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Published: July 30th 2012
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It's Saturday night and we're sat at Puerto Iguazu Airport, which is set amidst Iguazu National Park, watching a Toucan hop around the trees outside, 'The devils throat' still in sight, fuming away in the distance and the sun setting......Pretty picture prefect and thankfully a huge distraction from the fact our flight is delayed by 2 hours ....meaning we'll miss all the buses and metro when we arrive in Rio, which, means taxi, which, means budget blown.... Again!!!! The eventful journeys continue to follow us.... And well we can't help remembering the lady on the flight from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia telling us how bad Aerolineas Argentina were for being delayed as we had sat on the runway for an hour and a half, well it's Aerolineas time and that could only mean one thing a delay......Good job we got a bargain on the hostel eh 😊
Four days here in this little place, which is home to one of the 'new' natural wonders of the world!
Taking it nice and steady, full day out days 1 and 3 with days 2 and 4 for chilling by the pool, catching up on, well, nothing really, just enjoying a bit
of QT together.
As you know we have this new budget now of £50 per day, which we were doing so well with until we stepped backed into Argentina... .....We even managed to be online in Chile..... Thank god for the low season and great kitchen facilities!!!....But here despite us picking the cheapest hostel on hostelworld at £5 per night and cooking every night and packing up everyday ....we still couldn't bring it in what with bus fairs from Salta at £165 and park entrance fees at £40!! You can't really grumble though the £165 bus ride was 24 hours and we did have Cama class..... And a nights sleep to rival any we'd had in a hostel. They even played the films in English..... Shame we'd seen them before.... The buses all seem to play the same, and they are usually romantic comedies!!! Katherine Heigl seem to be the popular ones of the moment-not the best!!!! And despite how comfy they are you still end up knackered from sitting on your butt for so long ......
Still who cares about journeys when you have come to the falls. We arrived on time on Tuesday and had booked
ourselves in to Noelia Hostel, which on our arrival we were amazed to see a pool, decked terrace area and comfy bunks for only 40 pesos each (£5) result!
We dropped our bags and headed to the supermarket in need of some proper food after the usual cheese sandwiches, biscuits and cakes that seem de rigeur for buses these days. Paulo at the hostel gave us the lowdown on how to get to the falls in the morning so after cooking up some food, which also included a small photoshoot for the Hostels website, we retired to a proper bed ready to go in the morning.
After some fresh fruit and cornflakes (this may not sound exciting to you but in the world of hostel brekkies that usually consist of bread and dulce leche, it's practically gourmet!!) we headed off and were in the park just after opening time.
The national park is huge and our first stop was to catch the train out to 'The Devil's Throat' at the far end.
Despite the fact that we could have jogged faster than the little green train, we still arrived ahead of the masses and got to
see the amazing sight that it is, without being barged out of the way by floods of people all wanting their perfect pic!
The spray from this section is immense and comes in waves, seriously it is like the devil breathing smoke..... And as the spray drenches you and forms a mist like cloud passing by, the rainbow appears whose colours deepen as the mist becomes more dense. It's one of those sights that you never tire of seeing and gets you excited every time!!
Next stop was all the many walkways of the 'blue trails' which are the lower sections of the falls.
You get so close to them its just spellbinding, health and safety would have a fit in the UK but over hear its the closer and wetter the better, just don't lean too far over and be careful not to slip!!!
Doing these walks was a real highlight for us, every minute you are saying 'Oh my god this is just stunning'.... Then you round a corner and the view beats the last, it's non stop wow factor!!
Luckily as we were getting wetter, the day was getting hotter and we
were still ahead of the big groups!.........Time for our pre lunch treat.... Our boat ride into the falls....
We jumped on the big dinghy type speed boat and we were taken to one side of San Martin Island for some shots and then to the other, once we had our pictures that was when the fun started, now we should of known what to expect when the cameraman added more waterproofs almost becoming a pile of plastic, we were in and under, I kid you not we were properly into the falls, obviously not into the full force but in well enough to outdo any powershower we had had.
We'd also packed our valuables into the dry bags provided .... Thankfully..... As 20 minutes later soaked to the absolute skin after having been completely under two of the waterfalls our sodden group disembarked, beaming like cheshire cats much to the horror of the next group waiting.... The look on their faces as to how wet they were about to get was comical to see.... Think we have the great group we had on our boat to thank really.... There was a big group of Argentineans who were all
screaming 'mas, mas, mas' and boy did the crew deliver...
Hence we spent the next two hours drying off in the sun, after wringing as many of our clothes out as possible and propping our boots and socks up to dry..... That will teach us for sniggering at the couple who put their boots and socks in the dry bag!!!!
300 waterfalls make up Iguazu Falls and the whole place is just special, so special we braved Devil's Throat again after completing the Red Trail, which takes you across the tops of the falls, this time we didn't have such an exclusive and we were really pleased we'd caught that early bus.... Honestly there were no manners present at all, just people barging each other for pics, standing smack in front of people whilst they were taking pics ... Just carnage, so we headed back and were on the 6pm bus back.....
What a top day out!
Worth every penny!!
After a pool and organisation day, we headed out again and we were up early again for our trip to the Brazilian side. We had been told by everyone to go there first as it
isn't as impressive as the Argentinian. So let us be the first to disagree, as a day out there is less to do on the Brazil side but in terms of it being any less impressive then no way. The views you get are different, Argentina has the falls close up and in your face, which in places but to a lesser extent so does Brazil, but what Brazil has are the perfect panoramas and views of some areas you can't see from Argentina. So in our opinion the falls from any side are amazing no better or worse just different and if your there you'd be mad to miss one side or the other.
After collecting our washing, which the amazing man at the bus station took to the laundrette for us as (we'd carried it down with us in the morning and the laundrette was late opening and we didn't fancy carrying it around the falls), we headed for a cheeky ice cream, collected our flight tickets to Rio and made our way back to the hostel, a bottle of Argentinian's finest vino blanco (Torontes) waiting for us!
And that's us done, after another day of
The falls are on fire
The mist cloud from Devils Throat chilling by the pool in our amazing little hostel, which deserves a big up and as many visitors as it can get- Hostel Noelia, with the most amazing attentive staff Juan and Paulo.... We feel refreshed and ready for Rio.....
This has to be one of the best things we have seen on our trip to date, ranking up there with any natural wonder we have ever seen and it rightly lays claim to one of the New Seven Natural Wonders of the World.
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