Day 3 — Iguazú, Argentina
After a sleepy morning, spent mostly looking for a working ATM machine (it is advisable bringing cash to exchange if needed, as we never found for the whole holiday a cash machine working with Italian credit cards, or at least it wasn’t clear how to make them work), we moved back to the airport to depart to Iguazú, in the very north of the country. The flights (a connection in Buenos Aires was required) gave us the chance a little bit more to gain more energies for the following day which was planned to be spent fully on both the Brazilian and Argentinian side of the Iguazú Falls. Arriving at destination at around 8 p.m. we were also lucky to enjoy the warm colours of the sub-tropical sunset and the short car journey to our hotel, which was immersed in the forest.
Day 4 — Iguazú Falls, Argentina & Brazil
After an early breakfast, we were picked up by our guide by car from our hotel. She took us first to the Brazilian side of the falls (which is much shorter than the Argentinian one) to, at least for the morning, avoid large crowds and too much heat. The visit was of just over two hours, whereas once we got to the Argentinian side the walks were much longer and busier; this probably took around 4 hours of steady walk. The view was definitely better from the Brazilian side and more scenic if you want to take pictures, but in Argentina thanks to the help of a series of walkways you can get much closer to the waterfalls to enjoy fully their roaring noise and splashes.
In the late afternoon, we got back to our hotel to take our luggage and go to the airport. We had a small argument with the hotel manager and we fully realised how very few people actually speak any word of English, even in touristy areas. From that moment, we decided (with much more success) to just talk plain and slow Italian, and ask the locals to do the same with Spanish. At around 8 p.m. we departed from Iguazú and flew back to Buenos Aires. There, we took a cab to our hotel in the rather central district of Recoleta.
Day 5 — Buenos Aires, Argentina
In the morning the guide who welcomed us the very first day in the capital took us a for quick car tour of the city which lasted about 2 hours. We managed to get an idea of the main points of interest and districts (such as Hollywood and La Boca, where we also stopped for half an hour). That way we were able to decide ourselves what to do in the remaining of our day.
Just before lunch, with the guide, we also had a quick look at Micro Centro the real business and political centre of the city. The only district we didn’t get to see at all that day was Puerto Madero, the newest of the boroughs, but we had already planned to spend our very last night there, after coming back from the cruise. Even though initially we felt not much was there to see in Buenos Aires (and partly this still holds true), we loved it after a while for its general atmosphere which reminded us a lot about Cairo (in Egypt), where we lived for a few years. In the evening we organised a Tango night. Our Italian travel agency booked us on a evening that included the dinner as well as professionals performing the dance on a stage. We liked it, but you could feel everything was prepared just for tourists and what Tango really is should have rather been investigated in a less commercial Tangueria.