First off, here's a whole bunch of the pictures we took at Iguazu Falls.
We've heard from several people that we absolutely have to make it out to see these waterfalls. Since we're just kind of playing this whole trip by ear, we just on a whim decided to see how hard it would be to book a trip up there about 4 or 5 days before. We also decided to splurge a bit, since we're going to be spending the next couple of months in hostels and in a tent, so we decided to book a room at the Sheraton that's actually within the park's grounds. Overall, it was super easy to book online, but it wasn't the cheapest. Although, I made sure we could pay for our hotel in cash, so we made a few trips to our Cambio friends on Florida street to get a whole pile of pesos to bring with us. That move saved us about $300, pretty decent coupon right there.
The trip there was incredibly smooth. The tour buses here are impressively well set up. We paid maybe an extra $20 each to get fully reclining sleeper seats, which was beyond worth it. We both slept like rocks that first trip. It took maybe 10 minutes to fully load the bus, it left exactly on time, and arrived within maybe 15 minutes of its estimated time, which is pretty impressive considering it's an 18 hour trip.
The sun was setting as we were leaving Buenos Aires, but we got fantastic views of the countryside (jungleside?) in the morning and afternoon. You can really get a good idea of what this region is like just from staring out an upper-deck bus window for that long. The vegetation has this pre-historic jungle feeling to it, and probably the most striking thing to me was the fact that all of the soil was this vibrant reddish-brown color. You really got the feeling that if you just dropped a plant seed anywhere it would start growing immediately.
Once we arrived in Puerto Iguazu, it took us a bit to figure out how to actually get to our hotel, which turned out to be about a 30 minute bus ride away. We were staying in the actual park for two nights, so we only had to make this part of the trip once, and then we could leisurely wake up and walk to the waterfalls whenever we wanted.
We finally got to the falls around 4, and the park closes at 6, so we hustled out there to soak in as much as we could. One word of advice for anyone that finds themselves visiting, you should definitely, definitely get to the falls later in the day rather than earlier. That first day we had the whole place to ourselves! We stayed on the upper trail, but we sure took our time. You can probably walk from the beginning to the end of the upper trail and back in 30 or 45 minutes, if you were for some reason ignoring the waterfalls. We were there for the full 2 hours we had left before the park closed, and we didn't have to fight with anyone to get good views.
The next day, we woke up exactly in time to get the end of our complimentary breakfast, which included sparkling rose. That is how you start your day! I should also add that I'm pretty sure we were the youngest people at this place by like 30 years, so again we had the whole place to ourselves, since 10:30am is a late breakfast for most people for some reason.
We wanted to really go for it on our only full day there, so we made sure to buy tickets to the boat that goes right in front of the waterfalls. We take our time going through the lower trail, which was easy to do, because it was goddamned PACKED. Still, the lower trail takes you right alongside the falls, definitely worth the crowds. There are a couple walkways that take you right into the path of the spray generated from the bigger falls, and thanks to the humidity, odds are you weren't drying off anytime soon.
We decided to take some time for a snack at the lunch area since we had some time to kill. The first thing we noticed is that people didn't run this place, the Coati did. At first glance, they appear to be some kind of rare jungle raccoon-pig-anteater things, and you can't believe how lucky you are that you got to see one. After another 5 minutes though, you realize that these guys are fearless, and they love whatever comes out of that snack stand. We saw a group of maybe 8 or 9 of them just swarming this mom with her baby, and the coati would just take their food while they were eating it. Pretty cute though.
Once the time for our particular boat came up, we made our way to the dock. The trail is no longer metal walkways, but just turns into stairs carved into rocks. We all get in the boat, and put everything of value into a waterproof bag that they give us. (At this point I actually managed to capture the whole thing on video, which I'll definitely post up here once I can get it to upload to youtube. Our internet is not fast, so it might be a long time, don't hold your breath.) They take us back and forth between the two main areas where the waterfalls transform into the river we're in a couple times. The border between Argentina and Brazil is right in the middle of that river, and I'm pretty sure there were some waves that pushed us just over into the Brazilian side, so I'm going to go ahead and check that off the old list. The last two trips they actually drive us into the choppy water right below the falls. They didn't mess around either, they throw you right into it. My rain jacket and rain pants mostly worked, but apparently all it takes is one sleeve not being fully tightened to make your whole body become a waterbed.
When we arrive back on land, we trudge back up and get back to our hotel room to change, and then head right back out. This is around the same time that most people seemed to be leaving the park, so we got a whole bunch of it to ourselves again on our second lap. We took another few hundred beautiful pictures, and the sun broke through the clouds to really show off how truly awesome these falls can be.
The park closes, we retreat to the pool, wind the day down, grab some food and pass out watching TV from the states dubbed into Spanish.
The next morning, we grab our free breakfast at the last minute again, and head back out for a third lap, because it just does not get old. The clouds really decided to show off our last day, and we got some astounding views, tons of rainbows, way too many pictures, and had to figure out a way to re-attach our jaws.
The bus ride back was even more visually impressive than the one up there since it was just a beautiful day out. I think I was staring out of the window non-stop for about 6 hours straight, until the sun finally went down. This trip we had almost the whole bus to ourselves for a while, so we snuck up to the front on the top level and just watched the landscape slowly change from jungle to farmland to city for a while.
I'd definitely go back.