Iguazu Falls- Argentinian side

Our bus arrived at Foz de Iguazu at 7:30am. I had managed to get a few hours of sleep during the night which I couldn't have been more thankful for but as usual, Alyssa had not. Our hostel was supposed to pick us up from the bus station, but with no phone, we couldn't call them to let them know we'd arrived and the tourism office at the bus station was completely useless. We decided to just take a cab instead of worrying about it since we were exhausted. The hostel was very close and luckily our room was ready for us. We were able to book a tour for the Argentinian side of the falls for that morning at 9:30am through our hostel, so I showered, had some breakfast and was ready to go. The tour bus from the hostel only had Alyssa and I on it, so I tried to sleep during the 40 minute drive. We did jump out of the car to check out the Brazil-Argentina border, which runs down the middle if the river and divides the bridge across the river in half.

It was very nice to have booked the tour, even though it was more expensive than if we'd organized it ourselves, since we were so tired and we needed to cross the border twice during the day. Our guide (who turned out to be the owner of our hostel) took care of all of our passport stamps so we never even needed to leave the car. We arrived at the park around 10:30am and had until 5:00pm when our driver would return to pick us up. We decided that first we should book our boat excursion as we had heard this was a fun thing to do. The boat offers a view inside the "Devils Throat" (the most famous watrfall at the park) and a close encounter with the San Maryin waterfall (the 2nd largest one after the Devils Throat) where you get drenched but get a great view from below. Once we had our boat ticket for the afternoon, we headed down the "green trail" towards the falls.

The waterfalls vary in number depending on the rainfall but during the wet seasons (like Novemeber when we visited) there are up to 270 falls and the water reaches 6,500 cubic meters per second. We took our time on the upper and lower trails, getting a good look at the falls from different angles. There were so many tourists that it was difficult to get pictures with just the falls in them and you were constantly bumping into other people. Ironically, none of the tourists we asked were able to take good pictures. They would either not get us in the frame or not get any waterfalls in it. We spent a good chunk of time asking multiple people passing by to try to capture a photo of the same waterfall.

 

We headed down to our boat excursion at 12:30. They provided us with dry bags so our shoes and backpacks didn't get wet but we knew that everything else would be soaked. The boat first drove us to some falls near the Argentina side so that we could get a first look at the "Devils Throat" from down river. We then drove over to San Maryin where they drove as close to the waterfall as they could, absolutely drenching everyone on the boat in the process. The power of the water blowing around us was amazing and the boat was getting tossed around in the waves. They circled back around so that we could go in one more time before the ride was over. It was only a 12 minute experience, but we loved it! It was great to get wet since it was such a hot day and getting to be so close to the falls made you feel like you had a greater understanding of them.

We continued walking around the park, checking out the large waterfalls and feeling the power of the wind and spray they created.

 

Once we had seen all of the falls, we took the train over to the view point for the Devils Throat. We were excited to see it up close and really no description could do it justice. The amount of water pouring through this waterfall is insane and we stood there for so long just trying to take in the sight of it. The waterfall crated such an enormous amount of spray that the entire area below was a constant mist, creating some beautiful rainbows in front of the falls. We lingered as long as we could, taking countless photos to try and capture the magic of the falls, but finally we had to head back to the entrance to meet our driver.

 

We arrived promptly at 5:00pm for our pickup and the driver was waiting out front. We made the journey back across the border and arrived at our hostel in less than an hour. Before doing anything, we jumped in the pool for a quick swim to cool down, since it was so hot outside and we felt sticky from our day of walking. This is the first hostel pool I thought was clean enough to get into (probably since I had seen them clean it the day before) and it was very refreshing to swim around. Luckily our room had an a/c unit, so we turned that on full blast as soon as we got back. We decided since it was Sunday and a very small town that nothing was likely to be open for dinner, so we stopped at the corner store and picked up pasta and vegetables for a salad. The kitchen at the hostel was very clean and I was happy to cook dinner even though it was a little too warm to be cooking over a stove. We ate our dinner in the backyard next to the pool, listening to music and taking in the peaceful surroundings. We went to bed at 11:00pm since there was nothing much to do but also since we were exhausted from our overnight bus and full day and needed to catch up on some sleep. I took a sleeping pill just to be sure I got some quality hours.

 

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