Once we arrived in Puerto Iguazú, we tried to find our hostel. We had tried to make a reservation online before we left Rosario, but the hostel hadn't received our reservation and they told us that we would have to come back to see if they had a room available. The whole thing seemed a little sketch, so we kept walking around the town to find a hostel. We found one and dropped off our things, then decided to explore the town. Puerto Iguazú is completely different from Rosario. It's in the province Misiones, which is one of the poorest provinces in Argentina, and makes its livelihood on tourism. While Rosario has a European vibe, Puerto Iguazú felt very Latin American. We explored the city and went into many little touristy shops that all basically sold the same things. After shopping for most of the afternoon, we found a restaurant for dinner and then decided that we should go to bed in order to spend as much time on Sunday as possible at the Falls.
On Sunday morning, we made it to the bus station around 10 am, carting all of our things. The bus ran to the Falls about every 20 minutes, and soon we were crowded onto the bus, on our way to one of the 7 natural wonders of the world!Once we arrived at the park, we found out that it cost 130 pesos to enter, and they didn't accept credit cards (seriously, what national place doesn't accept credit cards?). I didn't have enough pesos on me, so Emily had to help cover my entrance fee. We entered the park and found a place to meet in case we got separated, and then Emily, Melissa, and I were ditched by Cain and Annie (rude). We asked for a map of the park and started walking along the green path that would take us to the Falls. The paths weren't labeled very clearly, which made it hard for us to find where to go. After walking the wrong way initially, we found our way to the Lower Path, and we decided to walk along and see where we ended up.
We passed some wild animals and a small waterfall - Salto Alvar Nuñez. After turning some corners, we finally emerged on the most gorgeous place I've ever seen. There were rainbows EVERYWHERE and the Falls spread as far across as I could see - cheesy description, but true! We kept walking along the lower path and reached the place where we were standing right under the Salto Bossetti! The path was slippery and very crowded, and we were soaked by the end, but the view was worth it.
We had to walk a ways over the Río Iguazú Superior to reach the Garganta del Diablo (Throat of the Devil), and we were able to see the spray from the falls rebounding and filling the sky around the Falls from a ways out. When we reached the Falls, we were standing right over the top of the Falls, and you couldn't even see the bottom of the Falls because of the spray! The view was fantastic, and I can't even explain to give it justice so this video will have to suffice:
At that point, since we had seen everything, I became a little grumpy from carrying my heavy backpack and Vera around all day and not having eaten anything since breakfast. Emily, Melissa and I took the train back to the station in the middle of the park, where we were able to meet Cain and Annie at 5 and take the bus back to Puerto Iguazú. When we arrived, we had about 3 hours before our bus was supposed to leave for Rosario, so we ate dinner and walked around, looking at some of the stands where people sold their handmade goods. We were all looking forward to the bus ride home because we had nicer seats and thought we would be able to sleep well (and were hoping for some better movies, and we were not disappointed although I couldn't hear the movies from my seat - they showed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and One Day, both movies that I wanted to see). The ride back to Rosario took about 20 hours, and it felt so good to walk the 18ish blocks back to my house when we arrived.
So that was my weekend! I had fun bonding with the others who went, seeing one of the natural wonders of the world, and navigating some of the sketchy places of Puerto Iguazú. After 20 hours on the bus I'm tired and a little smelly, but the sights we saw at Las Cataracas definitely made the trip (and all the minor inconveniences that came with it) worth it.
Here's the link to see the rest of my pictures from Iguazú:
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