After an incredible week spent scuba diving on a live-aboard boat on the Great Barrier Reef, and another lovely week living in luxury at our friends’ place in Auckland, New Zealand, we set off on the next leg of our world tour.
South America. From Auckland, we took a direct flight to Buenos Aires. From this point on The Three Musketeers became the Fantastic Four as we met up with another friend of ours – Tom’s girlfriend, Liv. Due to a slight paranoia that I might have my camera nicked in our first South American city, my photos of Buenos Aires are almost non-existent. I do have one snap from our visit to La Recoleta Cemetery, however, which I will share as a token gesture to our time in this beautiful city.
La Recoleta even houses the tomb of Eva Perón – we actually had to queue up to get a glimpse of this!
We finished off our short stay in BA with a huge meal of Argentinian steak and red wine at a place called Cervantes II, which I would highly recommend if you’re ever visiting. The decor leaves a little to be desired, but the portions were huge, the steak was cooked perfectly, the service was great, and the wine was only £3 per litre. Just make sure you learn Spanish for how you like your steak cooked or it will be assumed that you want yours ‘medium’. This article from Lonely Planet really helped us out with the ordering process.
From Buenos Aires, we headed to San Ignacio to explore the San Ignacio Miní ruins.
Oliver and I opted to see them during the day, but they also put on a nightly light show which apparently was pretty good. We were even shown around by our own personal guide – a very enthusiastic stray dog who we christened Maria – after Maria in West Side Story, naturally.
Our next stop – and the one we were all most looking forward to – was Foz do Iguaçu, the base for visiting Iguaçu Falls. You can visit the falls from either the Argentinian or Brazilian side, but after our visit to the Argentinian side, we felt we had definitely made the right choice. One of the most unexpected things about our visit was just how much wildlife we saw there.
My favourites were the coatis, who were very inquisitive and extremely cute. We even obliviously stroked one before seeing signs warning people not to do this with some pretty graphic pictures of the damage they can do.
As if these adorable little things could be dangerous! The walk to the falls on the raised walkways over the river was beautiful and we saw loads more wildlife here.
The falls themselves were breathtaking.
The different walkways around the park provided some really varied views, so it’s definitely worth spending the day there in order to walk each of the trails.
I won’t bore you with all the hundreds of photos of waterfalls I took – it was a laborious enough task just selecting a few of my favourites – but I will say that it was a truly amazing place and I would recommend it to anyone planning a trip around South America. Next stop, Brazil!
