Las Cataratas del Iguazú

Hola Chicos!

I am VERY excited to share my adventures in Iguazú with you, which will most definitely be one of the highlights of the trip! I wont blab too much because I think the photos will do a much better job of explaining the beauty and magnitude of these falls.  To fully understand, you'll need a little background, so here it goes:

1. Las Cataratas del Iguazú = The Waterfalls of Iguazu;

2. there are over 250 falls that comprise Las Cataratas del Iguazú, and reach a height of over 80 meters;

3. they are located in a subtropical rainforest in Northeastern Argentina and straddle the Brazilian-Argentine border;

4. we only visited the Argentine side since we would have needed a Brazilian Visa (expensive and harder to come than the Argentine) to cross la frontera (border), though we hear that the Brazilian side has impressive views; and

5. you HAVE TO see them for yourself...  there's no way I'll be able to do it justice with my unpoetic discriptions!

Day 1

Anyways, we arrived in Puerto Iguazú by plane on Saturday around noon, checked-in to our hostel, jumped onto the next bus to the falls, and were snapping photos of the falls by around 2pm.  We only had about four hours to explore before park closing but saw some unreal scenery from the superior and inferior senderos (trails).  From theses view points you can see several falls in one panoramic snap shot.  What you can't see is La Garganta del Diabola, which is located a bit deeper into the scenery and requires a seperate trail to get the full picture.  

Day 2

Today we had about a full day to check out Las Cataratas, but even so there wasn't enought time to see it all! We started the day off with a walk/hike through the subtropical rainforest to a small fall, a bit isolated from the rest.  The fall itself wasn't anything spectactular (with respect to its competition), but the trail was well worth the trek.  The trail is much less visited thus has much more exotic wildlife.  Walking through a subtripical rainforest, natural habitat to jaguars, monkeys, tucans, and more was quite the experience! We missed the jaguars but were walking directly underneath a family of monkeys climbing in the tree canopies above us!

Next was our visit to a group of falls called La Garganta del Diabolo (The Devil's Throat).  The parks service built a system of elevated walkways so that we were able to walk over the calm river waters, up to the bustling point of no return.  This area is a semi-circlular fall that covers about 3km and spits out an impressive 1800 cubic meters per second.  I was there watching it and still have a hard time wrapping my head around it!  It's amazing to see how peacefully the river flows up until the the cascades begin... makes you wonder about the first few people who encountered the falls while floating downstream... ahhhh, row, row, backwards, backwards, faaaaassssteeeerrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!  Welp, there goes another one!  Yikes, gives me the creeps just thinking about it!

On our way out of the park we met Lucca, an Italian guy who moved to Buenos Aires about six months earlier.  It was fun getting to know him on the way back to town, and it turned out that he had one of the clearest forms of spanish that we had heard in a good while.  When we invited him out to dinner, he countered with a homemade italian meal prepared at the hostel he was staying at... we just had to provide the beer!  

Approaching La Garganta

This one!

That's the one!

Wooooooowwwwwwww!

Trying to take a little home with me

View in the opposite direction, from La Garganta looking outward

Unfortunately I cannot share all 300+ photos with you, but hopefully this gives you a taste of the experience!  If you have an itch to travel, these falls are definitely worth the trek!

OK, time for me to get some rest.  Next stop, Mendoza, Argentina!

Muy buenas noches!

Hugs and besos,

Kristen :)