Even though the ride from Buenos Aires to Puerto Iguazú is about 16 hours long, the bus is extremely comfortable. The seats are huge, you can lift your legs up and put the back of the seat down. It is better to buy the ticket on the day you plan to travel, as the bus companies are very likely to give you a discount on the online prices.
After arriving to Puerto Iguazú and putting my backpack down (those two blocks from the bus station to the hostel were the longest ever!), I decided to explore the town for the rest of the day, and see the waterfalls the next day. As I soon found out, there wasn’t much to explore in the town itself. The ‘downtown’ consists of a few streets with simple food stores, restaurants and other small shops, and around 4 pm most of them were already closed. However, I had time to rest, which was good.
We started early the next morning. I met two British girls at the hostel, and since they arrived the same day I did, we decided to go to the Falls together. The buses to Iguazú Falls run quite often, so it was not a problem to get there. For some reason, the entrance to the park is most expensive for foreigners, and if you live in Argentina, Brazil or Paraguay, it is a few times cheaper. Quite a way to make gringo tourists feel welcome. The fee also includes a ride to a small island within the park, from which you can see falls up close. By the time we got to the island, we were pretty exhausted, and the wait to get on the boat was quite long, but it was worth it in the end. If nothing else, the cool spray from the falls was very appreciated and refreshing after the burning sun in the line to get onto the boat.
The park itself is full of lizards, butterflies (hundreds of butterflies that like to pose for pictures), coatís (a small, furry animal) and some other unidentified animal. Most of them are not afraid of people and will try to snatch your food, but you are not supposed to feed them.
There is a train you take to get to the falls, and also a walking portion. As we were walking towards the Falls, we could hear the noise of the water, and I was getting more and more excited to finally see them. They really are unbelievable! It is amazing how much water plummets there each second. The biggest waterfall reminded me of an enormous pot of boiling milk. The best of all, you are awarded with both an amazing view and a cool spray of water. Taking pictures is quite challenging, as there are many people trying to get the best angle. We decided not to take the boat tour which brings you close to the waterfall, since it costs as much as the entrance fee, and we figured you don’t see much in the 10 minutes of the ride, plus it must be too wet to take pictures down there.
After our own photo session, we kept going to the place where you can take the boat to the small island (San Martin Island). It was a good end to our visit. We took a few more pictures, none of which will probably go public, showing us all sweaty and red-faced. If you feel up for it, there are many hiking trails around the park, but, as one of the girls said, ‘a forest is a forest’.
Since we arrived to the hostel in the early afternoon, I had enough time to walk to the ‘tres fronteras’, a point from which you can see Brazil and Paraguay from Argentina. It’s quite a nice way there and back, through the town, even though I had to rush there since it was getting dark. The rush was not for safety reasons (as it might have been across the border in Brazil), but simply for the fact that I would not see Brazil and Uruguay in the dark.
My original plan was to visit the Brazilian side of the Falls the next day, and then meet a friend in Campo Bom, in the south of Brazil. I changed the plan that evening, as the Brazilian side is way smaller than the Argentinian, and, I assume, very similar. It’s the same falls after all. According to a Dutch couple I met in Buenos Aires, Foz do Iguaçu is much bigger than Puerto Iguazú, and also intimidating, which I didn’t feel like checking, so I woke up the next morning and started my journey across the border into Brazil.
