Iguazu Falls
Before we could make our big trip a reality, we spent a lot of time watching travel videos online. One of the videos that made a big impression on the kids was Iguazú Falls. Our covid positive diagnosis came the day before we were originally supposed to leave for Puerto Iguazú. The kids were crushed. We considered skipping the falls when we had to reroute, but the kids ranked it just after the Perito Moreno Glacier on their desire list, so it stayed in the plans. The best way to work it in was to endure a long travel day. Our two flights took us from the far south to the far north of Argentina with a 4-hour layover in Buenos Aires.
We arrived in Puerto Iguazú late and stepped outside into the jungle humidity. Our drive from the airport to town was on a dark two-lane road and with the jungle plants lining the edges of the roadway like a curtain of vines. Along the way, yellow diamond road signs warned us to keep our speeds slow and watch for crossing animals whose symbols we could not yet identify.
As the jungle opened up to civilization, we realized this “town” was not at all what we expected. It was much bigger, busier, and built-up than the sleepy resort area we had imagined, with large hotel resorts announcing their presence and a flamboyantly lit casino. As we passed the first gas station, we noticed the queues for a fill-up wrapped down an adjacent street out of sight. We continued to witness this during our entire stay in Iguazú, and we later found out that the lines were from a major gas shortage in the area due to many Paraguayans and Brazilians crossing the nearby border to fill up on cheap Argentine fuel.
We plugged in the address for our Airbnb and were flummoxed when it directed us to a spot on the busy main drag. Through a gate at the sidewalk, we walked into a courtyard sanctuary full of plants, and to the kids’ excitement, kittens scurried about for a hiding spot. We were starving and relieved that we could eat at the Mexican restaurant just outside our front gate.
We read that we needed to get to Iguazú Falls early, and none of us were interested in getting up early after our long travel day, so we decided to catch up on our to-do list before seeing the wonder of the Falls. We got some necessities done: dropped off our laundry, shopped for groceries, and got some school hours in with the first decent Internet connection we had in almost 2 weeks.
In the afternoon, we ventured out to the Güirá Oga animal refuge, a rehabilitation center for wild animals. Most of their animals are victims of animal trafficking, poaching, or injury from vehicles. The bird enclosures allowed us a good look at varieties of toucans and macaws, including a beautiful rare blue macaw from Brazil. We also got our first sightings of jungle cats, monkeys, and a collared peccary, which was the mysterious silhouette from the road warning signs the night before. All the animals were respectfully kept in natural enclosures and to our delight, some of the tamer animals had open cages to graze around at their leisure. The tour was very informative, and we owe many thanks to a nice couple from Buenos Aires that helped us translate.
We planned to start our next morning at Iguazú Falls early to beat the heat and the throngs of tour groups. Driving into the National Park felt like the entrance of a big theme park. After parking our car, we walked into some confusion at the ticket booths, but we breathed a sigh of relief as we jogged our way into the park just as a wave of tour busses pulled up behind us.
After getting tickets for the train, waiting for the train, and taking the half hour train ride, we were finally on the way to the main attraction, the Garganta del Diablo (Devil’s Throat) waterfall. A steel, grated walkway very similar to the one at the Perito Moreno Glacier formed the trail that crossed through the jungle and over several sloughs and tributary waterways into the Rio Iguazú. The kids noticed many fish darting in the clear waters we had passed over. As we got closer to the Devil’s Throat, we first spotted the mist rolling over the treeline and soon thereafter, the roaring water of the falls. The kids looked down to only see a small, babbling creek and exclaimed, “That’s it?!?!”
We rolled our eyes and pushed them on until we arrived at the platform where they could see the turbulence and violence of the Devil’s Throat in all its glory. Their incredulousness swiftly turned to astonishment and fear!
The Devil’s Throat is enormous, falling through two roiling tiers of water down to the bottom, approximately 80m (220 feet) below. The lush jungle grows out of the walls of the falls wherever it can avoid the turbulent flows of water. While the air got heavier with humidity and mist, it felt cooler as we stood looking over the Devil’s Throat. We would have liked to stay and view the wonder all day, but the increasing crowd encouraged us to hike back to the tram station and see the rest of the vantage points of Iguazú Falls.
On our return, we spotted our first coati in the wild. There were many signs throughout the park warning against feeding the coati and monkeys because it makes them aggressive, and they will steal your backpack in search of our high-fat delicacies. It was evident that this coati was looking for food and was not scared of us in the least. We admired her but kept a safe distance.
There are two main circuits to see the rest of the waterfalls that make up Iguazú Falls, one that takes you over the top of the falls and another to view them from the bottom. The upper circuit was a long route that gave us the opportunity to see over the main falls and survey the entire park grounds, including what we could see on the Brazilian side of the falls, directly across the river on the other cliffs of the valley.
In the middle of the day, we stopped for lunch at one of the park restaurants. Super Panchos, or footlong hot dogs, were on the menu. The heat and humidity made us feel like we were about to melt into the earth. We paused to think about our friends back home that were digging themselves out of deep ice and snow in the Arctic temperatures; and for a brief moment wished we were there.
The lower circuit turned out to be our favorite view as we could see the entire waterfalls with their pools at the bottom. We wanted so badly to jump in for a swim! Many of the falls were flowing at a trickle, so we could only imagine what an even more amazing sight it would be during wetter seasons of the year.
On our final day in Iguazú, we needed to swim in a waterfall and found a hike into the jungle that led to a remote set of waterfalls called the Saltos Mbocay. The drive to the trailhead took us through the outskirts of town in residential areas away from the hustle and bustle. As we got closer to the trailhead, there were hand painted signs for places we could park and camp for the night, and suddenly, there was no more road. We reversed the car up the road and a woman from the last driveway told us we could park on her property and she would get us a guide to take us to the falls for 400 pesos (~$2). Our guide was a boy of about about 16 years sporting a soccer jersey and flip flops. As he steered us down the trail, we were amazed at how he was able to traverse the terrain so easily as we slipped around in our trail shoes. Some sections of the path were so steep that cables were wrapped around the trees as a grip to help navigate up and down the steep hill.
We passed two of the three waterfalls along our hike. The final, third waterfall was over a large pool of water, spilling over a cliff about 30ft high. The water was brown from the runoff and we were wondering if we should swim or not. The kids had been asking to go swimming for weeks and were not going to give us the chance to call this off.
Before long we were all taking turns showering in the waterfall. We walked back, unguided, and stopped at the second waterfall to let the kids splash around some more. As clouds crept in and large drops of rain fell, we packed up and headed back home.
It was our final night in Puerto Iguazú and we were out of groceries, so we treated ourselves to a nice dinner out. Our AirBnB host recommended a mainstay restaurant just down the street with authentic local cuisine. We were all wiped out from our week’s excursions. Coco, most of all, showed how tired she was when she finally gave up nodding off at the table and sprawled across the bench instead. Our waiter, who happened to be the son of this family-owned restaurant, had a good laugh as he revealed that he would choose that very bench to sleep when he was a little boy.
Bellies full and bags packed, we tucked ourselves in for the night. The next day would have us flying again. We were ready to leave the humid jungle for dryer, cooler weather, and the solitude of the high deserts in the province of Salta, Argentina.