Happy New Year!

The consequences of our plan B style malaria resistance techniques in Iguacu prodominantly corcerned copious amounts of sweat. With temperatures still hanging around the 30's we were covered head to toe. Two elements made this worse. Firstly, no-one ese seemed to be taking any sort of precautions, with everyone lounging round the pool in our hostel covering only the bear minimum of skin. These people were either all on malaria tabs, or had little regard for the advice of the NHS, either way, it made us feel even hotter, but we simply wern't willing to take the risk. Secondly, we couldn't drink the tap water, which is no small matter when your perspirating at a rate comparable to the flow of the natural spectacle you came to witness.
Anyway, we got up and shot to the falls on a very crowded and of course HOT bus!! On arrival we stomped round every path we could lay our feet on and were generally awestruck, not only by the beauty, but also the extensiveness of the falls. Simply amazing, and for me, an easy winner over Niagara, if only for its fantastic national park setting and wildlife compared to Niagara's tacky touristy crap. We saw a toucan, lots of lizards, some strange mammels and an unimaginable amount of butterflies. Now I'm no big butterfly lover, but the little buggers have me converted now, so many beutiful varieties literally everywhere (including all over every person involved it seemed).
We also worked out that by the bus times availiable we were best leaving for Buenos Aires a night earlier. We felt we had seen everything we wanted to in the day we had, would have had little time the next, wanted to get south in good time for new year and also wanted to minimise the time in our hot, potentially malarial situ. So, we boarded the Calsberg bus. Unfortunately I am not saying that Calsberg operated the bus, but if Calsberg made buses... You get my drift. We had an evening meal on board, with drink (including wine if you fancied it), followed by a nightcap of either Whiskey (yes, Whiskey) or Coffee liquor (yes, coffee liquor). Good films on the flat panel TVs, fully reclining uber compfy chairs and then breakfast with fruit juice in the morning. We had heard about Argentinan buses... but this?! And fairly cheap!! We arrived in BA the day early, and planned the time we have here.
Buenos Aires is one of those cities that we both fell in love with on arrival. Some cities you grow to love, so you may have a great time in and love them for the memories, some, like Chicargo and San Fran before are simply amazing right from the moment you touch the soil and take your first whiff of the culture. We were therefore aready in love before our city wander in the day yesterday (New years eve), but it keeps getting better, and now we have had one of our best new years ever...
After changing hostel to the one we had already booked before our change of plans we learnt there was a bit of a BBQ party going down. Naturally we were inclined to attend, but we really wanted to be out in the street at midnight. So, we went and bought some 80p botles of wine and 50p bottles of beer (unbeleivable!), got very merry in the hostel and made some chums, but at 11.30 we wandered to an Obelisk in the city which is known as a kind of symbol of Buenos Aires hoping that other people would have the same idea. It was lovely. Not a heaving crowd but a sizeable congregation surrounded the structure and by the clock in the distance we measured the moment and cheers and fireworks lit up the night all around. It wasn't some eic specticle, but in a way it was so intimate and homely that I loved it in every way. As more fireworks were dotting the sky a group of lads, who were clearly a choir or similar starting singing carols, seemingly completely impromptue, and completed the atmosphere.
Even better, when we got back to the hostel we caught the massive hunk of chicken and slab of beef that BBQ man had laid on the coals and had an amzazing meat fest and met more peeps, including some crazy dutch, eating till about half two.
I hope everyone got as much out of the night as we did, it is certainly a new year I will never forget. All the best to everyone for the next 12 months...