Day 21 - Argentine Iguazu Falls

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Up at 06:15 to check out as Reggie and Luis the driver were picking us up at 07:30 and taking our bags along as they will take us straight to the airport after today’s excursions. Took almost an hour to cross the border back into Argentina to see the Falls from the other side. First we had to check-out of Brazil at the Federal Police office then drive over the bridge to check-in to Argentina. Half of the inside walls of the bridge are painted in gold and green for Brazil, then changed to the sky blue and white of Argentina.

The Argentinian Parque Nacional Iguazu is well set-out with large paths and nicely maintained jungle (if you maintain jungle that is) and the walkways over the river are made of metal grates similar to the ones at Perito Moreno Glacier. When you first enter the park there is the option to walk the 4kms or so to the river walkways or to pay extra to catch a small train. There are two stations but Reggie told us to stay on the train as the second stop which is at the top of The Devil’s Throat is the most popular stop and it was better to go there first. It was still a fair walk from the train stop and there were numerous lookouts over the tops of each waterfall before reaching The Devil’s Throat. From the final lookout you are right on top of the falls and the sheer volume and power of the water is quite over-whelming. You could stand there and just look at it for ages as it was quite hypnotic. Reggie said we wouldn’t get very wet but he stayed back and said he would wait for us and when you went to the furthest point it would feel like a light spray when suddenly you got a heavy spray when the water crashed onto the rocks in a particular way. Luckily I had put my camera’s waterproof cover on anyway.

We had spent about two hours on this first section, then walked back to the train station for the ride back to station 1. From here there was a walk going down about 100 steps so Reggie suggested that Daisy may want to wait for us to come back, to which she agreed. At the bottom trail you could see a couple of smaller waterfalls which were still better than any waterfalls I’ve seen in Australia (so far) and then this also ended in an area where you could get very wet. We then went back up to meet Daisy but she wasn’t there. I told Reggie we could just wait and she would return but he said we would waste too much time so he told me to continue along the upper walkway and he would wait 30 minutes for her and if she didn’t turn up he assumed she would have gone onto the upper walkway and would meet me at the end of the walk which wasn’t far from the start. He said it would normally take 40 minutes but taking photos maybe 45 minutes. So off I went and after about 15 minutes, Daisy found me but coming from the direction we started. Apparently she had returned and we must have passed each other along the way. We have this uncanny knack of doing ths time and again. Reggie also had followed Daisy and we continued the walk together. In the end we had taken 60, rather than 45 minutes. We then walked back to the main entrance rather than wait for the train but this was only about 500 metres.

By now it was 13:30 so Reggie suggested we have lunch and the usual border crossing shenanigans we went to a place called Churras Show Brasil, which also has a show at night. The lunch was buffet style at 55 Real each and was quite good.

We then headed down to the boat ride which to be honest we could have done without especially for $US80 each. We really only did it to fill in the time before catching our plane to Lima. When we arrived we saw this fairly large boat which had a live performer and we thought that was our boat, but Reggie had said that we may be the only customers so it didn’t make sense because there were people on board and it looked like a party. We were even greeted with a free drink, but then we discovered that it wasn’t our boat and Reggie led us on and we walked around it and got onto one of those speed boats like the Falls ones. It took us to the bridge which separates Brazil and Argentina then to the point where three countries meet, Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. Then under the bridge which connects Brazil and Paraguay but then we hit rain and we were in the front row and got drenched again like under the falls. We then asked Reggie to stop the boat and we climbed back to the fourth row under cover. We still got up to wet but it was better. We continued almost up to the Paraguay power station that was partly funded by Brazil and supplies power to both countries. It was almost because there are yellow markers on the river which indicate the boundary and no-one is permitted in this area. We then headed back with the driver doing some fancy jetboat type manoevres which I found good fun but Daisy didn’t and screamed a coupplke of times. Still, even that wasn’t enough to make it worth the money. Even if fine weather I would not recommend it as an activity to do in Iguazu. Daisy would have preferred just some free time in the town centre and I would agree, but it was an experience getting pelted with rain in a speedboat.

We were then driven to the airport and Reggie accompanied us and helped us check-in, which wasn’t necessary but was nice of him to do so. No internet at this small airport so just started doing the blog while we waited.

The flight was about 3.5 hours but we didn’t notice the time difference of 2 hours until we got to our accommodation. We were met by a lovely rep from Condor Travel again with a driver and she gave us information and tickets for the Machu Picchu part of our trip. We had a bit of trouble finding the accommodation because it is not a hotel but a private B & B type place and our guide came in with us to make sure it was OK. The owner was waiting for us and spoke excellent English and was very helpful and the room is fine, especially for just 2 nights. So it was 3am Brazil time but 1am Peru time by the time I got to bed but I did manage to get a fair bit of sleep on the plane trip.

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