Las Cataratas

I went to Puerto Iguazú over the weekend to see the falls. They are larger than Niagara Falls, which I have never seen, so I was excited. I bought a round trip bus ticket and left on Thursday morning. Well, I was supposed to anyway. My bus was scheduled to leave Tucumán at 11:30am and arrive in Iguazú at 8:30 or 9am the next day. (I know, killer bus ride of 22 hours but I did the 28 hour bus ride from Chile to Tucumán a few weeks ago so I figured I could handle it.) Well the bus arrived about 30 minutes late and we could see why as soon as it got there. It had a broken window that was only staying in place with about half a roll of duct tape. That took two hours to fix before we were finally on our way. Then, as luck would have it we had some kind of problem with the brakes that we discovered as we were coming down in elevation from the mountains. This caused another four hour delay at one of the sketchiest looking bus stations I've ever seen. Not to mention that it was very hot and humid outside. So I chose to spend most of the time in the air conditioned bus. The good news is that I met some really cool people on the bus. One was from Brazil and the other from Croatia. They had been traveling for a month through Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. We had an interesting conversation about traveling and languages as well as the things we missed about being home. I love meeting people from all over the world because they are all interesting in their own way and yet we are all the same. We all have things that make us feel at home. I now have friends in each of these countries that I can visit and that I would love to have visit me in the States. 

After a 26 hour bus ride I finally arrived in Iguazú. The fun thing about this trip is that it was not really planned in advance. I didn't have a plan for where I was going to stay or what exactly I was going to do while I was there other than see the falls. So once in the bus station I got my sense of direction on a map and set off to find a hostel. About a block and a half away I found one that I thought looked okay (it had a pool, bonus!) The pricing was pretty standard at all the hostels in the area so the only thing I really cared about beyond that was reliable WiFi. Because I had spend most of the day on a bus I just wanted to be outside so I spent the rest of the evening on the patio enjoying a glass of wine, talking to a guy I met at the hostel that was from Italy. We decided to go to the falls together the next day so when I got up the next day and saw the dark rain clouds I was a little discouraged. We decided to go anyway which didn't turn out so well for us. I don't know that I've ever been that wet in my life. It was a lot of fun though to run through the warm rain back to the bus and then from the bus station to the hostel. I would have stayed and tried to see the falls through the rain if had been a little lighter rain but it got so strong that trees were falling over from the wind. The locals were saying that it was the biggest storm they had seen in years. 

I spent the rest of the day learning to make some amazing pasta from my Italian friend and having Maté with some of the others at the hostel. It was very relaxing to just enjoy a day listening to the rain and talking to people from all over the world. The next day we went to the falls and got to see La Garganta Del Diablo which is basically waterfall on three sides causing lots of mist and a permanent rainbow. It was incredible. I saw all kinds of animals there and there were butterflies everywhere. It seemed a lot like paradise to me (except the biting flies that I found out I'm allergic to.) Words can't really describe the sights as well as pictures so I'll link the album here, and you can check it out yourself. The third day I took a short boat ride to see the falls from the bottom perspective and got completely soaked. It was lots of fun. Then we did a 4k walk to a different waterfall with a natural pool at the bottom for some swimming. Again, paradise but with bugs. In fact we saw some ants that were bigger than an inch long. I can only imagine how much it would hurt to get bitten by that!

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. It was hard to get on a bus and drive away from this little city that seemed like paradise to me but I have more adventures planned in other parts of the country to get to. I might even go to Santiago, Chile for a night or two since I'm going to Mendoza next week.