Still Chasing Waterfalls

After arriving at our Air B&B and realising that our host spoke absolutely no English and stumbling through a conversation with her, which for the most part we think all parties understood, we took a stroll down to the three borders between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. The small town of Puerto Iguazú was easily explored in an afternoon; that was until a massive storm passed over, causing a power outage. It took us back to our primitive roots – no internet for a few hours, not that the connection was very good to begin with anyway.

The Argentinian side provides a much closer view of the waterfalls, as you track through the sub-tropical forest. We had never seen views like this before. It seemed like endless waterfalls covered the 2.7-kilometre-long plateau. The sound of water crashing upon the rocks below could be heard everywhere you walked. On the visitor information leaflet that we received on entering the park, we noticed one of the recommendations advised us to “Enjoy the fauna without molesting the animals” and “not [to] touch any animals”. Fortunately, we were about to make it our alive without molesting, or being attacked by, a coati/quoati, a strange looking animal that looks like a cross between a possum/raccoon and an echidna.

Heading to the bus station so that we could go to the airport, we were informed that buses don't run on the weekends to the airport and that the only option was to take a taxi. Luckily we stumbled upon a car service that offered trips to the airport that were cheaper than a taxi. We weren't expecting much more than a tin shed as an airport and, while it was a little bit better than this, there was no computer system for check-in. Boarding passes had been pre-printed and the scales for weighing our luggage looked like they had been borrowed from someone's bathroom. Our airline seemed so low-budget that they couldn't afford signage. Even though there are only three gates in the airport, it was difficult to work them out. Our flight once again had a gate change, but, at this airport, maybe because it was low-budget and they couldn't afford a microphone system, some poor ground staff had to yell, in Spanish, about the gate change. Now, our Spanish is starting to improve, a little, but we had no idea what was being said. Some kind strangers needed to translate for us. We could only hope that this wasn't an indication of our flight.

Next stop: Buenos Aires.Read more