Iguazú Falls, AR

After a 17 hour bus ride from Buenos Aires, we rolled into Puerto Iguazú, just after 12pm the following day. We were hoping to meet up with Holly, Matas and Anna, our American friends from Eco Yoga Park, but they had arrived a day earlier and were already on their way to Uruguay. At any rate, we walked the streets of the small town and situated ourselves at a restaurant called “Angelo Cafe”, which completely took us by surprise and we had THE BEST Argentinian Bife de chirozo. It was grilled and seasoned so perfectly, that it didn’t need any sides to accompany it. We did, however, also have ravioli-like pasta pockets filled with mozzarella and walnuts, with roquefort sauce, which was just as divine. Since we mainly came here to visit the falls, we knew that the following day was going to be a busy one – so we called it an early night and watched a movie and fell asleep.

We woke up bright and early at 6:30am and got ready. It was easy enough to find the local bus to El Parque Nacional Iguazú. We were told to wait at platform 11 at the main bus terminal, but it was also easily identifiable by the long queue of tourists.

We were packed to the gills and I spent the 20 minute ride on Dan’s lap.  When we arrived at the park gates, we decided to first hit up the trail leading to Garganta del Diablo.

A toy train ride from the “Cataratas Station” to the “Gargantas Station”, included in the price of admission, allowed us to take a scenic and easy route to the beginning of the trail. The trail was more like a metal walkway over Rio Iguazú Superior, that eventually took us to the mouth of Garganta del Diablo. The scene really took by breath away. I had to consider this one of the many ‘blessing counts’, which I have dubbed and have been jotting down in my travel journal:

“I am standing at the mouth of Garganta del Diablo, of Iguazú Falls – staring at a natural wonder of the world, my feet on Argentinian soil, and my eyes gazing towards Brazil. The mist, with which flocks of birds dart in and out of, is a refreshing break from the blazing sun and my ears are filled with the thunderous power of the falls.”

Throughout the day, I couldn’t help but continuously repeat in my head, today’s blessing count. After Garganta del Diablo, we then took the train back down to the “Cataratas Station”, where there were two other trails. The first trail we took was the “Circuito Superior Upper Trail”, which gave us several lookouts over the edge of the falls.

Then we took the longer “Circuito Interior Lower Trail”, that gave us spectacular panoramic views of the falls. We just couldn’t stop photographing!

Along the way, we also ran into some of the local wildlife, spiders, butterflies, iguanas, exotic birds and lots of coatis. We never knew what a coati was until we arrived at the park and were warned not to feed them. They were all over the trails and they look like raccoons, but with the long snouts of an anteater.

All in all, we both felt it was worth the time and money to come up here.  It was a bit out of the way, and we didn’t realize how difficult it was to get bus connections directly from Iguazu to anywhere in Uruguay.  But alas, what is an adventure without a little bit of the unknown?  Next, our plan will be to get through to Uruguay using the border crossing between Concordia (AR) and Salto (URG).  Let’s hope that all goes smoothly!