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Published: March 6th 2009
Yesterday I arrived in Buenos Aires after spending a couple of days in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina in order to see the Iguazu Falls.
If you´ve ever seen photos of these falls (and maybe I will post some!) you will see that they are quite amazing. I believe the largest section of the falls, Gargantuan del Diablo, is similar to Niagara or bigger, but the difference here is that there are a whole series of falls which stretch for almost a kilometre!
The heat in Iguazu is absolutely overwhelming. I think there was a humidex of about 40 degrees, and it was officially the beginning of the "winter" season at Iguazu National Park! Many of us felt a bit ill or out of sorts because it was so hard to adapt to the weather. Fortunately there were many trees lining the pathways that led up to the falls on the Argentinian side. I visited the falls the first day with 3 girls from my dorm room - 2 from England and 1 from Spain. We were all pretty mesmerized by the falls. When you actually get close to them, they are so powerful that it is hard to really take
them in. On the one hand they look so inviting, and on the other hand they are terrifying and you can´t help but think about what it would be like to fall down and get caught up in the wreckage down there. The base of the Gargantuan del Diablo is so violent that you can´t see the bottom - all you see is a huge area of white with spray and steam floating up in all directions and occasionally giving you a much-needed cooling-off.
On my second day I went over to the Brazilian side of the falls, where you get the panoramic view, but it was hard to appreciate because there were so many tourists fighting to get a good view and a good vantage point to take a photo. I also spent a few hours at the Parque des Aves, a wild bird sanctuary and aviary, where I got to see toucans, parrots, parrakeets, mackaws, and tonnes of other birds. My favourite was walking through the aviaries, where the calmer birds were flying freely about and you could really interact with them. Although, the aviary full of huge, noisy parrots and mackaws which swooped overhead, often brushing
the top of your head on their way, was a little intimidating! I also loved the hummingbird and butterfly aviary, where the birds and enormous colourful butterflies twittered around and reminded me of a scene from a Lord of the Rings movie.
I was determined to hike the Macuco nature trail back over on the Argentinian side, so I took a cab and there and did it that afternoon. At the end of the trail there is a natural pool and a waterfall that you can stand under to cool off and have a shower - it was definitely one of those memorable moments. At times during my walk I thought to myself, "Wow, I´m actually walking through the jungle!" I didn´t see any monkeys or any wild cats (luckily!) but I did see ENORMOUS spiders hovering in their webs overhead, at 5 or 10- foot intervals throughout the forest. Luckily, none of them landed on my head... There were also black ants the size of my thumb!
I returned to the hostel, with sore feet and absolutely EXHAUSTED from two days of walking, but I´m glad that I saw everything. Now that I´m here in Buenos Aires,
I realize that I really enjoyed being in such a natural, tropical setting, and it´s too bad that I could only stay 2 days (I had to catch my flight here to B.A.) Hopefully I will spend a good chunk of time "in nature" over the next 6 weesk - either in Chile or Bolivia. Now I just need to plan where I´m going and what I´m doing! I´m thinking of volunteering at a wildlife refuge in Bolivia and working with monkeys... more updates soon!
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cathy
non-member comment
spiders!!
Emma sharing space with big spiders!!-wow what a story-this is an amazing description of the falls and the jungle-but speaking as a slightly less adventuresome traveler-I'm glad you didn't meet anything big in the jungle.