After Iguazú we were still not sure whether to go to Bolivia through Paraguay or through Argentina. We postponed the decision and went to the Jesuit Reductions on the Argentinian/Paraguayan border (actually on Argentinian side).
San Ignacio are ruins of Jesuit town in really bad shape, but huge in size. Somewhere I read it was the least visited UNESCO World Heritage Site in the world. That kind of speaks for itself. On the other hand, the weather was not nice – it was raining – so we had the whole place for ourselves which made it more impressive experience.
In San Ignacio we finally decided to not go to Paraguay again. We went to Posadas to change all remaining millions of Paraguayan money. From Posadas we wanted to catch a bus going west. Without a guide book for Argentina we had no clue where to. I heard there is a big city called Salta in the west, so we were asking for a bus there, but all were full. One of the ticket sellers suggested we should go to Tucuman instead, that it is a tourist destination only 5 hours from Salta. We never heard of it before, but decided to get on the bus, which left 30 minutes later. 8am next day, we were there.
After the mostly hot east, this was really cold and rainy place. But the local culture of Italian style espresso cafes made up for the weather.
In the hostel we shared a dorm with a secret agent. He said he worked for the governments. What exactly he did for them? Change them. But at the time being he was on some sleeping pills and did not seem to be able to survive even ceremonial gunshots.
Tucuman is a place, where Argentina declared independence in 1816. Every night there is Luz y Ruidos show in the Casa de la Independencia, which we could not miss, or at least we thought so. I was reasonably entertained until they had to slowly read the name of all 29 signatories of the declaration. But Misa did not enjoy this hour long show as it was all in Spanish and “if it was her project these days, her friends would laugh at the simplicity”.
Overall Tucuman was after a long time a city, where I could imagine to live for some time.