Iguazu

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Not only have I not posted anything for a week, the days are starting to run together, but I´ll give it a go. After my escapades in Paraguay/Brazil, I finally made it to Puerto Iguazu, in the northeast corner of Argentina. I was immediately how struck by how expensive everything was, but I guess that was inevitable after spending three weeks in Bolivia. And you really get what you pay for, as the infrastructure in Argentina is leaps and bounds ahead of anywhere I´ve traveled in South America to date. I woke up early on Thursday, 12/10/09 to visit Parque Nacional de Iguazu, and the famous waterfalls. I was unable to flag down a bus, so I actually ended up walking the entire 12km to the falls. Despite the walk being beautiful (as it was through the park), the downfall was that by the time I got to the falls they were more crowded than Disneyland. There are a few hiking trails to the falls that I did, although admittedly in the wrong order; by the time I got to the ones with panoramic views of the falls, it had begun raining, and thus I wasn´t able to get good photos. I started off by taking a 3km hike to La Garganta del Diablo -- one of the "star attractions" of the park. Instead of waiting over an hour for the train that brings you there, I took a trail alongside the tracks, and amazingly saw only one other person. In addition to the famous falls, the park is actually quite beautiful and has the widest variety of butterflies I´ve seen in South America. There are so many that they land on you, and it actually becomes quite annoying. All of the hiking trails are constructed from catwalks which actually permit you to easily walk over the jungle and rivers. The trail concludes above Salta Union, the largest single catarata in the park, where over 1.5 millions litres of water pour over every second. The views weren´t great (mainly as a result of mist generated by the water), but the sheer experience was awesome. When I returned from La Garganta I wanted to take the Upper and Lower Senderos to get a better picture of the falls. While you have to go to Foz do Iguazu to see La Garganta from a distance, these trails had great views of some of the "smaller" (all relative, as any of these falls alone would stand out as a major attraction, and together they are spectacular) falls. It really is amazing to be standing underneath a 50m waterfall, and on top of another of comparable height. As already noted, it began raining pretty hard, and continuing on the trails was pretty useless.

Due to the weather I opted to explore Sendero Macuco, a jungle trail leading to a "hidden" waterfall with natural swimming pools, and a host of wildlife and plants. I more enjoyed this because it made me feel better about missing out on the jungle in Bolivia and Paraguay. I hiked 5km through mud and water, seeing small rodents and colorful birds, but hearing monkeys (and something really big, but I´m not going to claim it was a Jaguar). When I reached the falls I was immediately stung by several wasps. Touche, jungle. I got back to the center of the park and decided it was time to leave. Of course, when I return back to Puerto Igauzu it stops raining and the sun emerges. I debated returning to see the falls under some light, but was hestitant after having already walked 25+ km. Truely one of the few things I still feel bad about, but I guess I can always buy a postcard.

One of the highlights of the past few weeks was the 20 hour bus ride from Puerto Iguazu to Buenos Aires. Not only did they have seats that reclined, air conditioning, a tv with (bad) movies in English, and full service meals and free drinks as promised (I have been blatently lied to about the conditions of buses in Peru and Bolivia), for most of the trip the bus was nearly empty. I was so happy I almost didn´t want the ride to end. I´ll post about my experiences in Buenos Aires before my flight to Ushuaia on Thursday.

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