Monday, August 10, 2009

Iguazu Falls


When Eleanor Roosevelt saw Iguazu Falls she apparently exclaimed “Oh, poor Niagara”. Poor Niagara is right and poor Victoria Falls and every other waterfall out there. Iguazu has 275 actual waterfalls and together they create a panoramic that can’t be beat.

The seven of us arrived on Friday evening to find the jungle much warmer than we had expected. Only an hour and a half flight from the winter weather of Buenos Aires, the heat and humidity here was undeniable.

Under recommendations from everyone who had been there before we stayed at the Sheraton which was located inside the park. We were lucky enough to get upgraded to the falls side of the hotel so we had a great view and could listen to the roar of the falls all night. Although the hotel wasn't that great itself, the location cannot be beat. You literally walk out the back door and you're on the trail to the falls.

We had a fun and leisurely dinner in town Friday evening and met up again at breakfast to plan our day. Well, actually the guy at the travel desk planned our day. We first went on a short drive through the jungle that led to the boat we were to take down the river. It was a speedboat that sat about 30 and a great way to see the falls up close and personal.

We went through some rapids but the most exciting part by far was when our driver literally drove us into the waterfalls, over and over again. The amount of water was insane. It was really awesome, even though we got completely drenched. After walking back the hotel, we put on some dry clothes and had a late lunch. Then we all took the park's small train out to The Devil’s Throat.

It was by far the most impressive and powerful of the waterfalls here and again, we got pretty wet…



Sunday brought rain but we were lucky enough to hit the upper decks before it started. They’ve done a great job with the park. There are catwalks everywhere you need to go or want to see but they are very unobtrusive and don’t take away from the beauty of the falls.



The upper decks afforded fantastic views and best of all you didn’t get wet. We would have liked to have gone back to the Devil’s Throat or down one of the jungle trails but by the time we had finished the upper area the rain had started so we headed back to pack and have some lunch before going to the airport.

We both tend to really enjoy our “nature” weekends the best and Iguazu was right on up there. It was a serene setting and we wished we would have had more time and better weather to appreciate all the beauty.

We are leaving on Thursday for Peru…seeing Machu Picchu was one of the number one things we wanted to do when Julie took this job so, as you can imagine we’re pretty excited!

1 comment:

wanderer said...

Dead right girls, nothing, no waterfall at all compares to Iguacu. When I went, I said it was Rivendell, writ large.