Huge Falls!
Okay, it was the weirdest thing…since we didn’t actually leave the climate controlled Buenos Aires airport before hopping another plane to Puerto Iguazu…let me just tell you – I was wearing my puffy winter coat in El Calafate and quickly shedding it in Puerto Iguazu and seeing lots of tourists in shorts. We went from ice to the tropics.
Anyway, Puerto Iguazu is on the Argentinian side of the border. Brazil has the other side of the falls. Unfortunately because America charges $100 USD for foreigners that are not visa-exempt to use their airports, we were going to have to pay $150 USD to get into Brazil. Needless to say, we didn’t make it to the other side of the falls. If we were going farther into Brazil it would be one thing, but that’s an awfully expensive day-trip! You used to be able to just go for a day-trip and not worry about the visa thing but apparently they kind of closed that loop-hole.
But it didn’t really matter anyway because I’m not sure how the Brazilian side would have been better. Iguazu Falls is really a series of waterfalls – I think 7 – and we had heard from a couple of people when we were at Victoria Falls in Zambia that Iguazu was so much better – not sure how you can even remotely compare the two. Victoria is 1 huge fall. Iguazu is 7. You can’t see the bottom of Victoria since there’s so much water coming back up and Iguazu (while we were there), you could see pretty well. Plus they have some dams on the Brazil side that may impact the whole thing. So, in my honest opinion, people should just look at the beauty of the falls and forget the comparison (which, I guess it is kind of natural)…
Anyway, the falls were fantastic. You take this little train inside the park (you can’t walk it, you have to take a train) to the main viewing point of the falls. John put his arm on something that felt like a sting and then immediately thought he was going to die in 24 hours (and you thought I was dramatic!) Well, much to my dismay, he’s still alive. There are also a bunch of other little trails along the park and of course the handful of “adventure activities” which we skipped – they also had these animals called “coati” running around – they kind of looked like a raccoon with a long nose – they seemed to be a very nosy version of our squirrel. Like if you’re eating, about 20 of them will show up to share your lunch.
We also ran into a couple at a restaurant from South Carolina – Greenville, I think – they were trying to order dinner at a restaurant. We noticed them when the woman was trying to order a bottle of water. In English. In Argentina. They speak Spanish here. And she apparently did not know Spanish or know how to play charades (very useful, especially in Chinese speaking countries!). My favorite universal tool is the writing in the air one to signal for the check. It’s worked EVERYWHERE! They were heading back to Buenos Aires in a couple of days to take a cruise from Buenos to Santiago around the horn. I thought that sounded very cool. But they decided to take a small detour to see the falls. So we helped them out and recommended some food choices although they ended up with 2 salads instead of 1 for some reason.
Anyway, it was well worth the trip to get up there, well, it seemed like it at the time…
Tags: Argentina, iguazu falls
JohnCin
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