Puerto Iguazu,
Litoral,
Argentina
Friday, May 9, 2008
Our 16 hour bus ride from Florianopolis broke down for 4 hours at about 4 in the morning, but we actually got an incredible view of the sunrise across the mountains. We stayed on the bus and went back to sleep, thinking that maybe the problem would be fixed at some point, however a few hours later we were woken by the driver and realised that us and a couple of americans who had also gone back to sleep, were the only ones left on the bus. Apperently another bus had come past and picked up most of the people, we had to wait for another bus to come past and got to Foz de Iguacu on the Brazilian side of the falls eventually. We spent about 4 hours in the Brazilian national park of the Falls, it was absolutely stunning, the Brazilian side has much better panoramic views of the falls, from a little further away, it is an awesome sight, the sheer volume of water and the speed at which it moves with such force is incredible. We did a couple of the trails along the falls and you get fantastic views of the 'Devils Gorge' - one of the most amazing parts of the falls, from below. The weather was great, sunshine and blue skies, so all the spray from the falls creates rainbows all around. We crossed the border in the bus and arrived at Puerto Iguacu, the town on the Argentinian side of the falls, where our hostel for the night was. Its a really nice hostel, but very big, 200 beds, has a swimming pool and loads of facilities, but a veyr impersonal feel and i guess people only really stop here for a night or two so its a bit of a wierd atmosphere. Anyway they messed up our booking so there was no space in the dorms, so we got a private room for the same price and we just checked out now and ended up getting one night for free aswell, so a bit of a result in the end.
We spent all of yesterday on the Argentinian side of the falls, there is more to do there, more trails and viewpoints of the falls and a boat trip too. You get much closer to the falls from the Argentine side and there's a view point right on top of the falls at Devils Throat, the first place we went to and probably the most imprssive of the entire falls. It's really difficult to describe but its just an astounding sight and we spent ages just standing and looking. The boat trip was a good laugh, 12 minutes of getting sped in and out of the spray from some of the highest falls and basically just getting totally drenched, the coolest part was the way rainbows form around you in almost a full circle whilst you are inside the spray.
We came back and cooked pasta again, this time it worked out at 66p each for dinner, so pretty good going, although the all you can eat barbeque for a fiver was very tempting. Played football again last night which was great, im really enjoying having a bit of exercise, i was on a team of all Argentines and we won 7-1.
Today we are just dossing about in the hostel waiting for our bus to Buenos Aires tonight, for about half the price of the buses in Brasil we have a 'full cama' bus with food, free drinks, and movies.
