Iguazu Falls

Yes, Iguazu was totally worth it! Puerto Iguazu is a fairly touristy place due to the famous waterfalls, but it was also very friendly and we stayed in a lovely hostel with hammocks and a small pool! Bliss! After lots of time in cities it was lovely to go somewhere leafy and almost tropical (the hostel garden even had papaya and avocado trees). It was such a nice place to hang out that we stayed for four nights just to recuperate from the long bus journeys. Of course, we also made the obligatory trip to the Argentinian side of the waterfalls to see what all the fuss is about. The famous Iguazu falls are at the meeting point of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, and you can cross the border to see them from several angles. However, it gets expensive pretty quickly doing that, so having heard that the Argentinian side of the national park is the best, we just stuck to that.

The park is extremely well kept and very pretty. There is a little train that takes you across to the far end of the park to see the most impressive part of the falls, the 'Garganta del Diablo' ('Devil's Throat'). When you get off the train, there is a lovely long walkway through the wetlands until you arrive at the enormous Garganta...

This part of the falls is really so huge, I couldn't get my head around the sheer amount of water that came thundering over it ever second of every day. And this is just the biggest of a huge series of waterfalls lining the valley. Here is the view looking in the other direction...

The park had some lovely wildlife, too. We saw lots of these bright birds, as well as lots of groups of coatis, which were very sweet.

Coaties hoping for some lunch in one of the park's cafes.
After a (disappointing and overpriced) bite to eat, we went walking through the park to see some of the other sections of the falls. There are so many, but just to give you a taste of some of the beautiful sights...



In that last picture there is a little boat going right up close to the falls, and yes, we did this too! Basically, the boat takes you right up to the falls and then into that misty cloud of spray at the bottom. Needless to day, you get absolutely soaked! Here we are after a thorough dousing in the falls...

The whole day was absolutely brilliant, and to top it all off there were lots of lovely people staying in our hostel which really made it a great few days. On our last night there we all pooled our resources and cooked a huge asado (BBQ) in the hostel garden - yum!