(Becca) Hello. Here we are again, now in Brazil and melting due to the intense heat and humidity. So following on from the last time we crossed over the border from Bolivia into Argentina and visited the city of Salta. Our plan here was to go paragliding but after a couple of enquiries we discovered than someone had died doing it a few weeks ago so decided to give it a miss and take the cable car up to the top of the hill to view the city. Beautiful. Then it was my birthday which was a lot of fun despite the long driving day on the truck. Byron had bought me a bag of delicious treats including muesli, dried fruit and yoghurts. Now you might think it strange that I got such healthy treats for my birthday but the food in South America is so bad (mainly meat and stale white bread) that they were the best treats I could have wished for. We had birthday cake and some of the group had kindly decorated the truck with balloons and streamers. Lovely. Next stop was the Iguassu Falls, one of the the most amazing waterfalls in the world. Our trip to the Argentinian side was rather washed out unfortunately with the most torrential rain I have ever seen. We were soaked through despite all the waterproof gear and it took 3 days to dry out! We managed about 3 photos the entire day and spent most of the time sitting in a cafe trying to shelter from the storm. Fortunately the Brazilian side was viewed on a much sunnier day and was totally spectacular. We also managed a trip to a bird park which housed many of the local species of birds. They were absolutley spectacular and many of them very tame. We are very excited about seeing some  of them in the wild now over the next few weeks.

Next stop was the Itaipu Dam which is the biggest hydroelectric dam in the world producing enough electricity to provide power for 50 million people. It´s 8 km long and each of the 20 penstocks (the tubes containing the flowing water)  holds same volume of water as half an Iguassu Falls! An amazing feat of engineering.

Next we opted for a trip to Paraguay and the city of Cuidad del Este - a bonus extra country. Hoorah. It was an interesting 2 hours to say the least. The difference between here and the more developed Brazil was immediately obvious, lots of derelict buildings interspersed with air conditioned shopping malls, rubbish everywhere and people peeing in the street! However we got the stamp in the passport which amused the taxi driver as you don´t actually have to stop! But of course us gringos wanted the evidence.

Then another long driving day yesterday to take us to Bonito, an ecological zone near the Pantanal, today we are having a day relaxing and then we´re off to a waterfall and cave tomorrow........more about those next time

TTFN

Becca

xx

PS. Thanks to everyone for your lovely Birthday messages, they were very much appreciated. xxxxx