Loose End In LatAm

Indescribable amounts of water however you spell it

I was told the falls at Iguazù are the 12th most amazing thing in the world, with stuff like the Grand Canyon up at the top. I don´t know what the other 10 are but they´re impressive, and I can´t really think how else to put it. The different spellings depend on whether you´re in Argentina or Brazil, either way the falls are amazing... But if you come to the falls I recommend going to the Brazilian side first and then the Argentinian the next day.

It was a bit of strange feeling knowing that I was just popping over to Brazil after lunch and was back for tea. "Where are you off to dear?, "Oh just popping over to Brazil...", sounds like something out of a Monty Python sketch, "Good luck, dear, and don´t forget to bring back some nuts. We´ve got that nice Mr Sartre coming round for dinner..." - I have no idea if Jean Paul Sartre went to Iguazú but I reckon he´d have been impressed too.


San Ignacio and the route back south


I seem to have swapped visiting a town and seeing a beauty contest for visiting a town and seeing a Jesuit ruin. Sounds dull but the ruins at San Ignacio are breath taking - I actually involuntarily said "wow" when I saw them. You could wander around for ages amoungst them. But don´t do as I did and stay in the town over night... not a lot going on.

If you are in the area go to Posadas, a fantastic bustling city with views over the Parana to Paraguay, and an easy base to visit a whole handful of ruined Jesuits. I only wished I´d stayed longer, but I caught another bus down to another fabulous town, Rosario, birth place of Che Guevara (although the don´t make much fuss about it and building is doesn´t even have a plaque or anything like that on it).

Rosario is a fantastic city, and Lonely Planet actually turned up trumps for a change: The Savoy Hotel, is a vast rambling hotel that must have really been something at its height. Either by luck or judgement a vast amount of original features are still intact, along with furniture gathered over the decades and never updated.

I returned to Buenos Aires to find the gloomy weather I had escaped from by going up north had finally cleared, so I took the boat across the Rio Plata to Uruguay...