Puerto Iguazu, Argentina

From Buenos Aires we took a 19-hour overnight bus to Puerto Iguazu, a town in the extreme north of Argentina, which pretty much exists as a base for tourists to visit Iguazu Falls. Upon arriving, we did the usual walk around town looking for hostels with non-dorm rooms at a reasonable price. This time it was raining lightly, and since I left my raincoat in a cab in Bolivia in week 5 of the trip, I was happy we found something acceptable quickly. As we dropped our bags on the bed and went to pay at the reception desk, the skys opened up and the drizzle became a downpour. We arrived just in time. 

View from our room

We decided not to go to the falls that day, so we spent the afternoon looking around town after the rain stopped. There were a few expensive restaurants that looked tasty, and we were on the lookout for a place to get a classic Argentina-style steak dinner, but the places in Puerto Iguazu were just too overpriced. We eventually walked down the hill and found a cheap pizza place for a late lunch. We then walked to a bank across the street to get money, but the ATM returned the card without spitting out any cash so we figured we would try a more heard-of bank.

At this point, we were still fairly sketched out by anybody that looked even remotely suspicious, since we had been robbed in the middle of the day on a main street in BA. During our search for a lunch spot a few shady looking guys with missing teeth and scab-covered faces kept looking at us and crossing the street in our direction (not all together at once, but on different parts of the street at different times). Once, when we saw one of them coming toward us, we ducked into a souvineer shop and pretend to be browsing, only to find the guy sitting on the bench outside the store waiting. When we exited, he approached us and offered us a coupon to a resteraunt... Another guy was promoting a hostel. Either way, they looked like hardcore drug addicts on the prowl and I was ready to shank anyone that messed with us with my less than intimidating camping knife. 

The main bank we had actually heard of was a few long blocks away. On the way there, we knew there wasn't much foot traffic and that we had to pass the area where we had been so sketched out by the meth-head looking salesmen. We decided that Marcela would drop off at the bus station to buy tickets for our next leg, while I ran to the next bank dressed as a jogger -- I remembered from a movie that if you drive fast, you will notice if you are being followed... so the same seemed like it would apply for running. I would then come back, pick her up, and we would return to the safety of the hostel with cash and tickets. It turned out that nobody bothered me on the way, and that the only sketchy characters waiting for me at the ATM were three grungy looking children between 4 and 6 years old, though they did run up like they were trying to snach my withdrawal right when I was almost done. I had to shoo them away before finishing. Unfortunatly, this ATM didn't spit out any cash for me either, and we began to wonder if the ATMs in this town just didn't cater to tourists... which seemed weird. 

http://www.globeimages.net/    ----     View from the sky.  Iguazu Falls.

We woke up early the next day ready to go to the falls! We read it is 4 times wider than Niagra Falls, so we were expecting to be blown away. Pictures online also looked amazing (above), so our focus was on getting to the falls as soon as possible. The bus to the waterfall took about 20 minutes, and the admission was about $13USD. The right side of the waterfall is Argentina, and the left side is Brazil. We were able to go to the right side (Argentina side) of the big upper part (left part of falls) via train and a walkway. Then, after the train back down, we went to the lower part on the right side and took pictures from above and below. It was amazing. 

That evening we tried to go to the third, and final, bank in town. It was a bank we had succeeded in withdrawing money from in the past, and it said VISA on the side of it, so when it didn't work we knew something must be up. We went back to the hostel to call Wells Fargo. What luck! Someone in Las Vegas had attempted to use Marcela's debit card number at a Toys R Us, and since we had informed them that we were out of the country, they blocked the transaction and cancled the card! We were down to our final 75 pesos, with no ATM card (mine was stolen with my wallet when we were robbed, credit cards charge 24% daily so F that)! Marcela arranged to have an emergency card mailed to us in Cordoba, our next stop, and for the meantime she managed to convince American Express to let her use her credit card for a one-time withdrawl. The next day we finally got money, and in the afternoon we boarded the bus to Cordoba.