Iguazú – Gesundheit!

Sorry about the title, I couldn’t resist. Get ready, this post is as long as the falls it covers.

Iguazú Falls, straddling Argentina and Brazil, are arguably the largest falls in the world. We’ll let you be the judge. It is one of the natural wonders of the world, and certainly a must to see. We flew directly to Puerto Iguazú in Argentina from Salta, which we covered in our last post. For the most part, we did what most tourists do–fly into town, spend a couple of days visiting the falls from both the Argentine and Brazilian sides, and then leave town. Our first day was spent hiking around the Argentinian side. On our second day, we made a quick three-hour visit to the Brazilian side of the falls and then returned to Argentina to catch a boat where we actually rode UNDER the falls. They were a fun, packed, and exhausting two days.

We were fortunate enough to meet another traveler, our new friend Brooke, at the Secret Garden B&B where we stayed. Turns out we were all staying for three nights and leaving for Buenos Aires on the same flight afterward. We shared all three days of our waterfall adventure together and had a great time. You’ll see Brooke in our photos and videos. To Brooke, thanks for traveling with us!

Iguazu National Park, Argentina

Our first day, we visited the Argentinian side, Iguazú National Park. It is a vast park consisting of steel catwalks below, above, and sometimes through the falls. There’s an upper and lower trail, a train that takes you to catwalks that cross the river to one of the biggest mouths of the falls, and jeep and boat tours. We pretty much did it all. What you’re going to see are a lot of pictures and videos of water flowing down rocks. We hope we captured the unbelievable scale of what we experienced.

Some will argue that the views are better from the Brazilian side of the falls simply because you can take in the entire length. On the Argentine side, the catwalk system is much more vast and you are in the midst of the falls. You can hear and feel the falls and experience the power of the water at the source rather than viewing the falls from a distance. I felt it was a much more visceral experience.

One of the parts of the experience we found most striking was the journey from the park entrance to the catwalks. It is through the park and jungle where you can’t even hear a hint of the rushing water. You’re surrounded by tropical forest, vastly different from the other landscapes we experienced in Argentina, and the trappings of a tourist attraction: food stands, souvenir shops, hotels, tour booths, etc. You need to enter the catwalk system and be at the edge of the falls before you experience the roar. The only roar on the way in is from the masses of people there to have the same experience. Even though we were supposedly late in the season, we were there on a weekend and it is an attraction that probably doesn’t have an off season–the waters are always flowing. On our visit, we were also greeted by a band of thieves posing as cute wildlife vying for the attention of the tourists. This momma capuchin and her band of babies were on the lookout for anything they could pilfer.

This master thief came down out of the trees and onto the fence rail when he spotted his treasure. The cameras were clicking and everyone was oohing and ahhing at the cute little monkey with no idea what he was actually up to.

You can see the intense look of concentration on his face. What he was eyeing, while the humans were distracted and not paying attention, was a shiny bag of potato chips loosley grasped in the hand of an Argentine tourist standing next to us. He was quick and back up into the trees before anyone knew what was happening.

He easily tore the bag opened and enjoyed his reward. He was not, however, very neat in his table manners and dropped several chips below, which were quickly claimed by the babies down below. The heist was a fun bit of entertainment along the way to the catwalks. We won’t get into the issues of tame monkeys, harassing of tourists for junk food in exchange for pictures, etc. etc. I told Ande she had to get let go of her moral outrage and just enjoy the cute little monkeys.

The thieves make their camp near the train station that is also the gateway to the two paths to the waterfalls. The Circuito Superior takes you above and across the waterfalls. Circuito Inferior takes you below some of the smaller falls. The train hauls the hordes of tourists to Garganta del Diablo (Devil’s Throat) catwalks where you hike across the powerful rivers culminating in a horseshoe of several waterfalls, where you cannot avoid getting wet. Here’s a bit of what we saw:

The water cascading off the array of cliffs is definitely the highlight, but it is wrong to ignore the expanse and relative calm of the river above before all the drama begins, and the lush green of the surrounding jungle. Here are a couple pictures from the highest catwalks extending across the river.

Of course, mere pictures cannot convey the experience. We did take some video so we could share rush and the roar of the falls. If you fall into the water here, you’re at the point of no return!

Here’s what it was like to stand below and feel the mists of the cascades.

Okay, one more photo. Ande thought I was a total dork (self-evident in photo) for getting out my rain poncho at the Devil’s Throat. Here’s Brooke, Ande and me on the catwalk shortly before we got extremely wet and I wasn’t looking so silly.

Iguaçu National Park, Brazil

Here’s where we switch countries and languages in a flash. On our second morning, we made the journey across the border to see Iguaçu National Park in Brazil. From the Brazilian side, you get a sense of the horizontal vastness of the network of falls and then get to walk out underneath a horseshoe of cascades where you get very wet. It is a much briefer experience and only takes a couple of hours.

We hadn’t mentioned before that the best way to visit the falls from both sides is to hook up with a cab driver who knows the ins and outs of visit times and crossing the border. Brooke met one coming in from the airport, and we spent both of our tour days with the same driver. On our first day on the Argentine side of the falls, he simply dropped us off and then picked us up in the afternoon. On our second day, he helped us navigate the border crossing into and out of Brazil and then helped us book the boat tour back on the Argentine side that ended our adventures.

There were long lines of cars on both sides of the border coming in and out of customs and immigration. However, both countries somehow accommodate the rapid and temporary crossings of day trippers who only spend a couple hours in Brazil. So, we can say that we visited Brazil, but we only stuck our toe in and didn’t even get stamps in our passport–always disappointing. Our driver cut the lines of cars, moved cones and went into the special line where he chatted up the immigration officials and got us through in no time. He accomplished in minutes what would have taken us easily an hour without his help. If you go, have your hotel find you a cab driver that can do the same.

The journey on the Brazilian side starts with a bus ride to the catwalks where you’re looking across to the falls in Argentina. Something like this . . .

These little sections of the falls captured during our two hourish-long walk along the catwalks still fail to capture the immensity of the 8,900 linear feet of waterfalls. Be sure to check out some of the aerial photos on the Wikipedia pages. Our Brazilian adventure ended in a catwalk that extends out across the section of the falls on the Brazilian side. We had our rain ponchos with us and were glad we did.

Again, here’s an attempt to really capture how big and loud it was with a video experience. These two videos were taken from different sections of the catwalks in Brazil.

A Fool’s Journey In

So, the last part of our water adventure had to be the touristy Jeep-truck/boat tour through the jungle, along the river and under the waterfalls–complete with a GoPro video taken by the tour operators. As cheesy as it sounds, it was great fun and we’re glad we bothered. It was quite a haul to get to the tour itself as we left our hotel early, crossed the border into Brazil, spent two hours at the falls, crossed back across the border into Argentina, and then drove back into the national park we had visited the day before. Luckily, Argentina sells two-day passes to the park. We were a bit concerned we wouldn’t get back in time to catch the boat tour, but we were lucky enough to get tickets for the last ride of the day at 3pm, which gave us time to have lunch and chill out a bit before catching the truck into the jungle to the edge of the river where we caught the boat.

They loaded us all into the backs of big flat-bed trucks with a tour guide who pointed out local flora and fauna, much of which was not visible that time of the day. We did get lucky enough to see some toucans who were impossible to photograph. The truck ride ended at the top of a steep staircase, where we were issued our dry bags and life preservers on the way down to the boat dock. We were then escorted onto the boats that would take us down the river, through some rapids, and then ultimately under and into the waterfalls. The boat ride was actually quite a thrill and provided us with some unique views of the falls. Yes, here are more photos of water falling over a cliff.

Okay, so it is a nice photo, but it doesn’t quite do it justice. Here’s a video of the same view complete with the rush of the water down the falls, the roar of the boat, and the chatter of the passengers before things got crazy.

This was the calm part of the tour just before the boat headed straight forward into the falls. The captain paused so we could all take pictures and gear up for going in. They made a point to make sure everyone stored their cameras, bags, shoes, etc. in the dry bags we were given. I somehow had the foolish notion that our rain ponchos were going to provide protection when going under the falls. Here’s the last picture I took before stowing the camera. The fools are ready to go.

There’s a 10-minute video of what happened next. We passed under the falls twice and got soaked from head to toe. We should not have even bothered to wear the ponchos. The smart people had stored their shoes in the dry bags and wore bathing suits. The rest of us were as wet as if we had just jumped into the river with our clothes on. Actually wetter, if that is possible. We were glad we saved this for the last part of the day instead of doing it first. I’ve condensed the video down into something shorter that contains the clips of us going under along with our complete shock and then uncontrollable laughter at the absurdity of the whole thing. Enjoy!

To wrap it up, here’s one of the photos from the GoPro camera set that sums up the aftermath of the ride under the Iguazu Falls. The look on my face pretty much captures how soaked we got. Brooke’s enthusiasm reflects just how fun it actually was.

Niagara Falls, whatever.