Bus Marathon, and some Waterfalls

After Piriápolis, I headed out to Uruguay´s trademark tourist town: Colonia. As you may have inferred from the name, the main attraction is the cute colonial archetechture. Admittedly, I´m not very into colonial archtechture, but I couldn´t leave without spending at least a day there. The town actually was undeniably cute. The treelined streets were cobblestoned and quiet, dotted with sidewalk cafés and artesan shops, and plazas abound.

The majority of tourists in town arrive for the day from BA via ferry across the Río Plata, which is an alarming chocolately brown. This is caused by silt which is carried down from the Amazon, but it´s still a bit unsettling. After walking up and down every street in the historic bit of town, climbing the lighthouse, and eating at one of the sidewalk cafés with a couple of American girls I met, I had pretty much covered the Colonia tourist circuit. So, I headed back to my hostel to cook dinner and go to sleep early. I had a grand plan for the following day that would take me from Uruguay all the way up to Puerto Iguazu in Argentina, starting at 5:40am, via 4 buses and taking close to 24 hours. But, that didn´t exactly work out. I made it for the 5:40 bus, got off at the teeny town of Fray Bentos, Uruguay to catch a bus across the border. Unfortunately I tried to do this on Palm Sunday, and the country had pretty much shut down. The bus that was supposed to take me across the border wasn´t running that day, and as I found this out I looked up to see the bus I had arrived on (that would have taken me to a more populated border town to make the crossing) pulling out of the station. NOO! So, out of options, I was stuck in the teeny town of Fray Bentos, with nothing open. No hostels in town, I ended up at a two star hotel (living the good life...), and had myself a picnic in the nearby park. Could be worse places to get stuck, at least the weather was gorgeous. The next day I caught the bus that I had just missed the day before, and it took me to the populated border town, and I crossed to Argentina. There I picked up a bus headed for Puerto Iguazu, pretty seemlessly. After I got out of Fray Bentos, the entire ordeal took 22 hours. I could have made my 4 bus, 24 hour goal if I had only picked the right border crossing the first time...

Made it into Puerto Iguazu at 8:30am. The only thing to do in Puerto Iguazu is to go to the Iguazu National Park and see the massive waterfalls there, and so that is what I did. Me, and the rest of Argentina. The place was packed. I guess it´s always packed, just a bit more so during Holy Week. I had booked a 7:30pm bus back to BA that morning, not wanting to deal with finding a hostel. I made it to the falls at 11am, and spent the day dutifully going to every lookout point in the park and trying to dodge the crowds. The falls really were beautiful. The main attraction, El Garganta del Diablo (throat of the devil) is an impressive sight. The entire park is linked by a series of catwalks that get you out close to the falls. At times, real close to the falls. Iguazu reportedly has the highest annual flow of water. I don´t doubt it.