Backpacking South America

After our long, restful week (9 days) in Cafayate, it was time to move on.  The five of us (four adults and one very grown up 4 year old) hopped into a cab heading to Salta.   These were our last 3 hours together with our new friends.   I suppose that since we survived such a journey it goes to show that this friendship could last a long time.  After arriving at the Salta terminal, we parted ways as they were heading west to Chile and we were looking to go east.

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to catch the bus out of town the same day and we had to wait until the following afternoon.  So we were stuck in Salta for one night.  I say stuck in Salta because, well, “been there, done that.”  At this point, we were ready to move on to some place new.

Surving The Heat

After a nice, long 23-hour bus ride, we finally arrived in the hot and humid Puerto Iguazu!  We went from a dry, hot climate to a HOT and HUMID climate.  It was atrocious!  It really was nearly unbearable.  (I think sweatbands could possibly be fashionable in this neck of the woods, at least they would be practical.)  We found a hostel with air-conditioning, but they didn’t have availability at their place for the first night.  But they arranged for us to stay with a senora across the street; fan only.  My theory was that if you walked slow or just sat still the humidity (and the mosquitoes) wouldn’t be so bothersome.  So the next morning we woke up early, moved our things back to the hostel to our new room with air-conditioning and headed to the Falls.

We arrived at the Park early, but there were already so many people.  Iguazu has received so much rain this year that it was impossible to see the bottom of the Falls from the most raging part called “La Garganta del Diablo” (The Devil’s Throat).

We aren’t able to share our photos with you since they were lost with the camera…

This picture is from the blog On Our Own Path, a blog we followed as we planned our trip to South America.

On the Argentine side of the falls, you get to experience and interact with the waterfalls.  However, the Brazilian side provides a better panaromic view.  Unfortunately, due to relations between Brazil and the United States, it wasn’t an option for us to hop into Brazil solely for financial reasons…

Before we left for our trip we bought a waterproof bag for our camera, in case we got stuck in a torrential downpour we could be sure to keep our electronics dry.  Well, we finally got to use it.  We took a boat ride directly into some of the minor falls.  It was more water than even the most torrential of downpours.  We were physically having water from a 100+ foot waterfall falling on top of us.  There was not a dry spot on us when we got off.  It was incredible to have so much water pouring down on top of us!  We could hardly see 5 inches in front of us.  I have no idea how the driver of our boat was able to see where we were going.  In fact, there was a couple in our boat who actually wore goggles into the falls.  Jared was so jealous; he thought this was ingenious!  Next time…

Typically, there is a ferry that runs to San Martin Island, centrally located at the base of all the falls that provides an incredible panoramic view of the river.  Unfortunately, the ferry wasn’t running due to the level of the river, so we weren’t able to visit the Island.  But we didn’t mind too much because the falls were powerful, beautiful and massive from where we were!

It was so hot and humid that day that it was really refreshing to be around water.  There were several instances where we were sprayed with water just from the power of the falls. (insert more pictures here, if I had one).  The day was sort of overcast, but when the sun peeked through the clouds it was intense and when it reflected off the water those beautiful rainbows appeared.  We will forever have those mental pictures in our memories (until I lose my mine).

So, Iguazu was extravagant – beautiful and the falls were enormous!  It’s a jungle, so it was very wet, humid and green combined with lots of bugs (particularly mosquitoes).  However, I wasn’t the one who had problems with bugs… there were only a few freak out moments.  If Jared ever says he can’t dance, I will remind him of how he removed the ant crawling up his neck.  Iguazu was fun.  It was very different from any place we’ve been so far.  It is one of the largest waterfalls in the world (5th – 1 spot ahead of Niagara)!  We had a great time, but we would be hard pressed to go back and face that humidity again.