Córdoba to Iguazú Falls

After leaving Buenos Aires we went to Córdoba, which is the 3rd biggest city in Argentina. It has been named the cultural capital of the americas and has 7 universities, so it was a pretty interesting town. Unfortunately we tried to explore all the churches and museums on Monday, and for some reason they were all closed. We did have a nice walk around the bustling city though. After a couple days in Córdoba we headed north to a smaller town called Posadas. This is where the tip of the jungle begins. I think we might have been the only tourists in the city, but we had a really nice, relaxing day in this town. They had a wonderful, long walk-way by the river that many people were running and biking on. Across the river is Paraguay; we wanted to go visit that city, but as US citizens we needed a visa and had to pay $65. After Posadas we continued north to Puerto Iguazú, Argentina, which is where the Iguazú Falls are located. This town is very small with about 34,000 people. It is uniquely positioned with one river running on the west side of town bordering Paraguay, and another river running on the north side of town bordering Brazil.

An ornate church in Córdoba.

Beth and I eating at the biggest all-you-can eat buffet in Argentina, which was in Córdoba. It was $7.50 per person, and they had a huge selection of food. Unfortunately their international cuisine was lacking a little.

When booking tickets to leave Córdoba we accidently bought seats for a first-class luxury bus. It was the best bus ever!! It had huge seats, plenty of leg room, flat screen TVs, all you can drink liquor and soda, and food service.

Paraguay across the Rio Paraná from Posadas.

The bridge connecting the two countries.

This is Brazil on the other side of the river from Iguazú. It costs US citizens $100 to go into Brazil, and we need to apply for a visa in advance. So we are not going there either.

Tyler sitting in our hostel room.

The teachers and parents of Puerto Iguazú blocked the only road in and out of the city to protest the conditions of their schools. This was the morning we were trying to get to the falls, which are located 18km outside the town. We were able to walk around them in the morning, but we had to walk for 30 minutes or so before a bus was able to come and pick us up on the other side. The black smoke is from them burning tires.

The line of vehicles waiting to get into town was really long.

We finally made it to the falls, and this is approaching the Garganta del Diablo (The Throat of the Devil).

This is it! It is enormous!!!

The mist from the waterfall.

There it is again.

There are upper and lower falls, and these were the lower falls. They are a lot calmer.

Tyler, Beth, and I.

The line of lower waterfalls.

Nick looking sexy.

The front view of the Garganta del Diablo.

A rainbow in the falls.

Nick aka "Barbaroja"-RedBeard (that is what he wants to be called now) in front of a waterfall.

A GIANT ant!!! He was like 3/4 of an inch long. I would hate for him to bite me!!

A coati, which is a tropical raccoon. They were big beggers. I saw one try to climb up a man´s leg to get food.

A lizard rocking out.

A turtle getting on his rock to sunbathe.

One of the million beautiful butterflies!

Another butterfly.

An amazingly blue bird.

Huge Bamboo.

A group of ants trying to move a centipede over a root.

A guinea pig type rodent.

After leaving the park and returning to the town we discovered the protesters had increased in numbers and acquired a better banner. They were blocking all vehicles and people. The line of cars were backed up even further!

Finally after waiting 1.5 hours a group of people were able to push through the protesters and all the tourists were able to get to the other side of the blockade. During our wait time we contemplated how to get through the protesters. Tyler and Beth followed an ambulance through the blockade at one point, but Tyler ended up having to fight off 50 Argentines with one arm while Beth was able to run to the other side.

Good-Bye Buenos Aires

We have spent a wonderful week in Buenos Aires now, and we are leaving tomorrow for Córdoba. Since our last post we have walked many miles and see many great things. We went to a small town made of islands north of Buenos Aires one day called Tigre. We took a one hour boat tour around the islands, which was really neat. It was interesting to see people living on these islands, and to see how they use their boat as a car. We even saw one guy going down the river with a mattress and other furniture items in his little boat...I guess it was moving day. On the other days we have been spending our time walking around the city. It is just amazing how big the city is!!! In Santiago we could only stay within about 6 stops on the subway to stay in the ''good'' neighborhood, but in Buenos Aires we took the subway from one end to the other and the neighborhood was really great on both ends and in between. Anyways, here are some pictures:Our hostel is on this cobblestone street in San Telmo a very trendy, touristy neighborhood.
One of the many rivers in Tigre.
This is while we were on the boat tour.
Nick and me in Tigre on the terrace of the museum.
The museum in Tigre. It was in this beautiful building, but the art was not too exciting.
The musuem from the front on the balcony.
The nature reserve in Buenos Aires. This is a very large section of land that was turned into a reserve after many years of the people bickering back and forth about what to do with the land. They argued for so long the land was able to turn into the natural land that would exist here, so in the 80´s they stopped the arguing, and agreed to turn it into a reserve. It was very safe with nice, wide dirt trails around the reserve. A perfect place to run!!
This is the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. Yes this is a river!!!! That dot is a ship, but Uruguay is over there some where.
The Obelisco.
This is the widest street in the world-Ave 9 de Julio. We are standing in the middle of it while taking this picture, but the street is actually 18 lanes wide!!
Casa Rosada-the pink presidential palace. One story (which is my favorite) of why the palace is pink is because they painted it with a mixture of paint and bovine blood, which was common back in the day.
I believe the building is a museum, but the picture is taken from Plaza de Mayo where the people come to protest. I think that is why grass doesn't grow in the plaza because they protest so frequently here.

Buenos Aires

Okay I cannot think of one person that would not enjoy Buenos Aires. It definitely takes the cake as the best city in South America. We have been here since Saturday night and we have only covered a small portion of the tourist area. The people are beautiful and very trendy, the fashion is amazing, the buildings are amazing, the parks are amazing, it is dirt cheap, and there are some 13 million people in this city and it doesn´t really feel crowded. Today we got the chance to walk quite a bit and take a few pictures. We spent all day walking in one direction, and caught the subway back to the area by the hostel. When we went down into the subway it was a nice sunny day, but in the 20 minutes we were in the subway things changed dramatically. When we got to our stop we were exiting the subway and we didn´t even know we were almost outside. It looked like clouds painted on a ceiling. It had become extremely dark, and it was just beginning to rain and lightening. We had exited the subway at the Plaza de Mayo, which my travel book says is where all protests happen. Well it just so happened today was the day for a protest. We actually got to witness the ending of a famous Latin American protest!! The rain was breaking the protest up, but there were a good 5,000 + people with banners, barrels that they were beating on, people chanting, holding flags, and people spray painting buildings. It seemed very peaceful but they had taken over the plaza and street. There was no police prescence at all; it seems the government is supportive of protesters. They even supplied them with port-a-potties. The protest was in regards to the taxes the government is imposing on farmers. The farmers are upset, and they have even blocked all the roads into Buenos Aires to prevent all farm products into the city. I guess the protest was made up of people that supported the farmers and people that supported the government...interesting.
Anyhow these are some pictures we took today, and some we didn´t get to include from Ushuaia.
This is a view of Ushuaia.

Ushuaia-End of the World

The Saint Christopher- we never found out what the significance of this ship was.

Flying into Buenos Aires.

The Floralis Genérica-it is a giant aluminum and steel flower that is 20 meters tall. The travel book says the flower closes at dark like a real flower.

Closer picture of the flower.

Cementerio de la Recoleta- This was a pretty cool cemetery. Most of the tombs had glass doors that we could look inside and each tomb would have many different caskets inside of it. Many of the tombs would have stairs that went down into the floor where more caskets were placed in the catacombs.

One of the more elaborate tombs.

We think this guy was a boxer, or an admirer of Hugh Hefner.

Nick thinks they were trying to keep the ghosts in the tomb with the stick and rock blocking the door.

A flower on a tree in one of the many parks.

The Japanese Gardens. We had someone take a picture of both of us, but he cut off half the bodies. Here is Nick as a Geisha.

Some cool looking graffiti on a wall.