South America, Day 10: En route to Iguazu

Before getting to the meat of today's post (well, June 26th's post, anyway), more pictures with people I met in Buenos Aires. First, Chris - he of the pumpkin-puree-pie suggestion:

Chris. Runs trips for American high schoolers to South America, and knows where to find a cheap filling lunch in Buenos Aires.

 Last night while writing the last blog post (the one for the 25th...), I met a bunch of other travelers hanging out in the kitchen, including a Frenchman who'd quit his environmental engineering job to come to South America for a year with no particular plan; Francisco, a Chilean who was stuck in Buenos Aires for two weeks because the volcano was keeping him from flying to Australia, and Damian, a student studying accounting in Buenos Aires. Francisco took offense when I called myself an American (americano, rather than estadounidense), with the argument that anyone in North or South America ought to be able to call themselves "American", and that it was unfair for the USA to have appropriated the term. Better watch my language, I guess...

Damian. Studies accounting in Buenos Aires

I spent essentially all day today packing and in transit to Puerto Iguazu. From Buenos Aires, it's a 20ish hour bus ride up to Puerto Iguazu in the north. Spending 20 hours on a bus might sound like the worst thing in the world, but the long-distance buses here are actually quite nice. I booked the cama con servicio class of service on Crucero del Norte (one down from the top class, of five total) for about US$115, and got a seat like this:

Cama con servicio on Crucero del Norte. It actually reclines most of the way back; just forgot to do so in this picture.

En route, they feed you well: some candy right after departure, dinner, breakfast, and I think a couple snacks along the way too. The food is somewhat better than old-school airline food; don't expect anything too gourmet, but there's plenty of it. They do their best to keep you entertained as well, with a steady stream of movies over the TV screens. I watched Black Swan, but spent the rest of the time reading my book.

Bread, crackers, mini-pizza, chocolate/butter pound cake, and an empanada. This was followed by a main course of mashed potatoes and beef.

After a surprisingly good night's sleep, we arrived at the Puerto Iguazu bus terminal around 10am.