8. Iguazu Falls Argentina
DAY 245
I have done quite a bit of research about visiting Iguazu Falls. I know where to go and when to go there. Basically go as early as you can. That should be pretty easy. It should be very good to be there before it will get really hot. Don't forget the fall are in the middle of a very serious jungle.
I woke up way before my alarm even went on. It was getting bright, but sun was not up yet. It is a very humid morning. It looks like my bike went through a fresh car wash. It is still dirty, but everything is wet. It's already warm so I am riding only in my shorts and a T-shirt. It is a short 16 km ride to the Falls. They open at 8 and I want to be there before that.
I parked my bike in one of many parking spots there. I have a rockstar parking spot right by the entrance to the park. I have 15 minutes to spare. The ticket windows open exactly at 8 o’clock. I am third in the line. By the time the windows open there are already few buses full of tourists there. The ticket cost $20 which is fairly reasonable price, I would say.
You have to stay on the prescribed trails in the park. You couldn't go anywhere else even if you wanted to. There is jungle or the river or a steep drop everywhere else. Most of the trails are on a elevated metal walkways which give you the best and the safest views of the falls. That also means that everybody is on the same trail. There are two trails, the upper and the lower trail. I took the upper first, trying to stay ahead of everybody. I felt like a large mob was chasing me.
It was quite obvious right from the beginning that the water level is very low right now. The water was barely flowing in the upper sections above the falls. There are many sections which were basically just pools with water in them. I've seen pictures with normal water level and those spots where basically raging rapids. Not today. Walking through the jungle this early morning has also it's drawbacks. The biggest of them is the humidity. It is incredibly muggy. The early morning sun is trying to dry out the moisture accumulated overnight. I am sweating buckets. Another reason to come early in the morning is that it is supposedly the best time to see some wildlife. But all I've seen was just a few birds, one lizard and bunch of coatis.
When I've seen my first glimpse on the waterfalls I wasn't exactly impressed. There were nice, but not exactly what I was expecting. These Falls are one of the seven natural wonders of the world. But so far, it has been a letdown. I finished the upper trail without getting a “money shot”. I have some nice pictures, don't get me wrong, but nothing spectacular. I had a tripod with me, but it was completely useless. The reason was that people walk on those metal walkways, causing them to move and vibrate slightly. There are some places which are probably spectacular with a normal water level. However, for the most part, I could've just jumped from one boulder to another without getting wet. Bad timing.
When I got on the lower trails, I hit the traffic jam. The walkways are narrow, only for two people side-by-side. There are people ahead of me as far as I can see. You just go with the flow. When you come to a point where we can see the falls, everybody stops. The most people take pictures of themselves and not the falls. This selfie culture is getting out of hand. You have to fight for every picture taken. There is no politeness, nobody waits till you finish taking your picture. It is a free for all. It is a good time not to be the smallest person around.
The lower trail has actually nicer views than the upper one. But there are only a few places where you can take good pictures and you are back in the jungle again. You walk over dozens and dozens of small streams feeding the falls. Most of them are very low on water and some of them are not flowing at all. I was expecting quite an opposite after the series of big storms in the past two weeks. I guess it wasn't happening upstream from here. Oh well, I still have some nice pictures.
There is supposed to be a quite large of a population of jaguars around this place. There are many signs on the main road warning you off jaguars’ presents here. There are supposed to be a few hundreds of them. Well, I didn't see them and that's probably a good sign. Only animals I've seen where coatis. They look like a supersized New York rats. They have long nose with very sharp teeth and sharp claws. There are warning signs everywhere in the park not to feed them. Those guys can get pretty vicious and cause a serious harm. They know what they want and how to get it. There was a one of those suckers about 5 m in front of me when a lady went by carrying a plastic bag with food. Coatis apparently (and correctly) associate those bags with food. One of them jumped on the bag ripping it open with its sharp claws. Sandwiches and cookies spilled out of the bags. Within a second there were at least a dozen coatis fighting over the food. Nobody dared to get in the middle of the fight to try to stop them. It was quite a scene. And this was my only animal experience in the park.
I have seen what was available so it was time to get out. But it was not easy to get out as you share the trail with everybody coming in. Hundreds and hundred of people. And that's exactly what I hate about places like this. It is beautiful but it is too commercialized and overrun by tourists. It is a victim of its own beauty and popularity. It takes away quite a bit of the magic this place deserves.
I spent three hours in the park and when I was going out, there were lines of buses and cars coming in. There are huge parking lots over there and they were all full. It is good I came here early. It was nice here but my expectations were much higher. I will also go to the other side of the Falls, which are in Brazil. And those Falls from what I have seen look much more impressive. I will have to just relocate on the other side of the river tomorrow.
I went straight back to the town and went for a lunch. I found a nice restaurant on the cliff overlooking confluence of Iguazu and Paraná rivers. You can see that both rivers are many metres below the normal with bare shores exposed. Interesting fact, is that right in the middle of the confluence is the point where three countries meet. Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. The town is actually pretty small and there is not much to do there. Especially in the afternoon sun. Back to my place to to edit today's pictures.
I went for dinner to the same restaurant as yesterday because it was so good. I got there right after they opened at 1830. There was nobody there and it is a huge place. Within one hour, this place was packed. Obviously, this place is well known for their steaks. They have huge grills outside where they prepare all the meat. It looks and smells fantastic just going by it. My steak today was even better than yesterday. Together with couple of glasses of local Malbec was a good ending of a nice day.
This is my last evening in Argentina, I am heading across the river to Brazil tomorrow morning. It is hard to believe that I spent four months already in Chile and Argentina. The time certainly flies by. See you in Brazil.