Day 28 – 23 January 2013. Buenos Aires to Port Iguassu

Early start, but a nice sleep, fantastic in fact. Breaky downstairs with Roman. My taxi driver arrived early and came in for his cuppa coffee – lovely older guy – little English. All good to the airport, seat 3L, so on and off easily, had a window. Iguassu here I come. It’s going to be hot and humid.

Got 2 days photos sorted on the plane. Saw some big rivers down below and some forests of some sort, but not much else to see.

Much flatter and more jungle like vegetation up here, it is a sub tropical area. Saw the spray from the falls, before landing at Iguassu – two gates at the airport.

My little man “Juan’ the driver was waiting with my sign and a nice little Red VW something or other. Into town, picked up John the owner of Secret Garden B&B and took a tour of the town of Port Iguassu. John explained it as a frontier town, over the river are Brazil and Paraguay, there is not much in town with 80 000 people,  it is all about the falls which are about 14 kms away. So after a photo overlooking the river Iguassu and 3 countries, we returned to Secret Garden to check in, the room is great, plenty of room, airconditioning. Had a glass of cold ‘mate’ the tea they all drink around here, then John arranged for Juan to return in 30 minutes to take me to the Falls.

I spent the day at the falls about 6 hours or so, did the speed boat ride into the falls, and lots of walking, it is hot as hot and humid, AND there are bucket loads of people. This is holiday time in Argentina, so there are heaps of local and international tourists…heaps and heaps.
There are some weird critters running around (pests really, scrounging for people’s food) there are Coatis and Monkeys, lizards, caimans, birds, plus lots of butterflies – which just don’t sit still.

Walked heaps – saw lots of different parts of the falls, then home via the Sheraton for a drink, then walked extra from Sheraton back to park entry to get ticket stamped for second day, then returned late to the Sheraton to meet Juan – had to rush that last walk and now have some blisters and sore feet…oh well, I’m sure I’ll recover.

The boat ride provided us all with a complete soaking, thank goodness, being wet made the heat a little more bearable for the rest of the day. (They give you a ‘dry bag’ for your gear)

Home to Secret Garden for drinks and nibbles, with two guys staying here – Paul and Mack from Orlando in the US, and an Argentinean couple, with little English – Manual and ???, also John’s wife Rosina. We drank a lovely Brazilian cocktail made by the maid whose name I can’t quite get my head around. The cocktail is called a Kaiparina – Brazilian cane rum, lime and sugar…very nice indeed – refreshing in the humidity.

It was lovely sitting around chatting, now to bed, without any tea, I’m pooped. Breaky is arranged for 8.00 then out to the Iguassu Falls Park for day 2.  John warned today of Dengue Fever, so Bushman’s is broken out now. I haven’t really seen ‘mozzies’ but there are little bitey things where we sit for breaky and drinks.

The town revolves around three things – tourism (Falls), Timber and being a frontier town, lots of Police, and other ‘security’ folk.

 

Leaving Buenos Aires, it's a really big place. With heaps of barrios (neighbourhoods) with their own high rise buildings. The water was really muddy.

 

Weird 'animal crossing' signs on way from aeropuerto to Iguassu city. Juan slowed down for me to capture this one.

This is a photo taken on my town tour with John and Juan. This shows three countries. On the left of the Iguassu River is Brazil, the right with the round building is Paraguay, and we are standing in Argentina.

Quick turn around and out to Iguassu Falls national park.

First critter I saw was a guinea pig type thing.

Signs in the parque.

sign says it all really.

Took a tour through the jungle on the way to the speedboat tour.

 

It was hot...

It was nice speeding along on the water, with spray right beside.

In places there were some rocks and rapids to negotiate.

First views of the falls.

Then we got closer...we are going in there somewhere.

There is another boat in there where we are headed.

Getting set to go.

The guys running the show, put on full waterproofs, that's one up the front hyping everyone up ready to go 'in.'

It was pretty wet under there, this shot is looking up the falls.

Another shot of us 'in there'

 

After the boat trip, we were soaked, which was nice given the heat and humidity.

Sorry there are many, many, many waterfalls and therefore many, many photos of water...and another two days to come.

Rainbow in the spray.

There was just mega litres and mega litres of water pouring over the falls.

My attempt at making the water 'silky'

These little guys - Coatis - are cute, but they really are pests and can bite and scratch and carry disease.

There were many families of them, adults with many babies.

This is a vulture in the tree, they are circling around the falls all the time.

Falls, from the lower circuit, which is the walk I did following the boat trip.

Another Coatis shot.

A lovely yellow bird who came for my chips and nuts, whilst having a drink at the Sheraton - the only hotel actually in the park.

 

And another little yellow guy.

 

Baby Coatis in the grass

 

This bird was quite common, but his deep navy and light yellow colour with blue blazes over his eyes were amazing, so I've attempted quite a few photos.