So far...

So it's been a week since we arrived but it feels a lot longer.

Paraguay

We've packed a lot in, visiting three different countries in that time - Argentina, Uruguay and now Paraguay.

We're currently in a place called Encarnacion, on the boarder with Argentina. It's pretty non-de-script, which is completely different to the impression we had got from the guidebook, which had made out that it was amazing. We were expecting a colonial town with cobbled streets, churches and beautiful plazas. Instead we got concrete buildings, tacky signs and the feeling that no one really wanted to live there. The hostel was great (cheap and clean) but there wasn't enough to really keep us there any longer than necessary.

However, before Paraguay, this is what we've got up to:

Esteros del Ibera (Argentina)

We got up at 5.30 am this morning and hitched a lift (for 50 pesos!!) out of a beautiful nature reserve in the north of Argentina called - Esteros del Iberia.

View Larger Map).

It's a pretty remote place, which we got to on a beaten-up old bus along a dirt road, through flatlands and pampas, passing all sorts of strange animals. It also was pretty much off the gringo trail. It seems more tourists miss it out and head straight up to Iguazu Falls, which is about 6 or 7 hours north by bus.

Getting here was well worth it - an hour after we had arrived we were on a little boat getting up close to crocodiles and capybaras (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capybara) and other weird creatures and practising our bad Spanish on the ranger and the other guy on the boat - an Argentine version of Crocodile Dundee.

Colonia del Sacremento

We had spent a few days previously in a colonial town called Colonia del Sacremento, just across the water from Buenos Aires in Uruguay. It's a fortified old town which we got to by boat - just a couple of hours from Argentina.

The town itself was pretty touristy but extremely relaxed and the hot weather can't fail to make you feel great. The highlight was lying in the central plaza, looking up and seeing two hummingbirds directly in the tree above me.

We also found ourselves engaging in a conversation with a group from Texans - "The problem with the UK is there is just too much immigration". Yikes! We had our first try of mate - which was interesting. Definitely will take some getting used to...or not.

Travel dilemmas

We were back in Buenos Aires that evening, having only just caught the ferry (turns out the clocks change in Uruguay).

Once again we found ourselves flicking through the guidebook trying to work out our route around South America. This had a number of problems - namely we haven't booked anything other than our airfare out of Rio and there are too many options to choose from. We keep changing our minds every couple of hours / beers.

There's also the element of cost. Argentina is expensive and trying to book flights or boats from one place is costly.

It's also beginning to dawn on us how massive South America is - the road from Buenos Aires to Mercedes, for example, took just over 8 hours and we arrived at 2 in morning! It's less than a inch on the map!!

Where next?

We're going to stay in Paraguay for a couple of days and go and see the Jesuit communities a little further north. They were the subject of the film staring Jeremy Irons and Robert DeNiro - The Mission. Great film.

However, there doesn't appear to be much else to do in Paraguay, so it'll be onto Iguazu falls on Friday / Saturday and then across to Brazil.

This could all change though...