Las Cataratas del Iguazú : Iguazú Falls

Last Thursday (June 24th) we headed out to see the Iguazú Falls! I had been wanting to see the falls for over a year and was super excited to acutally get to do it!

Our bus left around 8:30pm from Buenos Aires and arrived in Iguazú on Friday around noon. The trip was ridiculously long - about 17 hours in total - but we requested a first class "coche cama" bus with seats that fold down 180˚ and basically become beds, and it was actually fairly comfortable.

As soon as we arrived in Iguazú, we got off the bus and headed to a sales counter where we purchased tickets for an excursion that day starting at 2:00pm - a walk through the Iguazú jungle complete with a zipline through the jungle and a short rappelling course down the side of a mountain. After purchasing the excursion we quickly headed for our hostel to drop off our stuff before leaving. It was really fun - especially the zipline!

That night we headed to the Iguazú National Park for a moonlit (full moon) tour of the most popular area of the park-- the waterfalls called "la garganta del diablo" (or "the devil's throat"). It was absolutely awesome to see the falls for the first time at night by the light of the moon. It was truly a magical moment, and one that not even our cameras (which had problems taking photos due to the lighting) could begin to capture.

We ate dinner at a restaurant at the park and had all kinds of sausages and meat a la parrilla (grilled) as well as yuca frita (or "fried yucca") which is one of my favorite South American foods. After the tour they gave us all a taste of caipirinha, a traditional Brasilian alcoholic beverage.

Then we returned to our hostel where Andrew headed for bed and Anna and I headed for the nightlife! We took a cab into downtown Puerto Iguazú and went dancing at the town's only nightclub, "Cuba Libre." Even though we got there around midnight, the party in Argentina doesn't really start until at least 2:00am. Of course, we had lots of things to do the next day and we ended up leaving before the party "really got started."

The next day we headed to see the falls during the day. We spent the whole day walking around the park and watching the different and marvelous views of falling water from all different angles. Near the end of the afternoon we took a short 15-minute boat ride underneath the falls and got totally soaked by the water. It was amazing to be underneath waterfalls that big and feel absolutely choked by the water! I couldn't stop laughing and smiling during the entire 15 minutes.

That night we returned to the bus terminal and headed back to Buenos Aires, this time in a second class bus. In the second class buses the seats only recline 160˚, and I must admit that the difference it notable. For anyone wishing to do this trip in the future, it's definitely worth the money to go by first class if your schedule allows for it!

For me, the only real downside to this trip is that my camera got totally ruined from the water (regardless of my attempts to keep it dry). Even so, I think the trip was worth it!