Iguazu Falls
Jan. 10
Our last morning in Rio went by quickly as we had to head to the airport for our flight to Iguazu Falls pretty early. The flight was non-eventful but we were a little worried about what would happen when we arrived. Igazu Falls is on the border of Brazil and Argentina (Paraguay also shares a border nearby) and we were flying into Brazil but our hotels were in Argentina. We were a little concerned about how long and difficult the trip across the border would be.
When we landed we asked the woman working at the information kiosk what the best way to get to Argentina was. She said a taxi would take us to Brazil's border for about $15. That would only get us to the border....we still had to get into Argentina and who knows how they might gouge us on the other side. Being our frugal selves, we opted for the bus and were given some complicated instructions: take bus #1 to the town center, cross the street, find bus #2 and take that to the border, stop at Brazil for immigration, get on bus #3, go to Argentina immigration, get back on bus and take it to the Puerto Iguazu bus terminal. No problema, we can do this. Well, two hot and sweaty hours later we arrived at our hotel in Puerto Igauzu only to find out that they had given away our room because we took too long to get there from the airport! That made me grumpy, as my survival during this long ordeal had been entirely dependent on the fact that the hotel had a pool and I was going to get in it as soon as we got there.
Anyway, we got things worked out and moved to a new hotel, complete with pool. It was also our first hotel with a hairdryer(!!!). Since we would actually be staying in the park the next two nights we tooled around Puerto Iguazu that evening.
Jan. 11
What can I say, Iguazu kicks the butt of Niagara. The Falls are incredible. When we arrived at the hotel (more on that later) we checked in and immediately took off to "Garganta del Diablo", the Devil's Throat and the main attraction. We opted not to wait in line for the train that takes you to the catwalks, so we had a 30 minute hike in the hot sun. We then walked out a series of catwalks for our first view of the falls. It's worth noting that the park was revamped in 2001 and the catwalk and trail systems are very well done. There are several different circuits you can take to get views from above and below the falls. It was a little strange when we walked out to the Diablo and saw that when they had replaced the catwalks in 2001 they had just left the old ones in the river below. If they could get the new catwalks in why couldn't they take the old out? Some of the old metal pieces were starting to wash down the river.... Anyway, our first glimpse was mostly of the intense spray from the falls. The noise was astounding as the water thundered downward. The falls are immense. We stood in the spray and took it all in. Incredible. Beautiful. Loud. Green...I was suprised to see that much of the water looked green. It was a great feeling to be in such a cool place. There were a lot of people there and it was really hot so we decided to head back to the hotel for a while and cool off.
This brings me to the hotel discussion. There is one hotel in the Argentina park at Iguazu Falls. It is an exorbitantly priced Sheraton. We really debated if we should stay there or not. The pros were that it should be a good hotel and being right in the park would give us early access so that we wouldn't have to fight the crowds. The con was clearly the price. We would essentially use up 8 days of lodging budget for two nights. In the end, we decided to stay there because of the early access to the park and also the picture of the pool on the website was awesome. Since there would be a lot of poeple in the park we planned to camp out at the pool in the afternoons and do all of our hiking in the early morning and late afternoon. Upon check-in I inquired about the pool. I was told it was outside to the right. When we left for the Diablo we stopped to check it out. We passed a bunch of construction and then came to the edge of a very small, cheap looking pool. NOT the pool on the website!! It looked temporary. I looked back at the construction and I could see the edge of a beautiful circular pool...and the rest was filled in with dirt. Waaaah! So the hotel is doing major construction and didn't mention it when we booked...needless to say I am very sad about the pool and am very annoyed with the jack-hammers that are constantly pounding away. Oh well, they do have a ping pong table and we had an exciting game of that when we came back from our walk to the Diablo.
In the afternoon we hiked the upper circuit which provides a nice view of some of the smaller falls in the park. It was beautiful and we looked forward to the morning when we had planned to do the lower circuit.
Jan. 12
This morning we got up at the butt-crack of dawn and headed down to the "exquisite buffet" (as described in hotel literature) as soon as it opened. Needless to say, there were a lot of other hotel guests who had the same idea as us. It's an older crowd. We scarfed our breakfast so we could beat the old folks out to the hiking trails :-) It turns out that it is worth it to get up really early and to pay the astronomical hotel rate because the park is wonderful early in the morning. We hiked for almost three hours and saw very few people. We took a boat over to Isla MartÃn where there were tons of stairs to climb to reach the top. We were then level with the falls and the view was spectacular. My favorite thing was a huge rainbow that formed around several falls. It was so beautiful. The pictures just don't do it justice. I wouldn't exactly call it peaceful at the falls because they are so noisy, but it is so cool. It was awesome to see their power and to follow each flow of water. They all fall differently, some really fast and others sort of slowly make their way down.
After hiking around for a few hours we went back to the hotel to take a dip in the bathtub, oh, I mean the pool. We spent a couple hours working on our tans before having lunch and retreating to the air-conditioning. This evening we came into Puerto Iguazu to have dinner and do some blogging (do you want to pay $.66 an hour for internet in town or $4 at the hotel? I know both are small but it's the principle!).
Tomorrow we head to the airport to fly to Buenos Aires. This time we will hire a taxi to take us to the Brazil airport! We're not going the bus route again!!
Ciao,
Jen
Our last morning in Rio went by quickly as we had to head to the airport for our flight to Iguazu Falls pretty early. The flight was non-eventful but we were a little worried about what would happen when we arrived. Igazu Falls is on the border of Brazil and Argentina (Paraguay also shares a border nearby) and we were flying into Brazil but our hotels were in Argentina. We were a little concerned about how long and difficult the trip across the border would be.
When we landed we asked the woman working at the information kiosk what the best way to get to Argentina was. She said a taxi would take us to Brazil's border for about $15. That would only get us to the border....we still had to get into Argentina and who knows how they might gouge us on the other side. Being our frugal selves, we opted for the bus and were given some complicated instructions: take bus #1 to the town center, cross the street, find bus #2 and take that to the border, stop at Brazil for immigration, get on bus #3, go to Argentina immigration, get back on bus and take it to the Puerto Iguazu bus terminal. No problema, we can do this. Well, two hot and sweaty hours later we arrived at our hotel in Puerto Igauzu only to find out that they had given away our room because we took too long to get there from the airport! That made me grumpy, as my survival during this long ordeal had been entirely dependent on the fact that the hotel had a pool and I was going to get in it as soon as we got there.
Anyway, we got things worked out and moved to a new hotel, complete with pool. It was also our first hotel with a hairdryer(!!!). Since we would actually be staying in the park the next two nights we tooled around Puerto Iguazu that evening.
Jan. 11
What can I say, Iguazu kicks the butt of Niagara. The Falls are incredible. When we arrived at the hotel (more on that later) we checked in and immediately took off to "Garganta del Diablo", the Devil's Throat and the main attraction. We opted not to wait in line for the train that takes you to the catwalks, so we had a 30 minute hike in the hot sun. We then walked out a series of catwalks for our first view of the falls. It's worth noting that the park was revamped in 2001 and the catwalk and trail systems are very well done. There are several different circuits you can take to get views from above and below the falls. It was a little strange when we walked out to the Diablo and saw that when they had replaced the catwalks in 2001 they had just left the old ones in the river below. If they could get the new catwalks in why couldn't they take the old out? Some of the old metal pieces were starting to wash down the river.... Anyway, our first glimpse was mostly of the intense spray from the falls. The noise was astounding as the water thundered downward. The falls are immense. We stood in the spray and took it all in. Incredible. Beautiful. Loud. Green...I was suprised to see that much of the water looked green. It was a great feeling to be in such a cool place. There were a lot of people there and it was really hot so we decided to head back to the hotel for a while and cool off.
This brings me to the hotel discussion. There is one hotel in the Argentina park at Iguazu Falls. It is an exorbitantly priced Sheraton. We really debated if we should stay there or not. The pros were that it should be a good hotel and being right in the park would give us early access so that we wouldn't have to fight the crowds. The con was clearly the price. We would essentially use up 8 days of lodging budget for two nights. In the end, we decided to stay there because of the early access to the park and also the picture of the pool on the website was awesome. Since there would be a lot of poeple in the park we planned to camp out at the pool in the afternoons and do all of our hiking in the early morning and late afternoon. Upon check-in I inquired about the pool. I was told it was outside to the right. When we left for the Diablo we stopped to check it out. We passed a bunch of construction and then came to the edge of a very small, cheap looking pool. NOT the pool on the website!! It looked temporary. I looked back at the construction and I could see the edge of a beautiful circular pool...and the rest was filled in with dirt. Waaaah! So the hotel is doing major construction and didn't mention it when we booked...needless to say I am very sad about the pool and am very annoyed with the jack-hammers that are constantly pounding away. Oh well, they do have a ping pong table and we had an exciting game of that when we came back from our walk to the Diablo.
In the afternoon we hiked the upper circuit which provides a nice view of some of the smaller falls in the park. It was beautiful and we looked forward to the morning when we had planned to do the lower circuit.
Jan. 12
This morning we got up at the butt-crack of dawn and headed down to the "exquisite buffet" (as described in hotel literature) as soon as it opened. Needless to say, there were a lot of other hotel guests who had the same idea as us. It's an older crowd. We scarfed our breakfast so we could beat the old folks out to the hiking trails :-) It turns out that it is worth it to get up really early and to pay the astronomical hotel rate because the park is wonderful early in the morning. We hiked for almost three hours and saw very few people. We took a boat over to Isla MartÃn where there were tons of stairs to climb to reach the top. We were then level with the falls and the view was spectacular. My favorite thing was a huge rainbow that formed around several falls. It was so beautiful. The pictures just don't do it justice. I wouldn't exactly call it peaceful at the falls because they are so noisy, but it is so cool. It was awesome to see their power and to follow each flow of water. They all fall differently, some really fast and others sort of slowly make their way down.
After hiking around for a few hours we went back to the hotel to take a dip in the bathtub, oh, I mean the pool. We spent a couple hours working on our tans before having lunch and retreating to the air-conditioning. This evening we came into Puerto Iguazu to have dinner and do some blogging (do you want to pay $.66 an hour for internet in town or $4 at the hotel? I know both are small but it's the principle!).
Tomorrow we head to the airport to fly to Buenos Aires. This time we will hire a taxi to take us to the Brazil airport! We're not going the bus route again!!
Ciao,
Jen
posted by Jenny & Matt at 1:27 PM
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