Wednesday, May 3rd, was a full day spent traveling...waaahooo. We left Cusco early in the morning, took a flight to Lima, and then from there took a flight to Iguazu! We landed in Brazil at around 7ish, went through customs (which was actually fairly simple...way to go tiny Iguazu airport!), and were met with our Spanish-only speaking driver. At all of the other places we've had both a tour guide (that spoke English) and a driver, but for some reason we only had a driver this night. But it all worked out (thank you Spanish minor) and we made it safely to our hotel in Argentina, after going through customs once again. Three countries in one day...phew! Our hotel was really cute. It was small, but had a nice little courtyard area and a pool with a water fall. It was very peaceful. :) Our room wasn't too bad either, but of course that's the one room I forgot to take a picture of. Whooopsy. But here's a pic of the TV in the room...that counts for something. We were flipping through channels and decided on soccer. Actually, it was pretty much the only choice since soccer was on about 75% of the TV channels.
For the rest of the night we took it easy and hit the hay relatively early. Gosh, I'm realizing that we were such losers on this trip. Just pretend like I say "and then we hit up all the bars and experienced the awesome nightlife!" every time I say "we went to bed early."
Anywaaaaay...Thursday morning we toured the Argentina side of the falls and they were sooo gorgeous! First we went to Garganta del Diablo (Devils Throat) and it was incredible. To get to the falls, you walk along a metal pathway type thing, over the water. We were actually on top of the waterfalls at this point, heading to see the biggest waterfall.
The waterfall was amazing. There was sooo much rushing water, wow. I could have sat and just watched it for hours.
The mist was insane too. I'm glad I had a little bag to go over my camera, otherwise it would have been interesting to try and take pictures while keeping it dry. I saw many people up there hiding their cameras in their jackets in between pictures.
After that, we went to some other 'upper' trails that were on top of the other waterfalls and saw the more panoramic views of the waterfalls. There are sooo many!
And then, in the wet season there are even more waterfalls. It's just amazing. I mean where does all that water come from? And it just keeps on falling, all the time. I love it!
After we took a break for lunch we walked on some of the lower trails, heading on our way to the Grand Adventure Tour!! But more on that in a minute. First, the gorgeous panoramic views from the lower trails...
And it's time for you to meet some interesting Iguazu Falls creatures.
They're called Coatis. They're weird. We saw even more on the Brazilian side and I've come to the conclusion that all they do all day, every day is roam around looking for leftover food from tourists. This includes food in trash cans. What cute little guys!
Anyway, we finally made it down to the beginning of our Grand Adventure Tour and it was pretty darn exciting! First on this tour, a boat ride! Not just any boat ride though...we went under the falls and got soaking wet!! It's kind of crazy to be sitting in this tiny boat, staring up at this MASSIVE waterfall looming ahead of you, as you're getting closer and closer and closer... and then all of a sudden you're being pounded by water. It's terrifying but awesome at the same time.
Mom and I were the only English speaking (and probably Americans) on this boat ride, which was kind of interesting. For the majority of the ride (or the time being pounded with water) we were hunched over in our seats hiding and screaming (out of excitement of course), while the rest of the people on the boat are chanting "otra vez, otra vez!" aka "again, again!" Mom and I were the stupid, uptight Americans ha! It was an amazing boat ride though. We went through two waterfalls, two times each, and then enjoyed a lovely boat ride down the river afterwards :) I'm definitely glad we did it!
The second part of our Grand Adventure tour was a Safari through the sub-tropical rainforest. This wasn't as awesome as I thought it was going to be. I was thinking we would be seeing all kinds of animals and what not, but that wasn't the case. The only animal we saw was an owl. Womp, Womp, Womp. It was still interesting though to learn about the rainforest and just drive around a little bit. It gave us a nice chance to dry off, if nothing else ;)
Once our safari ended, we met back up with our tour guide and driver and were taken back to our hotel. Once we were there mom and I cleaned up a bit (although not that much, the downside to only packing what you need = not having extra clothes to spare for those times when you're super wet - boat ride - or super sweaty - Machu Picchu. Whoops!) and headed to explore the 'downtown' area. But we couldn't leave our hotel without first swooning over all of the hummingbirds. They were so fascinating! There were so many of them and they just fluttered here and there, hardly stopping at all even to drink. They're such beautiful creatures.
Although it was hardly even 5 by the time mom and I left our hotel, we were staaarving! We walked around the small town a bit, then parked it at a local restaurant (can't remember the name of it now!) for some beer and dinner. I tried another local beer, Quilmes, and it was pretty good!
For dinner, mom had some ravioli pasta dish and I had some breaded chicken. It was pretty good! Nothing too fancy though since we were still unsure of what was 'okay' to eat. For the rest of the evening we explored around the town a bit more, then hung out at the hotel once it started to get dark.
Friday morning we had another early morning wake-up call and headed off to the Brazilian side of the Iguazu Falls! This side seemed much more directed towards tourists. Although the Argentina side handled the boat tours (I'm not sure that the Brazil side had any of those...) and had many more 'paths' to walk on, the Brazil side seemed much more 'fancy." They had more gift shops, some hotels, all that good stuff. We only spent the morning on the Brazil side, and we just walked along the one main path headed towards Devils Throat. The views were goooogeous and a lot more panoramic than the other side, which was really pretty. We saw many more rainbows too which made for gorgeous pictures :) There also seemed to be more butterflys and Coatis hanging around on the Brazil side. All of the butterflys gave it a more mystical, rainforest feel.
It was a perfect morning to end our time at Iguazu Falls!
From the park we headed straight to the Brazil airport to head on to Rio de Janiero. We ended up being at the airport many hours in advance, so we ordered some lunch (in Portuguese - that was interesting!) and wandered around the airport, gazing through the windows at all of the jewelry shops. For a small airport they still had some interesting shops, and goooorgeous jewelry!
Our flight finally boarded at 3:30, with non-stop service to Rio de Janiero!
Stay tuned for the last bit of our South American adventures :)
B.Hines
*Photos Copyright Brittany Hines
*Photos Copyright Brittany Hines
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