|
  | |  |
Poor Niagra! (Part 2)
Entry 124 of 160 | show all | print this entry |
|
We found our hotel pretty quickly, Jim had had the foresight to book one close to the bus station, which we were both very pleased with as we were so hot and bothered all we wanted to do was get under the shower. Once we'd washed and changed Jim went in search of onward transport for the next day. We'd decided to head straight down to Patagonia as there's a big penguin colony we both wanted to see, but all the birds head north at the end of the month so we wanted to make sure we caught them before they left.
He came back with tickets to Buenos Aires and a whole list of onward buses from there. We discussed our options over dinner and decided to make an early start. We'd catch the bus to the capital at 4:30pm - it'd get in the following morning, then we'd spent the day there, before catching another overnight bus south to Puerto Madryn in what our guidebook intriguingly referred to as the Welsh Heartland.
Breakfast was our first introduction to the famous Argentinian sweet tooth. What with the sugary coffee, the sweet banana milk shake, the sugared cereal with sweet yoghurt and the pastry filled with lashings of dulce de leche we were several steps closer to diabetes. The sugar high saw us practically running to the station to book our bus to Puerto Madryn and then jumping on the next one to the national park.
The experience on the Argentinian side isn't as slick as the Brazilian one, but in many ways it was nicer for it. We got dropped at the visitor centre, but made a bee line straight for one of the scenic walkways. The first thing we noticed, even before the falls, were the numbers of butterflies around. They were everywhere - we'd seen some the day before on the other side, but no where near as many as this.
We thought the view from the Argentinian side was more impressive than from Brazil, if that's possible. We spent about three hours wandering around the paths catching glimpses of the different falls before we paid to don a life jacket and take an inflatable motor boat under a couple of the falls. We spent a couple of minutes taking pictures from below and then had to bundle our cameras into dry sacks before we got absolutely soaked under the chutes.
We squelched our way up the hill, marching to catch the next train to the highest fall- the Garganta del Diablo (or "Devils' Throat"). On the Brazilian side you could get quite a good view around a corner of it, but we'd seen the walkway on the Argentinian side that went right out along the top and we wanted to see what it was like. We really weren't disappointed - the view from the top was amazing - you really got a feel for the vast quantities of water that were thundering over the edge. 1800 cubic metres of water per second hurtle over a 3 kilometre semicircle of rock, 70 metres into the canyon below. The water is so churned up, it looks opaque and the rainbows are just beautiful. It really was mesmerizing.
After we'd ogled for quite a while, we had to get out of the blistering sun so we walked back along the walkway, dodging fellow tourists who'd stopped to take photos of all the butterflies. We bought a sandwich and then caught the little train back to the entrance of the park. We knew we needed to be on the 15:20 bus back to town, in order to have enough time to collect our bags from the hostel and catch our bus to Buenos Aires.
We were slightly early so we walked through the visitors' centre then got on the bus. As were driving into town the heavens very suddenly opened and it was like being under one of the waterfalls again. The roads were rivers in seconds so when we arrived at the bus terminal we sheltered for a few minutes before venturing out to collect our bags. There was a power cut in the town and so we were quite pleased to be leaving. We climbed aboard our bus and prepared to experience the great levels of comfort and service the Argentinian coach services are legendary for.
|
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries from Argentina or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
37 votes 
