After schmoozing with Brazilian celebs last week my wife and I decided that we (I) deserved a hard-earned break somewhere far away from São Paulo. Somewhere where people wouldn’t recognise me in the street.

And so we took advantage of the long holiday weekend to travel down to Foz do Iguaçu in the south-west of Brazil.

Map copyright PlanetWare.com

From Foz, which is close to both the borders of Paraguay and Argentina, you can visit the extraordinary Iguaçu Falls – we intended to view them from both Argentina and Brazil.

However, this is South America so, you know, the best laid plans of mice and men and all that.

Saturday was lost to an epic storm whilst Sunday was even more disastrous. At the entrance to the Argentinian side they wouldn’t accept Brazilian Reais or payments by card. Then, the ATM wouldn’t give us any money.

Frustrated, we crossed back over the border and instead went to the Brazilian side where they accepted Reais, Argentinian Pesos, Dollars, payments by card and even bloody Euros.

Brazilian inefficiency? Who would dare ever speak of such a thing? Pah!

And the view wasn’t too bad either. Continue Reading