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Published: March 31st 2009
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Iguazu Falls
We arrived in Iguazu on a plane from Buenos Aires' domestic airport. Stepping out of the plane immediately reminded us of the heat, humidity, and smell of a tropical rainforest. It's great to be wearing our shorts and sandals again! We grabbed a taxi to our hostel and were happy to see a swimming pool just outside the door to our room. The hostel was a little more expensive than we've been paying, but we decided to treat ourselves on the final stop of our journey.
The
Iguazu falls are the main tourist attraction to this region. The falls are mostly on the Argentine side of the border, although they can also be viewed from the Brazilian side. The falls are stunningly beautiful and we were lucky to visit them on such a nice day.
We started our day early, arriving at Iguazu National Park at about 8 am. We started with the 3km hike of the Macuco trail, hoping to beat the rush, and spot some wildlife. We were all alone on the trail and were rewarded by seeing a troop of
Capuchin monkeys, several
Agoutis, a toucan, a snake, lizards, geckos, some birds that resembled turkeys,
and all kinds of plant life. At one point we thought we heard the growl of a jungle cat. The area has some Jaguars, but they are quite rare. After hearing the growl we said "ok! let's keep walking now!". The trail ends with a neat waterfall that drops about 10 metres into a small lagoon. On our way out we saw many more people coming in, so it was definitely worth it to get an early start. It was a great nature hike!
We were pretty hot after the few hours hike, so we stopped for some frozen fruit bars to cool off. We hopped on the train to the launch point of the two walking trails of the falls: Inferior and Superior. We did the Inferior walk first and were blown away with our first real view of the falls. They are beautiful, and it seemed like each lookout point we reached we got a different view of these spectacular falls. Of course we couldn't stop taking pictures! Along the Inferior walk there is an optional boat that takes you for a ride under some of the falls. It's a blast as everyone on the boat gets
drenched. We wore our bathing suits and put everything else we had into waterproof bags before getting on the boat. The boat also ferries you to the island, where we had our picnic lunch. The island has a scenic lookout that we thought afforded one of the best views of the falls, letting you get pretty close so you can feel the thunderous roar.
After lunch we did the Superior walk and again were quite impressed with the view points. By the time we finished this it was about 3:30 so we caught the train to the Devil's Throat stop. It's about a 20 minute walk from the train stop across a series of bridges and boardwalks to the top of the Devil's Throat. The walkway let's you approach the top of the falls to within a few metres of the drop. It's amazing and the mist soon soaks you through, but you don't want to leave since the view is so amazing!
Iguazu is a little out of the way, and a little expensive to get to, but we think it was worth the trip. The falls are unlike anything either of us has seen before. We
Iguazu Falls
About to go under the falls on the boat headed back to our hotel and enjoyed a really good meal - our final meal of this trip 😞.
In the morning we had a quick breakfast before one of our craziest days of travel:
8:30 - 9:00 taxi to airport
9:00 - 10:30 fly from Puerto Iguazu to Buenos Aires
12:00 - 1:20 bus from BA domestic terminal to BA international terminal
2:40 - 4:00 fly from BA to Santiago, Chile
7:00 - 6:20am the next morning fly from Santiago to Toronto
7:00 - 7:30 driven by Travis' father Art to our condo in Toronto
7:31 - ?? sleep!
Passing customs in Chile we had an interesting thing happen. A few weeks ago we received a jar of honey as a gift from a nice Chilean family. We wrapped the honey and put it in our packs so it wouldn't break. Then we promptly forgot about it. Now we were crossing back into Chile and an x-ray of our pack turned up the jar of honey - something that is banned from carrying across the border. Since it was a few weeks later, we'd forgotten about the honey and didn't declare it on our customs
form. Travis spent about 1.5 hours in an interrogation room trying to explain the situation and avoid a fine. The customs officer didn't speak any English and at one point said "US $4,500 fine". At this point the door swung open and Michelle said the look on Travis' face was not too happy!
Travis later found out he meant "a maximum fine of US $4,500, but honey is most likely US $200". Finally after a few more customs officers, one of them spoke English so Travis was able to tell them the whole story and avoid a fine. Travis is in the Chilean database now but at least we avoided the fine! The customs officer said they would destroy the honey by fire, but Travis suspects it will actually be destroyed by spreading on toast! All's well that ends well.
We arrived back in Toronto after a long 13 hour red-eye flight and were happy to see Travis' father waiting for us at the airport. He gave us a lift to our condo in Toronto and we were asleep before our packs hit the floor!
Chile and Argentina are both beautiful and interesting countries. We'd love to
visit both countries again. We're sad that our travels have come to an end again, but looking forward to our next adventure!
thanks for reading and for all of your comments!
love,
Michelle and Travis
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