I wanna be an Iguazú iguana ...

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Geo: -25.6836, -54.4757

... something, something, something, something, something, top banana!

It's been a while since I updated this blog. Too long, really. In the interim, I had a cold, moved house, developed an addiction to 'dulce de leche', completed another 6 weeks of Spanish classes, visited Iguazú Falls, flooded the bathroom, grew sick of ‘dulce de leche' and had a 34th birthday. There, now you're up to speed.

This blog entry is about Iguazú Falls. I suspect there are lots of Iguazú-related stories here on Travelpod. This is just another one of them.

Trust me, eighteen hours on a bus from Buenos Aires to Puerto Iguazú is a lot of hours, especially when the staff opt for a bootleg copy of ‘Knight and Day' as the in-drive entertainment. The film was so bad that, after a while, I was pleased that the sound quality meant I couldn't hear anything.

I stayed at Hotel Carmen, a three-star place which did everything it needed to do. The bedroom was nice and big, and that's about it.

Most of the hotels and hostels near Iguazú are along one long main road, so you feel a little isolated and need to take a bus or taxi to get anywhere or do anything – but, if you are just there for a couple of nights, that's okay. (If I went back, I might opt for a place to stay in the centre of the small town of Puerto Iguazú, rather than along the main road.)

We were visiting Iguazú during a full-moon weekend, so our first encounter with the rainforest and waterfalls was during a ‘Full Moon Tour (complete with dinner)' at around 10pm. It was a wise move to do this on the first night, because it's kinda creepy, in a good way, walking through a dark rainforest when you haven't been there before. A ‘Full Moon Tour' after you've already seen the falls might just feel like a re-run with the lights out.

There is more than a dash of Disney about Iguazú Falls. You should expect to see a big sign saying "¡Bienvenidos a Iguazú!", some gift shops and some machines dispensing Coke and cash at the entrance. You should not expect to be allowed to walk freestyle in a rainforest, get lost, set up camp or get attacked by crocodiles.

You get into a little train (I kept looking in the trees for little “Small world after all!” puppets), and, once out of the train, you stick to a metal path and walk in a row with the other tourists (“Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to the waterfalls we go!”😉. Part of me felt frustrated that it was all so controlled. Another part loved the fact that I was able to kid myself that, if it wasn't for those pesky railings, I'd be grabbing some kind of tent thing and a pack of water purification tablets and roughing it with the animals.

And those animals are good – bright yellow birds, swarms of butterflies (do butterflies “swarm”?), big florescent wormy things, coatis (which I had never heard of before; they like sandwiches, by the way), lizards and iguanas. I felt compelled to write a song called “I Wanna Be An Iguazú Iguana!”, but it hasn't happened yet. I also hoped I would see a crocodile, but I didn't.

But it's the waterfalls you go for. And wow! I don't know what to say, except that they are really big.

It is quite something to be on the Argentinean side standing above ‘La Garganta del Diablo' (“The devil's throat”😉 looking down into it. So much water, so much noise, it's beautiful. Then, the next day, you can go to the Brazilian side (don't forget your passport) and you get to go down into the devil's throat. I felt compelled to write a song called “Deepthroating the devil”, but it hasn't happened yet.

You will love it. To sign off, four helpful tips, from me to you:

1. If you're the kinda person who likes everything organised for you, you could do a lot worse than booking an Iguazú tour through Paralelo 54 (www.paralelo54.com). This is what I did. It's not the cheapest option, but they're very friendly at Paralelo 54. Overall I was very happy with the choice.

2. If you want to save money or prefer to ‘play it loose, man', then I'm sure it would be very easy to book stuff yourself. We could have saved a bit by making direct bookings with: the bus company, Vía Bariloche (www.viabariloche.com.ar), Hotel Carmen (www.hotelcarmen.net), my friend's hostel, Hostel Inn (www.hostel-inn.com – great hostel, by the way, even if it is along that main road) and the waterfall tours (www.votocataratas.com).

3. Make sure you take the more expensive speedboat tour at the falls. It's called “La Gran Aventura”, costs 200 pesos (U$D50, £30) and is worth every centavo (cent, penny). You get to ride underneath one of the waterfalls, getting wetter than you've ever been in your life, plus you get to experience the rapids. You don't exactly risk your life during the boat trip (it feels very safe), but I doubt the operation would survive a health and safety culture like ours in the UK.

4. Finally, I know it's hard, but do try to do better than me with the verbs. Even now, two weeks later, I keep getting flashbacks of the receptionist's face at Hotel Carmen when I asked her if she would mind if I “threw my keys at her”. You can practice the correct verb in your head two or three times, but – in the heat of the moment with the tour guide's minibus waiting for you outside the hotel – the wrong verb just loves to pop out of the devil's throat from time to time.

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Comments

[jill priest]

wow that made me jump, fantastic