Iguazu

Well, we arrived at the world famous site of Iguazu. The quaint airport welcomed us and, in fact, we welcomed it. Aerolineas Argentinas is well known for it's seats. It reminds me of my grandfather's saying regarding tight pants. He would say "those jeans are like the Cecil Hotel eh? no ball room". I don't think it's possible to get them any closer to each other. We caught our taxi from the airport for what was the astronomical price of $60 pesos for just a few kilometers. In BA, an equivelant ride would have been $20 pesos. Here in Iguazu the taxis seem to be colluding toward high minimum fares.

Iguazu, for us, was like getting away to a mexican resort even though we were on holiday already. It was nice to just have that "resort" feel. We booked a nice hotel in tropical paradise. The humidity was high and the sun was bright. We had gone from being simply hot in BA, to really hot in Cordoba, to really hot and wet in Iguazu. The hotel was large and comfortable with a nice jacuzzi, pool and a great morning breakfast. You can't beat having bacon and eggs for breakie every day.

Once we had settled into our room, we rode the bus into town and decided to wander the streets - usually a wise thing to do in a city you don't know. However, it is an extremely safe place. Iguazu is a small town with it's lifeblood connected to tourism. It felt uncanily like being in Maui....even the dirt was red.

We went and visited a hummingbird "museum" though I wouldn't call it that. It was this lady's really nice back yard that had bird feeders everywhere and an assortment of trees and flowers that would make most britsh gardeners evious. That said, she did have the climate to grow wonderful things. These birds were just incredible. Even though they move with incredible speed and precision in punctuated movements, they have a soft appearance and sound to them that is captivating. There is a thrill of hearing one pass by your ear and fool your sense. They move so fast that doppler effects pitch the sound up and down as they pass by. What I couldn't believe was the number of colours that they come in. You always think of the birds as one species, but you know this just isn't the case. Not only are there hundreds of species, there is sexual dimorphism to add to the pot.

You can end up with thousands of different looking hummingbirds.

Anyway, we were here to see the falls so the next day we walked out the front of the hotel and past the taxi drivers who gave us grief for declining their $60 peso quote to get to the falls and continued right down to the main road where we were offered a ride for $20 from another passing cab driver. We took it and hapily paid the man. That was the only and last cab ride we got at a "discount". We took the bus on our return trip from the falls for the astronomical price of $4 pesos each!


Our arrival at the falls cought us a little off guard. I personally wasn't expecting the level of infrastructure here. It was like visiting Jurassic Parks' little sister. Everything was in excellent condition and there was more than enough attention to educational signage and information. The main building as you walk into the park is dedicated as a museum of nature and early native culture. There were beautifully architected pathways everywhere you could want to go and even a train to take you from one end of the park to the other.

This picture to the left is kind of a joke as there was an actual information desk but it was wheeled to the side. You had only but ask a question and you were met with ample help unlike what the picture suggests.

We ended up meeting a sweet girl named Maria at the information booth when we arrived who gave us plenty of directions through the park, told us where we should eat for the best meals, and explained the sorts of activities we could do. We paced ourselves knowing that we were spending two whole days at the park. When it's that hot out you have to move fairly slowly and conserve.

We took off on a hike after meeting our new friend Maria at the information desk. We walked down a wonderful jungle path towards the edge of the hill that would take us down towards the base of the falls. On the map, we hiked from the top right corner and worked our way down the yellow paths towards the boats. The views were excellent even though we had no idea how great they were going to be later. We could se large sections of the falls from all sorts of vantage points. We worked our way down the path to the little boat that takes you across to the island. From the island you get even better viewpoints and a much quieter experience once you venture up from the beach. There were many people enjoying the sun at the beach and we were still interested in seeing the falls from up high and close. There are times you feel like your practically in it. The wind picks up and you are sprayed with a mist of water from head to toe. The aerosol nature of the spray means no surface is spared. Even my camera lenses pointed at the ground with lens hoods on got wet.

Anyway, the following is agroup of photos from the falls park. Enjoy!

This is a look at the devil's throat from the yellow pathway.

This is look at the beach we landed on to visit the island and see the larger divided side of the falls like what you see in the picture below.

All three of the above pictures show the same vantage point from wider angle to zoomed in. Notice the people on the edge of the cliff looking at the falls. This is where we were when I spoke of everything getting wet as if you were right in the falls themselves.

There is no other recycling we could find anywhere in any other part of Argentina. I think they dump these in the landfill and the bins are there just to make people feel good