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Buenos Aires, Argentina
We spent today on the Argentina side of Iguazu Falls, and man oh man, was it spectacular. The Argentina side is an order of magnitude more scenic and interesting than the Brazilian side. It’s also more spread out with more trails covering more area, so you aren’t so on top of crowds of people. The weather was just perfect today – sunny enough to bring out the rainbows from the mist and butterflies (tons of butterflies!!), but with enough clouds to keep the temperature bearable.
We began early on the Lower Circuit trails which provided views of several falls from below. One set of falls, Salto Bossetti, has a walkway right up to the base of the falls, which thunder around you and blow your hair back with wind and water. It makes you involuntarily raise your arms in triumph or defiance — no seriously, every person we watched approach the falls raised their arms like that. Because we went early in the morning, arriving just as the park opened, we had the Lower Circuit mostly to ourselves which was awesome! We could take our time and enjoy the views!
While on the lower circuit we got talked into the boat tour package deal, so we headed out on leg one of it. It was awesome! The boat took us right up underneath a couple of the falls about 5 or 6 times, and we got totally soaking wet. Then we walked the Upper Circuit which views the tops of the falls that the lower circuit views from the bottom.
Last of the falls was the incomparable Devil’s Throat (Garganta del Diablo). There really are no words that are going to describe how incredible this was. It’s a massive cascade of churning water. It sort of has two levels, and that makes the mindblowing flow even more chaotic. It was just incredible. I hope we have some pictures that can do it justice. You should go see it. It’s a candidate for one of the new 7 natural wonders of the world.
The last part of our Iguazu adventure was to take the second part of our boat tickets, which was a peaceful float down the river to observe it and some wildlife in the jungle in an inflatable raft. This float was made more exciting by the fact that at one point we were 250m from the edge of the falls, and could see it out there. Of course, it wasn’t as exciting as it could be, because the river is extremely high right now – about double its average level. This made the usually clear river with views of the fishes very murky due to the loose sediment that’s all churning around in there.
After I was sufficiently sunburned, we headed off to the Iguazu Airport (2 gates!), and are now happily installed back in Buenos Aires, after a smooth, uneventful flight on LAN. Tomorrow – the ferry to Uruguay and our fourth and final country for this trip.
from: http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/dyer0930/9/1262280553/tpod.html
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