staying longer than intended to..

In Iguazú we met this guy from England (John), we told him what our plans for teh next few days were and he asked us if it would be ok for us if he is comming with us.. well he was all right and so we said that it would be all right for a couple of days.. but not too much! So we went to the some ruins of the Jesuits called "San Ignacio Mini" which was really interesting and then to Posadas. The city is not interesting at all.. well at least Miri and I couldn't find anything special about it and so the next day we left to Corrientes where we had someone from couchsurfing to stay at. The only thing that kind of bugged us was that John still followed us. Really.. it sounds weird but it was like that. He travelled with us but it was like we went where we wanted to and he just came with us. After a while Miri got really sick of it and we did some stuff without him but he kind of had the same route as we did and so he also went with us to Corrientes.. At least there we were a little bit more free because there were other people to hang out with ;-) And I have to say it was the best couchsurfing experience at all! Even though Corrientes is not a really historic or exciting city we loved it! Nico, the guy we were staying with was Miris age, supercool, had two sisters (Cynthia and Valeria) and a great family! Sometimes it was hard to talk to the family because they only knew Spanish but in the end we got it somehow ;-) Nico, Cynthia and Val took us to so many places, told us about regional food, Tedere (similar to Mate but with cold juice.. yummie and refreshing!) and took us around the city. We had so much fun together and the time passed way too quickly and when I think about it.. it's so sad that we had to leave! They were like family for us.

There is no water in the waterfalls!!!!

Before we got to the waterfalls we had another busride to manage.. it was an overnight one and for the first 3 hours we had some company from a guy called Nicolas. He only spoke spanish ..well a little bit english as well but that didn't help much so Miri had to talk the whole time in spanish. It was quite funny how they tried to explain things to each other and sometimes it just didn't make sense ;-)

The earth was so red! And people seem to live in the middle of nowhere. There are no tarred streets except for the one we were on...

The night was not as comfortable as it could have been but we got over it and checked into the hostel. There we met Adelie from England and because it was only 2 o'clock we decided to take a look at the waterfalls. Everybody always talks about it and it is the only reason people come to this little town called Puerto de Iguazú. But people also told us that there is no water in the falls because it hasn't been raining for quite some time.. so we had no idea what to expect but this is what we found:

Water!!!

I can't tell weather this is much or not (probably not from other pictures I saw) but it was a massive amount!

It was so beautiful! There were thousands of little waterfalls coming down.

There are supposed to be 270 Waterfalls in this place over 2.7 km long!! I really have no clue how they counted those waterfalls but.. there are a lot! It is such a huge place and there is also a track that leads you directly underneath.. well not quite but close^^ to the waterfalls and you get soaking wet when you stand there for some minutes!

A coatí.. they were everywhere! Later in the day we saw some more on the other side of a fence.. a woman next to us thought they were so cute and wanted to give them some food. All the sudden there were about 10 coatís jumping over the fance! I have no clue where they came from but it looked like a wave! And the woman and her friends ran for their lifes! It was hulerious! ;-)

The next day Adelie left us and we went to the brazilian side to get a nice overview of the waterfalls. Yes, we went to Brazil for the day! We were so stoked about it but then we found out that we don't get a stamp in our passports :-( we just left Argentina for some hours and then entered again. ..so does that mean we were in no country for the time in between??? That's not fair!

An overview of one part of the "Cataratas" (waterfalls) from the brazilian side

A little firend along the way ;-)

Miri, me and the waterfalls! We were there!! Yeah!

Enjoy:

Jusdt when we were about to leave the park we met some people we had seen the day before on the argentinian side. ..in the end we went with them to the biggest dam in the world, called Itaipú.

running-metal-man

part of the dam.. it was pretty big!

I don't know if she was drunk when we were there but for some reason the picture is quite sloped..

4 crazy-looking people in front of this humongeous turbine!

The dam belongs half to Brazil and half to Paraguay.. so in fact we have been to paraguay as well! Take a look at this:

Miri is standing in two coundtries at the same time!!

Nazareth and the kids

So our next stop was in Parana. There is nothing too exciting about the city except for the fact that Miri really liked it ..and I have to say it is a nice place. But the best thing that could have happened to us was that Nazareth hosted us for this time! She's living with her two adorable kids Ciro and Sara in the center of the town, loves to go to the theatre and is a great person! The night we got there she was told that there is a play at the theatre. She didn't know what it was about but we just took the chance and went. It was really well played and Miri even understood some parts but it was quite hard because obviously it was in spanish. But I have to say it was such a funny play!

circus.. what else?!? ;-)

The next day Miri went walking around the town for a bit and we had to get a bus ticket to go to Iguazú. The city is so beautiful and it is next to the river Paraná so when you walk around on the beautiful pier you can see the little islands on the river. It's so beautiful. Later we went home and Nazareth took us for a little tour around the city, to her parents house and at night we went to a friend of hers to have dinner and talk a little bit. Miri decided to change her busticket to the day afterwards and so we had another day with the family.

The riverside with the little "islands"

my big buddy!!! We found him!!!

Sara, the cutie

ohhh.. is it going to fall???

On saturday they took us to a german village and a natural park which were close to Paraná. Even though it wasn't anything special we still had a lot of fun and enjoyed it a lot to spend time with them.

Mariana, Nazareth, Sara, Natan and Ciro in the park

Nazareth and Miri

And then at night we had to leave.. it was really sad because Miri and I liked the family so much and we promised that we'll stay in contact.

a beautiful sunset for the last evening together

Rosario and Cordoba - two cities.. that's all

So with couchsurfing we found a girl in Rosario who let us stay at her place for a couple of nights. She was really nice but unfortunately she worked at night so we didn't see her a lot.. it was just kind of bad timing I guess.. So Miri and I looked around the town on our own, took some pictures, got an overview and then went back to the house. Well actually I forgot something: Rosario is the town where Che Guevara was born so we went to see the statue of him. There was nothing special about the place except for a little boy with his mom who was curious about us and what we were doing there..who would ever take a picture of this old thing??? ;-)
And the next day we already left for Cordoba.

It was kind of hard to find Ludo and Naty (my hosts for the next couple days) but we managed it. They try to improve their english so they decided to only speak english to each other and of course with me as well. Incredible people! They are selfemployed and so they can decide at what times they work. And what can I say.. they decided not to work during the whole time I was there! We went grocery shopping together, had a great meal together with a guy from Transilvania (uhhh) who was a couchsurfer as well and another guy who was learning english. The next day we pretty much exprlored the town (which exists of churches.. really nice ones^^) and at night Miri cooked some Dampfnudeln for them. Hmm! Yummie! A little bit of home away from home!
And that was it.
we

La ciudad

There are just so many things to do in the city and the last week in Buenos Aires was crazy! Marianca, Miri and me went to the tango lessons together, had dinner afterwards (at 11^^) and during the day explored the city together.

Here we were at the government house but they had a huge fence around it and we couldn't really see anything..

"Line A" is the oldest Subte line.. you could relly smell (!!) how old it was..
truely MAGIC!

Me in the botanic gardens!!!

We also met with some of Mariancas friends who had this shopping rush! Wow.. really I have never seen somthing like this. I mean I'm used to Miri and her shopping habits and that is nothing compared to how they rished from one shop to the other looking at everything, trying stuff on, debating on it and then end up nt buying.. or buying! It felt like a release when we split up and Marianca, Miri and I went to a restaurant to get something to eat. Afterwards Miri decided to go to another tango lesson in another location. We ended up staying there till about 2 in the morning and just talking to the teacher and another guy (Santiago) from the class and he invited us to some Milonga for the next night. So the next day we went there after the tango lessons in La Catedral. The people were so good at dancing but Santiago and Miri tried their luck on the dancefloor and from what I saw they did all right ;-) But when Miri danced with his friend, Pedro, ..she almost looked like a professional!! (well not quite but you know what I mean^^) Anyway we had such a great time and in the end Pedro and two other guys played some songs and later another one joined them and sang! This is the real Argentinian lifestyle! It was all spontanious because they didn't have a lifeband that night so they basicly just improvised everything!!!!!

Pedro is the one on the piano..

As you can guess the next day Miri was pretty tired when she went to the spanish lessons..the last ones. We had bought some "facturas", what they call it here (it's bsicly sweet stuff like cookies or sweet bread with dulce de leche..). During the last few days Miri had learned the past tense and so Nico made Miri tel the story of Cinderella in spanish (in the past of course!) Wow.. what en effort! But it was a nice last day and in the end so sad to leave! Really it felt like we had left a little bit of ourselves back at the school.

Nico and Katjas crazy cat

See what he tortured us with: IMPERFECTO
"aaaahhhhhhh"

At night we were invited to Katjas concert. It was in a little french restaurant and the singer was also from France (called Mirjam^^) and Katja played the contrabass. We really enjoyed that a lot. It's just something completely different when you go to a place where mainly locals are and then we ended up talking to some other members of the little group. It's crazy how many people you get to know and then you have to leave again.. why?!?!?!?

We were upstairs so the view wasn't too good but the atmosphere was great!

On Saturday it was the birthday of the aunts (they are twins) of my "hostbrother" Alejandro. The whole family came over and we had a big asado (basicly meat with a little bit of salad and other sides) Oh.. it was so yummie! Argentinians really know how to cook their meat but it was just so much! And then for desert we had two cakes that were made out of pure sugar! ..at least they were as sweet as that ;-) ..but good! I think when Miri comes back to Germany she can roll herself out of the airport.. there are just too many sweet things to eat^^

Here's Alejandro, Lord of the meat!
..he did a great job..

Miri and the whole family. Can you see the meatpile in the front of the table? That was half of what was left after we were done eating.. imagine..

On Sunday it was Alejandros birthday (another Alejandro, the one that I met in NZ^^) he had invited Marianca and me to his party in a dance club.. unfortunately I don't have any pictures of him with the girls so I can only show you this one:

El Tigre - back into the wild!

On saturday we (that means Marianca, Miri and I) planned to get out of the city for a little bit. There is a town called Tigre close to Buenos Aires and it is more or less a holiday area for the "porteños" (people who live in Bs As). There was a train that took us directly to the city (it only cost us 1.35 Pesos which is like 30 Cents!!!). Tigre is right next to the river "Rio de la Plata" and from there you can take the "lancha colectiva" to explore the Delta "El Tigre". It consists of many little rivers who are used like streets and along the riversides there are so many cute little houses.. really a place to enjoy yourself! One thing that amazed me was the water in the river. It's all brown from little tiny fragments of the dirt or whatever that is too light to go down to the ground.

The river (not rio de la plata) with the "lanchas"

rowing is the most popular thing for the porteños to do when they are in Tigre

a house along the riverside.. everyone has its own footbridge!

it might look harmless but it almost attacked us!!!

Miri posing in front of the high bridge over the river.. there was no other way to cross it and most of the time people just used their boats..
("let's go to the next restaurant" ..by boat of course!)

crazy traffic on the rivers

the "lancha"

Marianca and Miri ;-)

There was also a "famous" (fruit)market in Tigre.. at first we thought it was in the Delta and we looked for it everywhere until someone could tell us where it was.. well it was quite nice but we didn't buy anything. But markets here in Argentinia are just so different from everything I have ever seen! You can even buy furniture there and then people carry it home in a plastic bag like it was their groceries.. we had to smile when we saw them carrying the heavy stuff ;-)

¿Qué pasa?

So the other day Miri and I met with another german girl, Marianca, who we met at the Tango lessons in La Catedral. We set the date and place to Plaza de Mayo on the first of may... Miri and I were shocked when we came out of the the subte station: There were people everywhere! And then the shouting and they played on song really loud and over and over again.. they were demonstrating for better work conditions. It was crazy! ..look at it yourselves:

la manifestación con la gente loca!

everywhere flags, paper with notes were thrown into the crowd, whistles.. they even got into a fight in the middle of everything!

look at these funny fellows ;-)

So we watched it for a little bit and hoped that we could find Marianca between all these people.. but luckily most of the people stood on one side of the plaza and so it wasn't a problem. We left the demonstration, walked by "la Casa Rosada" (the Pink House) where the government is.

And carried on to Puerto Madero, the modern quater of Buenos Aires... very chick, very new and very expensive! ..well I guess for Europeans it's ok because the Pesos are not really worth a lot but compared to the rest of Buenos Aires it's expensive.. and for us Backpackers too.. yeah, Miri and I really spent too much money in New Zealand and now we're trying to save money wherever we can. ..which doesn't mean that we don't spend money ;-)

..we try..

Marianca and Miri

There was a neat little place from where you could see a little "natural reserve" and behind that is the river "Rio de la Plata" ..but you can't see it :-(

harbour..

and the "Puente de la Mujer" (Womens bridge)