Iguazú, Argentina

Day 39

Travel day! We caught a flight from Buenos Aires to Peurto Iguazú. It was very stormy flying into Iguazú and it felt like the plane was going to fall from the sky! I think I prefer 24 hour buses to that!

We checked in and chilled for the afternoon. It is very thunderstormy here at the moment! We have our own bathroom and a double bed! No more twin beds which is a nice change! Lol I think we got upgraded, we are paying less than $20 AUD a night. We are loving the cheap prices.

Ellen has a new joke, and it isn’t very funny. I told her I wanted to see a monkey. We were walking around town and she was like, oh look a monkey! I turned and looked very excitedly, it was a toy monkey in a shop. Very shit joke. Ellen thinks she is hilarious though!

Day 40

The weather is still very thunderstormy, with the weather clearing up tomorrow. So we decided to have a rest day today and to go to the falls tomorrow!

We went for a run around the town of Puerto Iguazu and we accidentally came across the river which is the three way border between Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. I reckon it would be easy to smuggle people across this border!

For the rest of the day we didn’t do a lot. Just a lot of Netflix, Duolingo & reading! It was kind of nice not to do any planning or thinking for the day!

 

Day 41

Today we went to see the famous Iguazu falls. We had a quick breaky and headed off to catch the bus at 7am. The bus trip is only a 40min from Puerto Iguazú to the Argentinian side of the Iguazú falls. We won’t be going to the Brazil side because we haven’t sorted out our visas for Brazil! An American guy told me he got to the Brazil side by paying a cab driver a bit of money and they will smuggle you in (American’s need the visa as well). Ellen & I don’t really want to get deported yet so we won’t be doing that!

We successfully got in and headed to the boat tour of the falls we had booked in at 9am. Upon entry, and walking around, this place feels like a theme park. So many shops and fountains, and big colourful boards with maps. Crazy that this is all built for a series of waterfalls! There is a train as well!?!

The only way to do the boat tour now is to get a jungle tour & boat tour combined. I think this is because a jetty is currently getting rebuilt. The jungle tour sucked – they put you in the back of a truck and drive on a dirt road with jungle either side of the road. We didn’t see any animals except a few spiders – thankfully it only lasted 20 minutes and we arrived at the boat jetty!

Just near the boat, was a little crocodile (or alligator?) just chilling on the beach. There was an older American couple in front of us, the guy was trying to point it out to the woman, but she couldn’t see it even though it was 20m away. He was getting so angry/frustrated, it was hilarious. He needs to take a chill pill, or she needs to get some glasses. One of the two.

They loaded us into the boat and we were flying off down the river. The falls are so big and there is so many of them. They are so green as well due to the rainforest. Sooo cool.

The guides gave us a quick warning, and nek minnut they were driving us under and through the waterfalls! We got absolutely soaked! The driver must be confident, it felt like if they got it slightly wrong the boat could sink. They drove us through a few different waterfalls which was a bit of an adrenaline rush!

After this we headed back on the boat to the jetty and took the stupid jungle tour truck back to the centre of the theme park. We just saw more spiders – no monkeys, puma’s or tucan’s yet.

We then decided to do the Inferior walk – which doesn’t mean it is the worst walk, but just means it is lower. It was really cool, we could get right up close to some of the waterfalls. There are a lot of people trying to take photos, which again gave it some theme park vibes. But I find if I just wave my selfie stick around in a wild fashion people will move out of our way pretty quick! Look out, crazy Aussies with a selfie stick.

After this, we had some lunch by a river. After about 10 minutes I looked into the river and there was a bloody crocodile/alligator just chilling there! I hope these ones aren’t aggressive, they seem to be everywhere. We also saw a couple of monkey’s! They must have smelt our salami and cheese. Three or four of them came flinging over the trees from branch to branch quick smart. They are cheeky little things. Ellen was guarding her salami with her life!

We then went and took the train up to the top of the park to the Devil’s Throat viewpoint. Now this was impressive. Thousands of litres of water per second pours over this section of waterfall and drops 80m. We can’t even see the bottom of the falls because of the spray of the water. I wish I got a photo of the piles they put in for the walkway. The piles  are literally right on the edge of the falls and the walkway is in the middle of the waterfall. Water falling down 80m all around us. They must have been confident with their piling, how good is engineering! Not sure what I am more impressed with, the waterfall or construction of this walkway…

We then headed back on the train and did the Superior walk. It offered some different views and was still magnificent. But after the Devil’s Throat viewpoint it seemed like nothing!

Throughout the day we saw Coatis (raccoon looking things), Tapir, black monkeys, spiders (with golden colour webs in the sunlight), giant ants, pretty blue and yellow birds, crocodiles/alligators? and cat fish. Elle is sad we didn’t see any Tucan’s.

We then took the bus home, it was a big day walking around looking at waterfalls! We had some dinner and had an early night. I also looked up Iguazu falls deaths… Not sure why I did that, but in 2011, 2 American’s died when the boat sank from going under waterfalls! That was a long time ago though. We felt completely safe 🙂

Iguazu is very touristy and pricey. The infrastructure at the park also shows that but the crowds shouldn’t deter anyone from visiting (just take a selfie stick and throw it around at viewpoints 😉 )

Tomorrow we head onwards across the top of Argentina to Salta! Hopefully a lot less humidity there in the desert!

For more waterfall porn, click here.