Iguazu Scraps

Angie, me and Dennis

It's pretty obvious that the sole reason for the existence of Iguazu town is that magnificent water feature down the road. Nevertheless, we stayed on a few days to take advantage of the sun and the hostels own water feature (the pool). 'Highlights' included a walk, first through a vicious hangover, then to Tres Fronteras- a lookout over the river towards Brazil and Paraguay. On the way Angie was viciously attacked by four wasps, resulting in some nasty swelling and plenty of sympathy from Dennis and me.

Good Ol' Argentina in the foreground, Paraguay, land of eyelash implants on the left and Brazil with all its fabulous breakfasts and credit card fraud on the right.

Later that day, beneath a walkway in the bus station, Angie found a cardboard box containing three freshly baked black puppies. She had an excited cuddle of one of the lethargic little balls and then tucked him back in the box with his siblings. We went off to buy a bus ticket, after which Angie cold not resist another cuddle. It was this time that mum showed up, and proceeded to threaten Angie and corner her in a dead end.

All's well

"You can't eat my puppies!"

"I don't want to eat your puppies!"

Stalemate

Iguazu Animals

Critters observed at Iguazu...

Butterflies,

coati,

birds of prey,

toucans, parrots and leopards,

more butterflies,

school excursions,

nervous rodents,

and a lion.

Iguazu Photos

Iguazu Falls

After a disgustingly early alarm (7am!) we caught a taxi to the Iguazu Parques Nacional, home of the fabulous falls. On the way our taxi driver gave us a short presentation on the falls, giving us the full rundown on where and wheno go, turning to face us and using both hands to demonstrate various paths and attractions on a flyer he had in the car. When we told him we were from Australia, he offered to smuggle us into Brazil the next day so we could see the falls from the other side (with my Australian passport, need an expensive visa for Brazil, Angie can come and go as she pleases). He assured us that he'd snuck Australians over before, and offered the koala swinging from the mirror as proof. Despite this, we declined.

Once inside the park, we navigated past tour operators, gift shops, cafes and market stallers and found our way to the jungle. The park is explored via a network of steel catwalks, so there's no chance of getting lost and even less chance of encountering large hungry cats. We did come across swarms of butterflies and packs of coati, but neither seemed interested in us.

Coati

The entire time we were inside the park, we could hear the low white noise of the falls. The first viewing platform:

The chunk of forest on the left is Brazil, and the falls next to it are Garganta del Diablo (Devils Throat). Isla San Martin is in the centre, with more falls on the right.

We spent the morning climbing up and down steps and catwalks gawking at the Western set of falls. We also jumped aboard a boat which took us right up to the impact zones of where all this water was coming down in such a hurry. The driver parked us right next two different sets of these continuous explosions, leaving us thoroughly soaked. The spray was so severe that we couldn't look in the direction of the water for more than a couple of seconds at a time.

Angie is the blue speck at the top

Me and some water

In the afternoon, after a pleasant train trip through the forest we arrived at the catwalk leading to Garganta del Diablo, the main attraction. We walked for about a kilometre over the river, heading towards a cloud of mist slowly pulsing out of the middle of the water. Once on the viewing platform, the sound of tonnes of crashing water drowned out any other noise.



The horseshoe shaped mouth of these falls is a white vortex that seems to be sucking endless amounts of water away into nothing. It is a void- there is nothing down there as far as the eye can tell- just white oblivion. Pure sound and the odd shimmer of shadow are the only clues that this liquid chasm might have a base. The white extends through the canyon and up into the sky, and everyone so often spray rises up out of the depths and covers everyone on the platform. You feel very, very small peering down over this unimaginable power into nothingness.

Scary stuff

More photos soon...

North!

El Gato Julio- not to be trusted

I've been battling some sort of cold/flu type infliction, which has kept me pretty quiet for the past week. Our hostel is inhabited by a bipolar cat who viciously attacked me with a lightning one-two and then wouldn't get off my bed. We've done lots of exciting things like walking around, shopping for socks and perhaps most thrilling of all, going under the drill at the dentist. It's not all beer and skittles here.

Angie takes advantage of the gratis abrazos (free hugs) on offer in San Telmo markets

So, in between maintenance we went to some art galleries, further explored the tremendous vegetarian opportunities, browsed markets and drank lots of coffee. Not much to write home about... dental ordeal over -time to leave- we head North to the sun.


To Iguazu....

15 hours after leaving Buenos Aires we stepped off the bus and into the glorious warmth of Iguazu. A taxi dropped us off at the hostel where we spent the afternoon getting our fluro white bodies reacquainted with UV rays.