World Wonders and a Waterfall

Finally! All the hard work of driving for like 3,000 kms or something across the 4th largest continent on the planet to get to Iguazu Falls. Iguazu falls is approximately at the triple frontier of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, although, as might be expected, you can only see the falls from within Brazil and Argentina. We arrived first to Puerto Iguazu around 2 in the afternoon.

Puerto Iguazu is a town of about 40,000 people, and its culture is definitely defined by the falls, but surprisingly it doesn´t feel nearly as touristy as some of the other major tourist towns we´ve hit along the way. I thought it was too touristy. We arrived and, as per the Lonely Planet guide book, Acacia directed us to the cheap campground located about 2 kms from the center of town. Unfortunately, the Cabanas with the same name and at the same location of the campground in the guidebook did not have any camping (we assume the owners simply upgraded the property in the last 3 years), so we searched for the cheapest hostel in town, which started with Acacia directing us to the next best sounding option in the guidebook. Surprisingly, we only had to check out one hostel to settle on this pretty sweet place with breakfast, a swimming pool, a garden with hammocks, and beer for sale on the premises for and the place only cost $10 a night, what a steal! So we checked in there and then proceeded to purchase a beer, Isenbeck which is the best in Argentina according to some, and relax for a bit in the hammocks checking emails and reading. Plan number one, though, was checking the Paraguayan embassy because we knew we needed visas to enter Paraguay in a couple of days and wanted to have as much time as possible to deal with that without getting set back in our travels.

View from Our Hostel with Pouring Rain

I had been pretty sure of my directions from the map when we left the hostel. However, upon arriving at the spot I thought it was at and seeing nothing but a couple of restaurants, I asked a local who directed us about 5 blocks away. 5 blocks away, still no embassy. So, I asked a lady working in one of the shops on the main drag we were one who directed me still further from where I had originally thought it was. Acacia was beginning to think it didn´t exist. But then I saw it, a Paraguayan flag flapping from behind a store awning. We walked to the building the flag was on and discovered the Paraguayan embassy with a closed sign. No hours posted, no phone number, just a closed sign and a list of prices for tourist visas. $160 for U.S. citizens. Welp, guess we´ll have to come back later. In the meantime, hunger was a prevailing issue. So, Acacia and I walked around until we found the first affordable looking restaurant with pizza. After our pizza snack, we naturally went shopping for dinner ingredients. This ended up being a couple of hunks of steak for me and a pile of vegetables for the vegetarian.

Getting back to the hostel, I fried my steaks while Acacia cut up vegetables. Acacia skyped the rest of the night while I entertained myself with a fine cuban and some beer in the tropical humid, yet not too warm night.

We had looked up the weather for the week to plan our Iguazu Falls visit and discovered that Saturday and Sunday (our first two full days there) were going to be raining and thundering on Saturday, and then partial rain on Sunday. So, Saturday was a rest day for us and Sunday was going to be some forest hiking. I woke up Saturday morning to a breakfast of bread, jam, dulce, and butter as well as all I could drink coffee. Perfect. Since it was raining, pretty much the entire hostel was hanging out at breakfast and we early-ish birds (with a significant impact from me) killed the breakfast goods before everyone had finished so the lady working at the hostel had to make a trip in the rain for extra food. I think this was the start of her not liking us. Anyway, the group I was hanging out with was a couple, dude, James, from England and girl, Jana, from Belgium, a guy from Finland, whose name is escaping me, and another girl from England. Everyone was talking about their, or lack their of, plans for the day. The girl from England graced me with all the leftover coca leaves she had since she was flying back to England soon, which made it my first coca acquisition of the  trip so I was stoked.

After a long social breakfast, I worked on the blog a bit. Acacia read and wrote some letters. I hung out with the European couple. Acacia and I went to find lunch, and decided to get epic sandwhich ingredients. After not finding them, Acacia got a bucket of olives and I got some blood sausage. When I asked for an olive from this 1 kilo bucket, Acacia quickly snapped that I couldn´t have one, which she claims was a joke, but knowing her olive addiction... Acacia wrote some more. I made coca tea and had a beer. Acacia went on a run. So then I went on a run. I went swimming in a pool during a thunderstorm which is apparently frowned upon Yet another bet John has lost. I was still pretty stuffed from my blood sausages around dinner time so it never really happened. We ended up playing drinking games with the breakfast crew and then got ice cream (a common trend here?). Back to the drinking games though. We were all drinking the beer at the hostel, which was stocked for casual imbibing. But, we cleared the shelves out and the hostel had to restock it with water to make it look less empty.

Empty Beer Shelf

The next morning was pretty slow again. Long breakfast and then off to the Iguazu national park to find some  remote part of the park that supposedly had some trails through the rainforest. After researching on the internet how to get there and coming up empty handed, I figured the best bet was to go to the main entrance and ask there. The guy from Finland was also going to the park that day so we gave him a lift and headed off to the main entrance around 1pm. When we arrived, we had to pay 10 bucks for parking to get in. But, as I tried to explain to the toll booth agent, we just needed to ask a couple questions at the information building and then we´d be leaving. It didn´t matter, this lady was adiment on me paying. After causing a bit of a line-up, I asked if I could just turn around on the other side of the toll booth. She agreed to this one, so after I was through, I `turned around` by going all the way to the information building, parking where only taxis could, and then proceeding to ask the park staff, and then a ranger about the other remote section of the park. They all just stared blankly as they said the only part of the park for tourists was the falls. Then, finally, one dude mentioned that there was a place where you could camp, but it didn´t have trails, and we had to get permission in advance to get there. And he didn´t know where it was. Apparently its very remote. At that point, we opted out. The guy from Finland, who was planning on hopping the fence to get into the falls decided that we´d made too much of a scene for him to hop the fence discretely and got a ride back to town with us.

At that point we were pretty hungry, so we made a grocery store run for some fresh ravioli and made it with some tomatos and garlic. Acacia ended up skyping most of the night again, and I hung out with the guy from Finland and a german dude we had met, who actually remembers hearing me try to call for buying a car way back in an internet cafe in Coyhaique, Chile. That´s crazy. The guy from Finland was a home brewer, so naturally we had a lot to talk about. He also worked with a NGO trying to spread awareness about local communities in need of international help from the EU. He also had some crazy stories about travelling through Indonesia, and has epic plans of maybe taking the trans siberian railway to Mongolia, buying a horse, and then traveling and living with the locals for a while. The three of us went out for some pizza, and I got some baked goods and beer for dinner for Acacia and I. Also because we were back in the tropics, mosquitos were a thing and Acacia got these terrible bites that required the first medicine of the trip besides malaria pills, a bit of benadryl.

Stella Artois Negro, a pill of Benadryl, and a puffy arm

The next morning was Iguazu Falls day! Iguazu! Iguazu! But first, some errands. We had to run by the post office, and go to the Paraguayan Consulate to get our visas. Now, on that super rainy day I had made another jaunt to the consulate to see if it was open. NOPE. So I knocked on the door of the business next door where a man told me that the consulate was open from 7am-3pm weekdays. So, since today was Monday, we figured we would stop in before heading to the park to figure out what we needed so we could get the necessary documents once we returned from the park. We dropped by and discovered that we needed $160 each, passport photos, copies of our passport, and copies of our legal entry into Argentina. Easy enough. The employee working there said it would be a full day to get our visas, which would potentially mean we´d have to spend a day longer in Puerto Iguazu than we wanted to. After that we went to find the post office and mail some letters. When we parked our car, some guy commented that it needed a wash and then said he´d watch it while we were gone. Weird? Well he watched it while we walked to the post office because it was still there when w returned. Phew! Back on the road. Iguazu!...Iguazu!...Iguazu!...

We got to the park, paid our stupid 10 dollar parking fee, and then walked in the front gate. Nobody was inside. It felt closed, which was crazy because the day before it seemed packed when we were trying to gather information about the other part of the park. Litteraly, we were the only patrons in sight for the first 5 minutes in this huge market area that probably accomodates 5,000 people. We peeked at the map and planned how we were going to tackle all the trails in the most efficient order and have time to get back to the trail for Devil´s Throat near sunset. First step, catch the train. The park is pretty spread out, since the falls are spread over several kilometers and a significant proportion of the visitors probably don´t like walking that much, the train runs roughly parallel to the falls on the Argentine side and stops near the trailheads to short boardwalked trails that go out to epic views. I think a lot of people start with the first stop and then do the second stop which leads to Devil´s Throat, but we went straight for Devil´s Throat. Luckily we caught the train right as it was leaving because it departs once every 30 minutes. Holy fuck! Approaching the falls was amazing. We walked out across hundreds of meters of tropical sediment filled river that rushed under the boardwalk a couple meters below our feet. Shortly in the distance we could see a cloud of mist rising from what seemed to be a giant whole in the earth. As we got closer you could hear the rumbling and smiles were on everybody's faces from the rush of experiencing the power of the falls from a distance. As we actually got close enough to see the falls, it was mind-numbing. Like impossible to analyze or compare to anything else I'd ever seen, so the logical half of my brain was freaking out trying to get a grasp on what was going on while the emotional half was just absorbing everything in sheer bliss. Really though, everything else in the world just drifts from the mind staring at the falls, its impossible not to be completely absorbed by it.

Once we had digested as best as one possibly can the magnificence of Devil´s Throat, we walked back along the boarded path towards the train stop. We continued to be swarmed by butterflies and had a couple landing on us drinking the mist off our skin as we walked inches above a huge tropical river with a bunch of islands scattered throughout. When we got back, we stopped for a quick lunch of pizza and some Isenbeck. We made a bet about the cost of it, and I lost because it was under 120 pesos for two pizzas and two beers.   However, the real loser at lunch was Acacia, because a coati jumped up onto our table and snagged her entire pizza before quickly jumping off and fighting off the other coatis to keep the prize. Coatis are these racoon like creatures with long tails and long snouts. Picture a racoon mixed with an anteater (or just look at the pictures we´ll post with this). They are very cultured to humans here, which is apparent when we saw every other table feeding them to get good close up pictures. Super aggressive though! Climbing up onto the tables and chairs, and not really scared of any human movement, so I had to firmly shove with my feet a few times to keep them off me and my food. I gave Acacia half of my pizza since hers was stolen, and we sat with more butterflies landing on us, and watching the other patrons feed the coatis and hold crackers out for the UC Berkeley colored birds to swoop down and take them from their hands. When the next train came, we jumped on it and headed for the first train stop.

Mean Coatis

There were a few other trails that we still had to do, a couple short ones, and one 6km round trip which led to a waterfall seperate from the rest. We opted for the long one next, which was not boardwalked. Being a super touristy place, Acacia was apparently not expecting this because she was wearing sandals, which are not entirely appropriate for jungle walking. So this hike involved a couple of piggy backs over puddles across the entire trail. But it was nice. We had the trail all to ourselves, except for a couple of large rodent/pig creatures that I don´t know what they are called but looked like mini capibarras a bit. After about 2km, we reached a boardwalk that split with one side being closed and the other that went out to the top of the waterfall. The view was pretty good, but really we had done the hike to see the view from below, which was closed. And good thing we didn´t go for the trail anyway because a park ranger biked up just as we were returning from the top. On the way back I almost stepped on a large spider, possibly tarantula, so we had to document that. Also, Acacia stopped at one point to show me how the ground looked like it was moving with ants crawling everywhere. Unfortunately she hadn´t actually walked out of the moving ground of ants (I had! but it was moving...), so by the time I noticed them she was yelping and running away because her sandal bearing feet were getting attacked.

View of the waterfall from above

Anyway, we got back to the road around 3 and followed the train tracks to the second stop where the 2 short boardwalked trails were. We started with the upper falls. Now, at Devil´s Throat, you walk out across a bunch of water and then are right there staring at a gargantuan wall of water rushing over the beginning of a massive mouth in the earth. This mouth, however, is spread over several kms, so massive amounts water pour into it from all sides, creating a curtain of waterfalls that this upper falls boardwalk walks along the edge of. As soon as we got to the first visible fall on the upper falls we sorely regreted our hour long walk to some baby (relative) waterfall that we couldn´t even really see. Fall after fall, we walked along the largest most powerful seeming stretch of land in the world. Breaking up the curtain of falling water were islands in the middle of the river, right at the edge of this mouth that made the curtain a series of distinct falls. At each fall you could see the boulders as big as skyscrapers which had been moved by the sheer force of the water. I´ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking. Words really can´t do it justice.

Back from the upper falls trail, we walked down the lower falls trail which takes you to the bottom of the falls. This was an entirely different experience because you could feel andhear the crushing power of the water like Gods firehose crashing against the giant boulders below and sprayin everyone with mist. One of the trails went up super close to the falls and everyone kind of waited in line taking pictures. When it was your turn you´d run out about 100m to the edge of this boardwalk, quickly pose and soak in the glory that was all around you, and then run back and freeze in the cool shade. It was fun. Again, words fall short here. More pictures below.

Upon getting back from the lower falls circuit, we walked back along a path that went by this massive Sheraton right in the park (which we discovered was a pretty big eye sore from the Brazilian side the next day). We got to the train station to take a train back to Devil´s Throat, but it had stopped running in that direction and was now only taking people out of the park. Bummer dude. We hadn´t really eaten much since that coati stole Acacia´s food, so dinner was a priority when we got back. We stopped at a produce store on the way back, and Acacia made dinner while I attempted to gather all of the paperwork we would need for the Paraguayan Visa. I spent a couple hours that night rushing from the internet place, taking pictures of documents, editing them, going to the printing place, and then when the printing place ran out of ink I gave up on the evening. Dinner ended up being a pretty good savory squash and lentil bread sandwhich and some banana bread with chocolate chips of course that I made.

Squash bread sandwhich