This is definitely a tourist town. There isn’t much time in the itinerary to check out the entire town because the main purpose for our stop here was to see the Argentina side of the Iguassu Falls and to get ourselves into Argentina. Another stamp in my passport, yeah!! After dropping our bags at the hotel, Evandro drove us to the falls. The Argentineans have done a great job of making their national park a great experience. They have plenty of places to grab a bite to eat, get something to drink, buy souvenirs and sit and rest if too tired. Considering we walked over 10km the previous day, I decided we’d take it a little easy at Puerto and take the park train to the main area of the trails to the falls, instead of walking the 650 metres. Again, this park has done a great job of organizing the walkways so that you can just follow the path to get to all the different vantage points. The Argentina side holds two-thirds of the 275 falls at Iguassu. We started at the top of the falls at Devil’s Throat, which is the border between Argentina and Brasil. This particular water fall was incredible. There is an impressive amount of water that flows from the upper Iguassu river and then drops about 70 metres into the lower river below. We observed the formation of little clouds from the mist of the falls. I was fascinated by that because I’ve never seen anything like that before. The sound of the rushing water was a warning that you didn’t want to be in the river, yet at the same time it had a somewhat soothing effect on me. I love listening to the ocean waves and the trickling of creeks and rivers so perhaps that’s where I got that feeling from. The Iguassu forest is home to more than 2000 species of plants and over 400 bird species. We saw a really beautiful blue and black bird, which I think was a type of woodpecker. We also saw many different and gorgeous butterflies again. The upper and lower circuit allowed us to see countless more waterfalls. I never grew tired of taking pictures because this is truly an amazing natural wonder. We were also treated to viewing several rainbows which you could see so clearly and have turned out wonderfully in pictures. Unfortunately I couldn’t go looking for the pot of gold at the end of them because they ended in the waters below. The only part of the park that we were unable to enjoy was a boat ride over to San Martin Island because the river was too high. I have to say it again, if ever in either Brasil or Argentina, a visit to Iguassu Falls is a must.
In the evening, we had a great dinner at a restaurant across the street from our hotel. As we walked along the street, each restaurant had their menu posted with someone standing there trying to entice you to eat at their restaurant. I guess businesses are really hurting in the low season. We were offered free drinks and discounts at two separate restaurants. I guess there is some advantage in travelling in the low season. Our dinner was fabulous. For $143 pesos (or $38 CAD), which included a tip, Ziad had fillet minion with rice and vegetables, while I had veal (the piece was huge) with mashed potatoes. We also shared a bottle of wine, had a bottle of water and dessert to boot. Great deal, great food….the beef and wine are amazing here. There was live entertainment as well that consisted of three locals playing guitar and wooden wind-pipe instruments, and we got to sit on the second floor patio under the stars. How lovely is that?
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