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The Argentinian Side
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We arrived in Puerto Iguazu at the Argentinian border with Brazil after a rather pleasant overnight busride. We had semicama beds and got fed a snack, a rather nice dinner (airline quality), and even breakfast right before we arrived. We were two hours late, but it wasn't bad at all.
We dropped off our stuff at the nearby hotel and then prepared to head to the falls. We took the public bus which dropped us off near the entrance. The ticket price was 40 pesos. It came with a map. There are two sets of trails that give you different perspectives on the falls (above and below), and then a train that takes you out to the star attraction: a platform right out to the edge of Devil's Throat Falls.
I have to say that the wildlife inside the park rivals the falls themselves as a tourist attraction. During the day we would come upon several huge lizards hanging out on the path. Also coatis- rather strange raccoon-like animals. We saw a bunch of birds during the day, including a far-off toucan. The lower circuit takes you through the forest and up to a couple small little falls. You walk along the river where speed boats take tourists out to get soaked in the spray. Giant metal catwalks take you over and out in front of the falls. We came upon our first view of some of the falls, and Erin spent most of her time taking pictures and videos of the giant lizard sitting next to her. Then we looked at the view.
From here we watched a fight between two coatis that took place above and below the catwalk. Erin ran back to take a picture and was looking over one side while the cheeky animal came up behind her and posed. The end of the path brought you right up under one of the huge falls. It came thundering down right next to the platform. You got wet. Erin was a big smile. It was a pretty cool feeling standing next to that kind of power. From here we passed dos hermanas (two sisters), a pretty pair of falls, and came back to the beginning. The upper circuit went along the top of all of the falls we had seen from underneath. Really nice views from up here. Erin spent most of the time taking pictures of birds and butterflies. She looked at the falls a little bit. But don´t get in her way when she´s on blurry butterfly picture number 10 and determined not to let it get away this time. She almost killed a couple of unsuspecting tourists. I´ll admit, I took a lot of wildlife pictures too. I was just more polite about it.
The grand finale was Devil´s Throat. To get out there you had to take a train and walk along a big catwalk over the river. We were on one of the last trains so we followed the queue of tourists over the bridges as it began to rain and make everything slippery. You could see the mist rising, then a hole as the shelf dropped away. Then you were standing in the middle of a giant ring of waterfalls. The Devil was to the right. Water collected from all directions to then pour over the falls in a big dirty mass. Thewind would blow spray at us but we were already wet anyways. The noise was deafening. Birds wheeled underneath us. It was pretty magical. It poured on us as we were walking back but we were done so that was okay. All in all a pretty good day at the falls.
~Travis More thumbnails ...
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