Puerto Iguazu
Travel Location: Iguazu,Argentina
DAY 48 – 20 JANUARY 2008
Well yet another Groundhog Day. We headed out from the hotel for desayno and almost unbelievably found a place that actually served cafe con leche that wasn’t Nescafe. That must be a first here in South America.
The falls are spectacular and you need to see them from Argentina and Brazil to experience the awesome power
We headed to Cordobas main bus terminal and tried to sign up for Murdoch activities but as usual the website is crap and you cant do anything without getting errors.
Scott is progressing well with his bracelet making and is starting to fill up my arm – obviously I am his best friend as he keeps making them for me.
We confirmed accommodation in Iguazu and let them know the eta for manana. Our bus arrived and left about 10 minutes late. The bus wasn’t packed and you could definitely tell the difference between the bus company we took yesterday – very good, and this one – very basic.
The journey was fairly uneventful, except for the really annoying family behind us, who filled their kid up on biscuits and coke and then he went nuts.
The scenery changed to very green with lots of water and from crops to cattle. Had Scott licking his lips.
DAY 49 – 21 JANUARY 2008
We arrived in Puerto Iguazu at 12.10 which was only 20 minutes late. Not bad for a 24 hour bus journey. We got off and walked to our hostel, which was about 10 minutes away. The room is fairly basic, but it was ready so we dropped our stuff off and kept moving and headed back into town to get details on tours, buses etc.
We decided that doing a guided tour of Iguazu is a waste of money so we will be getting up early to catch the local bus. Also saves a huge amount of money. The tourist office advised we need a visa for Brazil, but the local bus driver said we dent, so we are going to give it a go and see what happens at the border when we head to Foz de Iguassu. We have also changed our travel ideas we will head to San Ignacio for the jesuit ruins and then straight to Rosario, a dream destination for me.
We headed to a local restaurant, where Scott had another delicious steak (well he told me, I haven’t yet decided to eat the local dead animals). We also shared a bottle of vino blanco which was really nice, although my wine diet isn’t exactly causing me to lose loads of weight, damn.
We headed to the local Mercado and bought sandwich supplies for the trek in Iguazu tomorrow and went and had a siesta as we are now totally shattered.
Dinner was at an all you can eat Parilla bar and I made sure Scott ate his AUD$8 worth. I also had a huge plate of salad and the customary bottle of vino tinto, this time a Merlot from Mendoza.
We had a slow walk home at about 11pm and everywhere was just starting to crank up. It doesn’t seem to matter how late we go to dinner, we are still earlybirds.
DAY 50 – 22 JANUARY 2008
Well we got up early and caught the local bus to Iguazu which only took about 15-20 minutes. After paying our entrance fee we caught the train to the Garganta del Diablo, which is one of the main falls.
This involved walking for approx 1 km along a metal walkway, similar to Pemberton. The views were pretty spectacular, although as you are on top of the falls you dent really see the whole thing and there is so much mist etc makes taking photos very hard. Tip for anyone coming here, buy a waterproof camera, we have said that throughout our holiday and now it is too late, oh well our next holiday will require one as well.
From there we caught the train back to Estacion Cataratas and did the various hikes to view different falls. These you could view from different levels so it was spectacular to be right at the bottom of one of the falls. We got absolutely drenched, but it is so hot and humid here, it actually felt good.
We walked down to the ferry to get to Isla Grande San Martin but it wasn’t taking passengers, something to do with the high level of the river. So we had a picnic watching the falls and then decided to call it a day and leave the park. We got our tickets stamped so that tomorrow we can come back in for half price, if we cant get into the Brazilian side.
The weather here is 36 degrees with about a zillion percent humidity. My hair is frizzy beyond belief. We had a siesta like everybody else. I left Scott asleep and took a walk into town to have a look at souveniers, but it just seems to be getting hotter and hotter so went back to the hotel.
We headed back out when it was cooler and booked a bus ticket to San Ignacio and a bus ticket from there to Rosario along with some accommodation bookings. I have also booked an apartment in San Telmo in Buenos Aires for our remaining stay.
We went to a restaurant and both had the salad bar much to the amusement of the wait staff who I dent think have ever seen a man eat just salad, but Scott is a tad meated out.
DAY 51 – 23 JANUARY 2008
We headed out to the local bus terminal and got the bus to Foz de Iguassu which is in Brazil. We decided if they wouldn’t let us into Brazil because we didn’t have a visa, then we would just come back and reenter the park again from the Argentinian side. Anyway as luck would have it we entered Argentinian immigration and they stamped our passport. All the passengers piled back on the bus and Scott and I fully expected to stop at the Brazilian checkpoint but no, we drove straight past – so we actually saved some money.
We drove into Foz de Iguassu which is as different as you can imagine from Puerto Iguazu, it is all high rise apartments, restaurants, bars etc. Although our bus driver was intent on training for the F1 championships next year, so we didn’t have that much of a leisurely look around.
We got off at the local bus terminal and found the bus to the actual national park. The buses here have a weird arrangement where you get on the bus pay the conductor (not the bus driver) and then go through a turnstile to get a seat, you then leave the bus from the back door. Again the bus driver was going faster than even I drive, so maybe I should move here as we have never seen a speed camera.
We arrived at the park in one piece, where we paid our entrance fee, luckily they took Argentinian Pesos, as we didn’t have any Brazilian Reals – at this stage I am totally sick of carrying around about 5 currencies. Luckily Scott is a human calculator.
We then bypassed the tour group line and caught the first bus heading out to the falls. We followed the walk which showed the full view of the actual falls on the Argentinian side. The walk took you all along the falls culminating in a walkway that takes you out to the bottom of the falls and another couple of walkways that take you up to the face and top of the falls. All intent on getting you wet.
We think the Argentinian side is better as there is more to do and see and you do have the opportunity to get even closer to the water.
Anyway we had our picnic lunch before completing the journey in reverse back to Puerto Iguazu, again making it through immigration with no problems. I am sure they dent even look and just see the huge amount of stamps we have accumulated and give up trying to find where we have been last.
We headed out for an early dinner and after eventually finding a bank, which we had consistently walked past several times, and is stupidly called Metro which we thought was a supermarket, we topped up our funds and went back to the restaurant we went on the first night as Scott was ready to give the Parilla another go.
