Around the end of last year, when I visited Tierra del Fuego, I had to pass through a corner of Chile to get to the ferry that crosses the Straits of Magellan, but except for that, Chile will be entirely new to me.  Argentines consider Chile expensive, but by American standards, it will still be economical.  I’m pretty sure I will be able to get a hotel room for $15 a day or less.   The city of 5,500,000 has a subway, which is one of the marks by which I judge a city, being a non-driver who relies on public transportation. 

A further reason for not seeking another Argentine visa is that the South American autumn is just beginning, and I did not want to arrive in southerly Santiago any later in the year.  At an altitude of about 3000 feet, the Andean city is quite cool in the winter.  With the expiry in June of the Chilean visa I expect to be issued, I’ll probably continue to more equatorial Perú, though Lima too has somewhat cool winters.

Next Monday, March 12, I’ll be taking my last little 5-to-7 day Argentine jaunt to Puerto Iguazú in the province of Misiones.  This is the town nearest famous Iguazú Falls, a cataract on the Río Paraná River, one of whose tributaries, the Río Alto Paraná, separates Brazil from Argentina.  The Paraná flows into the Río de la Plata, which empties into the Atlantic at Buenos Aires. The falls can be viewed from either Brazil or Argentina, but when I traveled that way in August, 2005, passing from Ciudad del Este, Paraguay to Foz de Iguaçu, Brazil, I didn’t realize the falls were so close at hand, or I might have planned to stop.  So this may be my last chance to see them, unless I return to Argentina in a year or so.

Puerto Iguazú is also near the confluence of the Río Alto Paraná and the Río Paraguay, which separates Argentina from Paraguay.  This region is called the Triple Frontier.  It is rumoured that smuggling, narcotraffic and other underworld activities are rife in the region, and even that al Qaeda is operating there, if you can believe that.  It was on account of the supposed or supposititious presence of the jihadists in the Triple Frontier that the US moved troops into Paraguay last year.  But I don’t expect anything to happen to me.

Actually, Puerto Iguazú is more distant from Buenos Aires than Santiago is, so I’ll be doing quite a bit of busing in the next three weeks.  But is there anything better to do?

Completing my third visit to Buenos Aires, I will have lived a total of one year in this city, in addition to my 6 months in Brazil and 9 months in Paraguay, with scattered days in Colombia, Ecuador, Perú and Uruguay.

If, for any reason I am denied a visa at the Chilean frontier, I will still have 2 days or so to leave Argentina. 

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