inulro | Argentina: Tourist Stuff

I didn't have time to do much general tourist stuff, although looking at the wonderful colonial buildings in Rio Cuatro and Santa Fe was a lot of fun. I only went to three places anyone might have heard of/be interested in:

1. Iguazú Falls

This is the most amazing thing I've done in my life. The Falls are set in a national park with about 8 km of trails to walk with views from different angles. It's all incredibly beautiful. I probably should have passed out from the heat (it was pushing 40 degrees) but I was too busy running on adrenaline & getting very excited every time we turned a corner. I went a bit camera happy until my hands got too sweaty to hold the camera. Because there's such a high volume of people I didn't get to see an awful lot of the wildlife the park claims to be home to, but we did get mugged by coatis (cartoon to be replaced by real picture when I can get the server to talk to me) and saw a good selection of lizard, butterfly and bird life (sadly, no toucans).

I started the day covered up like you're supposed to for jungle wear, but after an hour or so I couldn't take it any more and lost the long sleeves. Despite the Factor 50 I burned my chest & back to a crisp, but if anything in the world is worth the sunburn, this is it!

It's not just that these falls are so much more spectacular than Niagara (although they are) - the national park setting rather than being surrounded by tacky hotels & casinos really makes it special.

2. Remains of the Jesuit mission at San Ignacio Mini.

For a potted history, go watch The Mission. There's actually the remains of 5 missions (2 on the Paraguayan side of the river) which are World Heritage sites. Sadly I only had time to see the most accessible one. There was a tour in English, and our guide really knew her stuff, which was most exciting. I got some half decent pictures & will link to them soon!

Not as life-changing as Iguazú, but definitely worth seeing. A shop in Posadas had an utterly beautiful book from Unesco about the Guarani missions which I was sorely tempted to buy (reading about history and having pictures to look at sounds like an ideal way to improve my Spanish), but at nearly £100 I had to give it a miss.

3. Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires (photos coming soon)

I went to a cemetery, news at 10. There were some baby goths wandering around, which was way cute. It was very much like my recent cemetery wanderings in Paris, except that many of the mausolea had more elaborate contents inside (or you could just see them better). For a place that looks tiny on the map, and has a far more ordered layout than Pere Lachaise, it sure is easy to get lost. More fodder for my comparative burial practices work if I suddenly become articulate and less lazy.

Speaking of getting lost, my normally reliable map-reading skills got us turned around 180 degrees not once, but about three times. My dad said that was because we were in the southern hemisphere and the sun was in the wrong direction. I always thought that I knew zilch about finding direction by nature and merely have good map reading skills. Obviously on some subconscious level I do navigate by the sun.