Argentina’s Iguazu Falls

The first thing we noticed about the small town of Puerto Iquazu when we climbed out of the air-conditioned bus is that it’s hot! Really hot! You immediately feel as if the air is a thick, warm blanket around you. I can’t remember when last I was in such blazingly hot weather. It was quite funny remembering how freezing it was on the Perito Moreno glacier just a few days ago.

Our hotel, Los Helechos, was close to the bus station and after dropping our backpacks off there we found a local cafe with ice cold beer. The prices of food and drink was a lot cheaper than in Buenos Aires.

The next day we took the bus from the bus stop (which most tourists seem to take) to the falls for 70 pesos per person there and back. It was a double-decker bus with an open roof and it took about 40 minutes to get to Iguazu National Park. There we paid 170 pesos to enter. (double than what was written as the price in our 2011 travel book)

The Iguazu Falls are one of the new 7 wonders of nature, along with Cape Town’s Table mountain. The whole park is quite nice. There’s a train traveling from various points in the park which you can catch a ride on. It’s maximum speed is about 4km/hour but it’s lovely and scenic. There are various trails you can hike to see some beautiful fauna and flora.

You start hearing the roaring of the falls before you can actually see them. I’m sure I could also feel the ground tremble. Wow! The falls are indeed a wonder of nature! Millions of liters of water come gushing down with such a tremendous, seemingly unending force. It flows with such power! It’s breathtaking! On the upper route you get so close to one of the waterfalls you can feel it breathing.

We saw many butterflies and birds, a crocodile, many fish, a turtle, a monkey and many spiders. And obviously many tourists as well but we were more pleased to see the other animals. As we were on our way towards the exit of the park we saw the bird I so hoped we would see – the toucan bird! I was so happy to see a real live toucan with it’s flamboyant colours and yellow banana-like beak the same size as its body. It didn’t seem as if Mr.Toucan was in the best of moods that day though. He was making low pitched grumbling sounds and flying from tree to tree with about 5 other little black birds chasing him.

“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time?” That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.” From the book Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. The river is always the same yet always changing.