Goodbye Brazil; Hello Big Steaks

Along with kittens and warm woolen mittens, I'm not sure I'd put Brazil on my list of favourite things if I'm honest. Maybe because I've had a shitty cough since Rio and have never been a big fan of large cities, which were predominant in Brazil, but also because I have no comprehension of Portuguese beyond saying thank you. Ilhe Grande was magical and definitely has a place in my heart, but it felt a world away from the Brazil that I've travelled through.

For the above reasons, I went to town on convincing my temporarily attached fellow travellers to skip straight over to the Argentinian side of the falls. Barely over the border and my mind turned to what any red-blooded testosterone-filled males would turn to: Steak. Big, juicy, tender, grass-fed, loved, cuddled and cared-for-until-it-hit-your-plate Steak. It became more of a quest than a desire; forget the holy grail, it was one man in search for the biggest and tastiest steak in Argentina (meaning the world since Argie steaks are the best a man can get).

But first I had to conquer the most dramatic waterfall in the world: the Iguassu. Setting the border boundary between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, the Iguassu Falls consist of a shed load of rivers converging at the Garganta del Diablo (the meaning was lost many years ago, but some say it means a whales penis... or 'Devil's Throat' if you so wish). Once inside the national park we caught two cheeky little trains straight up to see the bad boy, and the bad boy we saw. It's difficult to put into words the indescribable awe in watching the main part of a river plummet into a white, roaring mist of nothing, and sadly my pictures will probably not show it in its full glory either, as within moments of whipping out my camera it was soaked by the ubiquitous spray that comes from the waterfall.

After being soaked, broken and humbled by the devil's very own throat, a silver tongued park guide took the golden opportunity of selling us every tour under the sun (or mist as it was), and we were soon being paddled through a preserved part of the park seeming with toucans, spiders and other weird and wonderful things. Next up on our array of "tours of a lifetime" was 'the shower', which consisted of a speedboat whisking you off under a waterfall to have a ton of river water dumped on you. Pretty banterous and definitely worth the few pounds that it cost.

Upon returning to the town where we were staying, we came upon a funky looking bar with possibly the most strange and lazy service mankind has ever seen. When asked where the biggest and best steak in town was, the proprietor, strangely enough, confessed in a cautiously low whisper that his steaks were possibly the biggest hidden treasure of Argentina. This was enough to get my blood flowing and my 9 companions and I placed ourself at the table. However when returning to the bar for the menu, was told by the proprietor that he was "a little busy" and handed me his order pad to take down the food and drinks required. My heart sank almost as low as the size of his tip, yet I still had to try this hidden treasure of Argentina at any cost. I duly took the order of 10 steaks and returned to the bar, where the proprietor proceeded to tell me that he only had 5 and that we'd have to go down to the second best steak house in Argentina which, funnily enough, happened to be just down the road. The steak was very tasty and we all left happy in the end.

Today I'm taking a day off my busy and troublesome existence as this shitty cough won't go away and some time reading, chilling and watching the rain pitter-patter on the pool may help it dissipate. Tomorrow I'm back on my own again for at least a short period of time, so I'm going to go to the bustling humdrum of Ciudad del Este - a reputedly mental but cheap bazaar town where you can buy anything and everything dirt cheap. From there I'm looking to try and get myself off the conveyor belt between Rio and Buenos Aires and visit some old Jesuit Mission ruins in southern Paraguay. Exciting times ahead!