Iguazu

We flew to the Port of Iguazu to go to the Falls of Iguazu national park on Tuesday. The trip got a somewhat rocky start when we arrived at the airport and were told by Aerolineas Argentinas that our 12:30 pm flight had left at 10 am and the 3pm flight was full. A call to our travel agent got things straightened out and in 10 minutes she had us on a LAN flight leaving within an hour. I sat by the plane window watching the city give way to fields, floodplains and finally huge pine plantations mixed with subtropical forest.

We stayed at the St. George hotel near the bus station in Iguazu. It's a small town with an astonishing number of hotels and restaurants. We had forgotten that our hotel had a pool and hadn't brought our bathing suits with us, so our first stop was a shop where we we could buy suits. The weather in Iguazu was warm and humid and we were not passing up the opportunity for using the pool. (Why is it that it takes me days to find a bathing suit I like in the US and yet under pressure I can find one in 5 minutes?!) The tourist information booth downtown was very helpful suggesting an itinerary for visiting the park and a location in town for a refreshing licuado (like a smoothie without yogurt). We had dinner at a restaurant across the street from our hotel where I got a good pizza and Jake had matambre, which in Iguazu turned out to be strips of grilled pork (in Mendoza matambre was more like a rolled stuffed meat).

The next morning we entered the hotel restaurant for breakfast and were faced with swarms of tourists around the generous buffet all vying to get their breakfast before their tour buses left. We caught a local bus at the bus terminal for 5 pesos each way that leaves every half hour for the park. Once in the park we decided to see the smaller falls first since it seemed like all the tour groups were headed to the Garganta del Diablo, the big fall. We also signed up for "La Gran Aventura" a ride through the jungle followed by a boat on the river. The jungle ride was on a big truck where we were with a whole tour group from Uruguay. We did see coatis on the ride (see next post on animals), but it otherwise you could see a lot more just walking one of the trails in the park. The boat ride though was thrilling. The boat goes a few kilometers up the river and then goes right up to some of the smaller falls. We got completely drenched going under 2 waterfalls. The Uruguayans were very enthusiastic and got the boat captain to go under one of the falls a 2nd time. Jake and I had brought a partial change of clothes, but hadn't realized we would get so thoroughly wet. We had to walk up a fairly long trail to get to restrooms where we could change. I ended up wringing out my wet clothes and wearing them since they acted as a natural air conditioner. We had a hamburger at one of the cafes for lunch and did some up close coati viewing. The coatis beg for food and will come right up to visitors. Despite numerous signs warning against feeding the animals I heard one lady say she would give one a Chiclet of all things! After lunch we took the jungle train to the Garganta del Diablo stop. Here there is a metal catwalk that takes you out over the broad, shallow river to the top of Garganta del Diablo, the largest waterfall. The power and breadth of the falls is truly impressive. And the setting is so green and lush that it seemed much more beautiful than many waterfalls I've seen.

We had signed up for a full moon tour for the evening, so we went back to the hotel for a rest before catching the bus back out to the park. We chatted with some young Americans from Washington and Alaska and a Canadian at the bus station. They were traveling for a couple months and spoke very little Spanish. The full moon tour is not really a tour, it is just an opportunity to see the falls in the moonlight. The guides herd you onto the train and then you are let loose at the catwalk for about an hour. The falls really were striking in the moonlight. It looked like a black and white movie. I tried to take photos, but my night photography skills failed me. A picture just couldn't describe the scene though.

We had opted for dinner in the park, so after our tour we went to the restaurant where they have an all you can eat buffet of decent food. There is a grill of course, but we didn't notice it until we had helped ourselves from the buffet line, so we just had some ribs off the grill. Finally we caught the 11:30 pm bus back into town.

The next day, Jake opted to hang around town, but I went back to the park to walk the Macuco trail, a smaller trail that leads to a waterfall and pool. There weren't many people on the trail at all and it was a great place for seeing wildlife. There are animal photos posted in the next post. The best part was seeing a troop of monkeys looking for food in the tree canopy. One baby was being carried by its mom. There were at least 6 monkeys in the troop. The butterflies were also amazing. Big blue morpho butterflies flitted across the path and whenever I would stop little butterflies would land on me to drink sweat. Any mud puddle had dozens of orange and yellow butterflies around it.

Finally we caught our flight back to BA. This time the Aerolineas Argentina flight was delayed a half hour. The announcements on the monitor kept changing and when they announced pre-boarding it took them awhile to correct the flight number. They didn't have any kind of system for boarding, everyone just stood up and got in a big jumbled line to get on the plane. We strongly recommend trying to fly LAN instead of Aereolineas Argentinas whenever possible!