17TH - 20TH NOVEMBER

Our next destination was Paraguay, we weren’t planning much time there, we just wanted to see the Jesuit ruins at Trinidad, only around 30km into the country. I’ll apologise in advance for the misleading title of this diary, as the first part is actually still in Argentina, but didn’t really warrant a separate entry as it was just a stopping point on the way!! Our first leg was a four and a half hour bus journey from Iguazu to Posadas, an Argentine City just across the Rio Parana from Encarnation, the Southernmost Paraguayan city. Before we left we booked our flights from Rio Gallegos to Ushuaia. They were a bit expensive, but we’d heard stories about buses there being booked up days in advance, and didn’t want to take any chances with missing our Antarctica trip! While we were at it we got our hostel booked as well - for much the same reasons. The bus journey was great, our first journey on a semi-cama bus, which means semi reclining. The seats have a funky leg

rest which folds down from the seat in front and supports your calves, making it very comfortable. We were also treated to the on board entertainment - the busses have loads of TV screens, and show films. The first one was a little bewildering though, appearing to be a Chinese martial arts film badly dubbed into Spanish and featuring Luke Goss from the ill faked, inventively named and dreadful pop group Bross!! The second was better though, as it was in English with Spanish subtitles - a great way to learn Spanish - allegedly!!

We arrived in Posadas not really knowing where we were. We’d booked a room in a hotel on the internet, but it was off the map in our Lonely Planet. We decided we’d have to take a taxi and hope that he didn’t take us the long way round as a lot of taxi drivers around the world, including Rio, have been prone to do with tourists. Thankfully we seemed to go straight