the people seem more then friendly. Time to enjoy my last week on the road! BRING ON BRAZIL!

I wrote this on Friday 5th April, but I had issues getting it published due to poor internet, still!