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Chris & Becky at la Gargantura
Chris finally allowed a stranger to man the camera I'll say it again - an amazing side trip. Absolutely stunning.
But I'll get to that in a minute. First, the airport. When we landed in BA from JFK, we touched ground at Ezeiza International Airport, about 25 miles outside of town. It was an old building, with lots of brick and concrete, and looked fairly rundown. No big deal. But the domestic airport (Aeroparque Jorge Newberry) might have been the nicest airport I've ever been in. Lots of marble tile and glass, with two large single "hallway" terminals on opposite ends. I'd guess there were about 25 gates total. There was no line at check-in or security at 10am on a Monday, and once we reached the domestic terminal we were surprised at the shopping options.
Unlike American airports where you have little newsstand kiosks and small bookstores and gift shops, Aeroparque was almost like a shopping mall where at one end you board a plane. We were a bit bummed that our suitcase was a tad too heavy for the bottle of Malbec we had left at the apartment, but instead we found a fancy liquor store inside of a much larger boutique shop. The shop was
View from the boat
(Some of the) Argentinian falls, from about as close as we could get without getting super wet. huge, and sold perfume, beauty products, watches, electronics, food, wine, and lots of other stuff. And not junk either, it was all pretty nice. We picked out a new bottle of wine and then went to the clothing shop, which housed everything from Lacoste to NorthFace, to a lot of other Argentinian brands that we couldn't afford.
Our flight ended up being delayed about an hour due to bad weather in Iguazu. Thankfully my Spanish has improved a lot since last week, so I was able to fully comprehend the situation and even relay info to some older American tourists sitting nearby. Go me!
Anyway, we flew LAN, a Chlean airline that impressed us both. I'd heard good things about them before I booked tickets, so it wasn't too surprising, but still worth mentioning. Online check-in 48h in advance, brand new Airbus A380 planes, free snack boxes (crackers, cookies, and an alfajora!), and drinks. I was served my diet pepsi and was met with a slightly confused look by the flight attendant that I didn't order coffee or a beer to go with it. Beer & wine was free, too (not that we had any). And all this
for an 85min flight...
Anyway, we landed in Puerto Iguazu around 2:30 and were checking into our hotel within the hour. We stayed at the Sheraton Iguazu, which is the only hotel located within Iguazu National Park. The exterior of the building looked a bit old, and the exterior grounds were under renovation, but the interior was gorgeous with floor to ceiling glass overlooking the falls in the distance.
After walking the hotel grounds, we headed out to the "upper circuit" path to walk along the falls. It was the shortest path and we only had about an hour before things closed down, so we chose that one first. The view from above the falls were gorgeous. At first you see a few huge waterfalls, and you think it looks pretty sweet, but the more you keep walking around you begin to see more and more of the falls, which are arranged in an arc facing Brazil with a tiny island in between.
The entire system stretches across 270 discrete waterfalls along 1.67 miles of the Iguazu River. At peak flow the water flows at about 1.3million square feet.
After our hike, we chilled on our
Opening up a bit...
Argentinian side, upper circuit hotel balcony overlooking the sub-tropical rainforest, ordered room service for a late dinner, and crashed. On Tuesday we hit the ground running, doing the "Gran Adventura" tour in the late morning. This involved an 8km jeep ride into the jungle where we boarded a small boat with 18 other people and rode out to the foot of the falls. "Wow" is about all I can say about that. After getting as close as we could safely take pictures from without damaging our cameras, we stowed them away and went right into the Argentinian falls system, getting soaked several times over during the 30+ minutes we spent on the boat. The boat dropped us off at the bottom of the "lower circuit" path. Before doing the lower circuit, however, we took a quick boat ride over to the small island for some more hiking to panoramic views of both the Argentinan falls and a bit of la Gargantura del Diablo (Devil's Throat) which serves as the border between Argentina and Brazil.
We did the rest of the lower circuit, hiked back up to the top of the falls and had a bite to eat before hopping on a tiny train
Falls + rainbow
Just one of many, many rainbows we will see that took us to the other end of the Argentinian park to la Gargantura. It was a very serene walk across a surprisingly calm Iguazu River, probably about 1.5 miles before we reached the falls, which were pretty awesome. Here the falls surround 3 sides of a ravine, with water funneling down from the river.
We had to get up early to get back to the airport Wednesday morning, napped on the plane, and were back in our apartment around noon. Will report back with details from Wednesday in BA. Thanks for stopping by, and you stay classy, San Diego.
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Brian
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VERY COOL
I am so jealous. Fantastic. Will show your brother/sister.