Days 7, 8 & 9 - Iguazu and Buenos Aires

The Germans and I head to Argentina together the next day, and I try semi-successfully to put the still broken phone out of my mind. I mentally kick myself for deciding to wait till one of my old kindle or old iPad breaks before replacing both with an iPad mini 4.

I had the driver drop me at the hotel, while the guys carried onto the park, I caught them up later. The Argentinian park is bigger, and has both a lot more infrastructure and visitors. Unfortunately, the entry area does bring Disneyland to mind, with a massive rotunda, painted wide concrete paths, and a train taking you most of the way between key points. My late-ish arrival meant I arrived at a similar time to seemingly bus loads of pensioners and their umbrella-carrying guides, which contributed to the impression. I ducked and weaved for a bit and eventually got free of the crowds. By the end of the day I'd walked all four major trails. The first and really the highlight is the garganta del diablo (devil's throat), which goes to the big falls, and is spectacular, the winds that the falls generate aren't constant, creating irregular sprays of water. I follow this up with the superior and inferior trails, which explore minor falls, that were impressive in their own right except by comparison.

I stopped briefly as a hangry feeling settled in, and buy a couple of empanadas, then head for the last of the trails, the Macuco trail, named for a local bird species, which lays blue eggs, I finish up the walk just in time for the mosquitoes to start buzzing around me, though they are thankfully deterred by my super strength DEET. I head back to town for a shower and to chill out for a bit before returning to the park for the full-moon tour. The night is perfect, not a cloud in the sky, the previous nights tour had been cancelled due to cloud cover. The tour starts at 9:30 and is capped at 120 people, I think there are probably 90 of us, and only 7 in the English speaking group, and we chat on the train out to the devil's throat trail. The 1100m long trail is a raised metal platform, and the joins feel more slippery by moonlight than they did while walking the same path 10 hours earlier. I do my best to race out to the end of the trail, spend 20 minutes there and dawdle back to the trailhead, shaking off most of the tour group, the quiet beauty of the river and falls by moonlight diminished by camera flashes and selfie sticks. I take a few photos, but none that do it justice, it was gorgeous.

There is a statue in the Iguazu airport of the patron saint of Brazil, Maria, and quite a few people stopped to pray at it while waiting to board. They all clap after the plane lands safely, so maybe there's a big fear of flying here and that's what they were praying for. As a people they seem to expect or enjoy queuing, lines form 20 minutes before there are even staff at the check in counter, and again at immigration and the boarding gate. I join them for the last one, it's a small plane, and I'm in the back row, where there's no passenger overhead locker, so I need to nab a spot for my pack in someone else's section, and it looks like they've all been shopping in Paraguay and Brazil. Argentina has rampant inflation, the peso worth a third what it was 2 years ago. Black market currency exchanges are everywhere, with people every 10 metres on major streets calling out "cambio, cambio".

I land in Buenos Aires at lunchtime the following day, the onboard snacks of an Havanna lemon galletita (cookie) and an alfajor, a traditional Argentinian sweet biscuit with a caramel (dulce de leche) filling, this one dipped in chocolate, are delicious, and I spend the next 20 minutes thinking about how to get more of these. On disembarking it's clear that won't be a problem, there's a cafe selling bulk bags of these at the boarding gate, and they have half a dozen cafes around town. I think I've just found my Argentinian happy place!

Checking into my hotel Patios San Telmo, another winner, I ditch my bag and head in search of an iPhone repair shop, or shop selling iPads. I'm out of luck, Argentina is the most expensive place in the world to buy Apple products, there are plans to put the first apple store here next year, a basic mini iPad costs $1600 AUD, and it's not even the latest model. My hopes for an effective repair job go down the drain too. I start peering over people's shoulders and they're all carrying Samsungs. An hour or two of walking down the main shopping street walking into each of the many technology shops doesn't improve matters. I bite the bullet and pick up a Samsung tablet, at least it's only $300AUD. I can feel a weight lifting off my shoulders, a couple of hours of charging and downloading later, I have an alarm clock, email and my travel critical apps, things are looking up!

I set-up and chill out in the hotel until the local dinner time of 9:30, which is closer to my usual bed-time than dinner-time, but when in Rome... I head to Gran Parilla del Plata for an Argentinian steak dinner, and order the smallest steak on the menu, 450 grams, I think you could generously say I ate the left corner of my meal, the accompaniments were delicious, white beans in an oily brine, something that was dark green and a third one that had chillies in it, all washed down with a half bottle of Malbec. I'm at an outside table, which is thankfully heated, there's easily a 10 degree difference in the temperature from the last few days. A few locals are out walking their dogs, and more than a couple of the dogs look at me hopefully, no doubt smelling the steak.

The next day I hit the highlights, and start out with a morning walk to La Boca (the mouth), a riverside working-class area with a famous street called El Caminito, which has brightly painted ramshackle buildings. On the way there a few side streets are almost completely blocked off with heavy duty metal barricades that are maybe 7 feet tall, and I wonder about riots, though the area seems safe enough. A couple of the nicer townhouses do have pretty heavy duty fences, topped with multiple rows of spiked reinforced steel which curves back a few feet into their front yard. I take my photo, and start walking back along a different route, as Lonely Planet mentioned I should walk by the local juniors football club. This is where my complete lack of interest in soccer comes in, one of the most popular soccer clubs in Argentina is called Boca Juniors, the grounds I walked past wasn't filled with 8-year-olds kicking the ball around, it was a stadium that dwarfed ANZ. The barricades were getting put in place because there was a game that afternoon at 5pm, and the ticket booths are set up on local streets. Apparently people sneaking in is a big problem, there are already people inside the zone, wearing their team colours and with day packs, I assume without tickets, or why else would you be there 8 hours before kick-off. The other big scam is pass-outs, the stadium doesn't have allocated seating everywhere, so people get ferried in using a ticket that has already been used for one or more fan. Four bus loads of police in riot gear pull-up as I'm walking past (at 9am), their batons in their belts and protective masks in hand. Things can get a bit out of hand at these games!

I start walking north again, back to San Telmo, where the weekend antique fair is underway, and stop at a local cafe for the standard Argentinian breakfast, cafe con leche y tres media-lunes, 3 mini glazed croissants called half-moons and a milky coffee. It's a little too sweet for my liking for breakfast, and I carry on through the markets, stopping to browse at some of the truly random antiques.

I walk past the pink palace, the government building, and Evita's balcony, then along the Plaza de Mayo where there is an event called "Vamos Buenos Aires", celebrating local food and culture, there's a priest on the stage leading everyone in prayer. I weave my way up to Recoleto, home to the must-see cemetary, with family mausoleums topped with fabulous sculptures. Strolling through yet another market, this one artistic, I head through parks towards the leafy suburb of Palmero, where I sit in one of the parks for some people watching.

A late pasta lunch follows, at a little Italian joint called brocollino. Thinking I'd learned my lesson the night before I order entre-sized tortellini with tomato and mushrooms. I leave with another take-away bag. I plan to have a nap and head out late that night to a Milonga (tango club), but the nap turns into a deep sleep and I decide I'll try again on my return to Argentina on Thursday night, as I'm off to Uruguay for the next three days. I'm waiting for the ferry now, six-pack of mixed Havanna alfajores in hand, I need to try all the flavours, purely for research purposes.