Puerto Iguazú (Argentina)

(OK, so just to confuse us they spell the falls a different way in Argentina....)

After the very relaxing day at Hostel Natura, we decided to make our way across the Brazillian-Argentine border. It´s a bit of a pain actually; you catch a bus to the Brazillian border control who stamp you out, then wait for another bus to take you to the Argentinian border control who stamp you in, and then a third one to take you into town. Apart from the bus changes the whole thing was done with such ease that we could´ve danced over the border. Plus we got another 2 pretty stamps in our passports, much to the delight of my hubby.

We both noticed such a difference when crossing into Argentina. Puerto is a lot less built up than Foz, which is a pretty large city, and in comparison seemed very quaint. Our hostel was half way between the town and the falls, and was the biggest one that we´ve stopped in to date - it had a massive swimming pool and live shows on Sat night, we thought we´d wondered into a hotel resort! Wasting no time at all, we hopped onto the bus to the falls.

Before we went we agreed that the Argentinians would have to go a looooong way to beat the Brazillian side, but we were to be amazed. The park this side was much more natural and a lot less "Disney" than over the border, and a pretty walk soon took us to some of the most sublime scenery that we have ever seen.

The upper walk lead us on walkways over the tops of the falls, including galleries teetering on the edge of the drop. The lower walk was a much wetter experience, with paths shooting underneath the towering falls; a much welcomed soak in the heat and humidity. It seemed that the farther we went along the trail, the path uncovered even better vistas. We even managed to cross paths with an Armadillo, which has to be one of the funniest looking creatures on the planet (he probably said the same thing about me!). Hardly surprising that we managed to fill up our first memory card and run out of batteries. As the park was closing and we still hard more to see, we agreed to return for a second, half-priced day.

The next day we boarded the tiny tourist train in the park, which chugged it´s way at a startling 7km/hr, up to the "Devil´s Throat". The walkway brought us over the top of a section which was a thundering beast of a fall, where the water races to get over the edge, violently clashing together into a milky mass of foam and spray. It really was awe inspiring.

For more pictures please visit http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=98873&l=087f8&id=672281557 (you don´t need to have a facebook account to view them)

That evening there was a BBQ at the hostel. As I mentioned before, there was show on Saturday nights with dancers and entertainers. It was all a bit cheeseville for us, so we opted to stuff our faced with succulent Argentinian steak and talk all night to a lovely and incredibly interesting couple from Buenos Aires.

On Sunday we spent the day wandering around the town. There really wasn´t enough to hold our interest for the several hours we needed to hang around for our bus, especially as a lot of the shops were shut. We did have a 17 hour bus journey to look forward to though(!) which would take us to the Capital City.