December 7, 2019: A Walking Tour of Buenos Aires
	December 5, 2019: A Boat Tour of the Parana River Delta
	Return to the Index for 2019

In July, almost 40 years ago, I had a business trip to Rio de Janiero, Brazil, for Improved System Techologies. I stayed in Rio, but took side trips to Brasilia and to Iguasu Falls. Knowing how much Fred likes waterfalls, I thought that a side trip to one of the world's most impressive natural wonders was certainly in order, as we were only seven hundred miles away in Buenos Aires.

NOTE:
This web page turned out to be very, very large. Depending on the device you, the visitor, may be using, loading the page may take some time, so I am going to break this album page into three separate ones. So as you come along with us on our visit to Iguazu Falls, you will find two places where you will need to click on a link to take you to the next page.

The Trip to Puerto Iguazu

Back in the summer, I investigated how Fred and I might get to the Falls. One way would be to utilize the shore excursion that Viking offered. At well over $1000/person, though, I thought that too expensive, so I looked into doing our own arrangements on one of the days after we got off the ship.

I found that we could get up to Iguasu and back in a single day, but only by utilizing the international airport way out in the burbs, necessitating getting up at 4AM for a 7AM flight. A better solution was to utilize the downtown Jorge Newbery Airport which, as it turned out, was only a couple of miles from the apartment where we would be staying. One problem was that there was no early flight from that airport to Iguasu, but the solution to that problem was to go up to Iguasu the evening before, stay in a hotel that night, tour the Falls the next day, and then return the next night (albeit very, very late).

The cost of the round-trip flight was only $300 for the two of us. Considering that the hotel and admissions to the Falls would only be $200 at the most, we could do the trip for less than a quarter of the cost of the shore excursion. It was so much cheaper, that I looked into getting a personal tour guide, and found ToursByLocals.com where, for about $250, we could get a private tour guide for the entire day, one who would pick us up at the hotel, leave us off at the airport on our return, and take us to both the Argentinian and Brazilian sides of the Falls. This turned out to be the best decision of the entire cruise vacation, as Silvio was an expert in guiding people around the Falls. He knew all the tips and tricks, as well as a good many people at the Falls themselves. Due almost entirely to his efforts, Fred and I were able to see everything in both the Brazilian and Argentinian National Parks, including every part of the entire waterfalls area. I'll have more to say about the job Silvio did, but if you ever decide to go to Iguasu Falls, you should definitely engage him or one of his colleagues; you won't regret it!

On Thursday afternoon, Fred and I got a cab to Jorge Newbery Airport, which was very close to the apartment. The cab ride over was right at $4. We only had small carryons, which made the check-in process very smooth.

The 750-mile flight from Buenos Aires to Puerto Iguazu took about two hours; by 845PM we were landing at the new airport in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina.

Here, I want to say a bit about this particular location, if only to forestall some questions you may have regarding the narrative on this page, and particularly the spelling of the name of the river that goes over the Falls- the Iguazú River.

You will see three spellings of "Iguazú" here, and the reason has to do with the fact that the river has its headwaters in the Parana State in Brazil. Brazil, where Portuguese is the national language, spells the name of the river "Iguaçu". The river flows generally west/southwest through Parana State, eventually becoming the border between Brazil and Argentina.

When it does, its name continues to be "Iguaçu" on the Brazilian side; the Brazilian city near the Falls is "Foz do Iguaçu". References to the river and the Falls that one finds in Argentina use the Spanish spelling of the river's name- "Iguazú"- and the Argentinian city near the Falls is "Puerto Iguazú". (The Falls, and the two cities, are also adjacent to where Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay come together, but since one can see all of the Falls without entering Paraguay, we don't have to be concerned with their spellings which, if you are curious, happen to be the Spanish versions.)

You will also see me use "Iguasu" occasionally; using the letter "s" instead of the "ç" or "z" is one way English reproduces the soft "c" sound (another is to use "ch"). (You may also find references that use a double-s as in "Iguassu" as a way of emphacizing the soft nature of the "c" sound.)

But from this point forward in the narrative that I write, I will use the Spanish, single-"z" spelling for one important reason- I have no "ç" on my computer keyboard, and it is tiring to copy that character each time or use the HTML code for it. I will also be leaving off the diacritical mark over the final "u", as I don't have a convenient way of reproducing that character, either. So Look for "Iguazu" most often (unless I happen to borrow some information about the Falls from the Internet, where a different spelling might be used).

The Exe Hotel Cataratas

As I said, we landed in Puerto Iguazu, still in Argentina, about 9PM. With just hand luggage, we were off the airplane quickly, and just as quickly found a taxi out front to take us to the hotel I'd booked.

When I was coordinating with Silvio online in the early Fall, he told me he could pick us up at any hotel, so I found one- the Exe Cataratas ("The Waterfalls", part of the EXE Hotels Group)- that was close to the entrance to the Argentinean entrance to the Iguazu National Park.

An Aerial View of the Hotel

The cab ride to the hotel was about $12, which wasn't much as it was about 14 miles from the airport. When we got there and got checked in, we had some dinner in the restaurant and then retired.

In the morning, before Silvio met us at 8:30 in the lobby, I walked around and took some pictures of the hotel itself:

The Exe Cataratas Hotel

At left is a panoramic view of the hotel, which was quite nice and very inexpensive for the accommodations. I took some other pictures around the property before we had some breakfast and met Silvio:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Right on time, Silvio was in the lobby to collect us right after we checked out. Then we were off on our all-day adventure at Iguazu Falls.

Parque Nacional Iguazu

The Iguazú Falls are waterfalls of the Iguazu River on the border of the Argentine province of Misiones and the Brazilian state of Paraná. Together, they make up the largest waterfall in the world. The falls divide the river into the upper and lower Iguazu. The Iguazu River rises near the heart of the city of Curitiba in Brazil. For most of its course, the river flows through Brazil; however, most of the falls are on the Argentine side. Below its confluence with the San Antonio River, the Iguazu River forms the boundary between Argentina and Brazil.

Getting to Iguazu Falls National Park

The wisdom of engaging a guide for our limited time here became apparent almost immediately. Silvio knew exactly where to go, where to let us off to get our tickets, where to park his car, and where to meet us. (He also seemed to know some of the Park employees, and he also seemed to know some other guides that were also there today.) Conservatively-speaking, he saved us hours of time that we might have spent trying to figure things out, getting to the three major hikes, doing them in the right order, and navigating the Park's transit system. If you decide to come here, hire a guide- particularly if you have only a day to spend here and/or want to visit both the Argentinian and Brazilian sides of the Falls.

While it might not add much to your following us along today, at left is an aerial view of the area encompassing our hotel and most of the Argentinian national park that surrounds the Falls. Silvio just drove us back along the road to the airport, but turned off at the entrance to the Park itself- an entrance our taxi driver had pointed out the night before.

As he drove (and pretty much throughout the day) he maintained a running narrative, and on the short ride to the park we learned a bit about its history and what we would see today.

(Click Thumbnails to View)

When we turned onto the park road, we began to pass a series of signs advertising the fact that the park is full of animals- not all of them cute and cuddly. Coatis are one thing; jaguars are quite another. (We didn't see any jaguars, but we did see numerous coatis and monkeys.) Silvio had a pass to get into the park (which he showed to someone at the main automobile entrance that he seemed to know), but we needed tickets (about $12 each), so he dropped us off at the visitor center and went to park the car, meeting up with us at the turnstiles.

The name "Iguazú" comes from the Guarani (the indigenous people of this area) words "y", meaning "water", and "ûasú", meaning "big". Legend has it that a deity planned to marry a beautiful woman named Naipí, who fled with her mortal lover Tarobá in a canoe. In a rage, the deity sliced the river, creating the waterfalls and condemning the lovers to an eternal fall. The first European to record the existence of the falls was the Spanish Conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca in 1541.

While we were waiting for Silvio, we looked at a posted map of the park and also read some of the advisories. While this one could have used some proofreading, the import was clear.

When Silvio met up with us, he took us into the park. Our first stop would be at the train station to see how long the wait was for a train to take us to the Upper Falls Trail- the first one Silvio thought we should do.

As we walked, there was a cacophony of noise all around, noise which, as it turned out, was being made by the local equivalent of cicadas, all of whom seem to be trying to attract a mate.

We couldn't really see them until Silvio pointed them out, and one was on a low enough tree branch that Fred could get a good picture of it. They seemed mostly to be in the trees here around the main park plaza, because as we got further away and onto the trails, the sound seemed to disappear.

The wait at the train station was too long, Silvio thought, but he had a Plan B; there was another station we could walk to in just a few minutes that would be a good deal less crowded- one of the many tips and tricks that Silvio would come up with during the day.

An Orientation to Iguazu Falls National Park

The Iguazú National Park (Parque Nacional Iguazú) is a national park of Argentina and has an area of 261 sq mi. The area of the park was inhabited 10,000 years ago by the hunter-gatherers of the Eldoradense culture. They were displaced around 1,000 CE by the Guaraní, who brought new agricultural technologies, and were displaced in turn by the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadores in the 16th century, though their legacy is still alive in this area. The park was created in 1934 to protect one of the greatest natural beauties of Argentina, the Iguazu Falls, surrounded by the subtropical jungle.

So, take a look at the park map at left. I know it's hard to read, and later on when we look at the individual trails, I'll show you larger extracts of it. But for now, I want to point out the main elements of our hikes and time here on the Argentinian side of the Falls.

I've marked the main train station, where Silvio found the wait to be too long. I have also marked the alternate train station, and you can see the path that we took from the Visitor Center/Entry Area to that alternate station. There, we had no wait at all, and were on the next train north and around to the beginning of the Devil's Throat Trail.

After that first trail, we returned to the alternate station and immediately embarked on the Upper Falls Trail (the red trail on the map). The third trail we did was the Lower Falls Trail (the blue path).

As I said, with Silvio's help, we were able to do all three of these hikes by early afternoon, which left us plenty of time to head over to the Brazilian side of the Iguazu River and the Falls that can only be seen from there.

The Devil's Throat Trail

The first trail that we walked was the Devil's Throat Trail. The beginning of the trail is pretty far away from the Visitor Center; while there is a path you can walk to get to it, we eschewed that walk as it would chew up too much of our limited time, so we took the park train.

Getting to Estacion Garganta

We walked from the Visitor Center area to the Estacion Cataratas- the alternate station that Silvio took us to when we found out how long the wait would be at the Estacion Central.

From the Estacion Central, we backtracked just a bit to find the beginning of the quarter-mile path that leads from the Visitor Center to the Estacion Cataratas. Like many of the trails we would walk today, this one crossed areas that either have water most of the time or have water when the river is high. Here is one of the sections of boardwalk that many of the trails have.

I might mention here that Silvio told us we were not only fortunate in that we had a beautiful day for our visit but also that we were fortunate in that there had recently been much rain in this area and upriver, with the result that all of the falls were active. There are times, he told us, when there has been little rain, the river is low, that the falls are less impressive (and some of them are entirely dry). While there was water in the swampy area underneath the boardwalk, sometimes there is none (and every once in a while, there is a good deal more).

The trail eventually crossed the main rail track, then paralleled that track for a ways until we arrived at Estacion Cataratas. Soon after we arrived at the station, Silvio picked up some train tickets for us (not really necessary as the train turned out to seat more people than were waiting for it). As you can see on the little map extract, this little "spur" of the railroad is not on the main line; rather, it serves just this station, which is the starting point for the Upper and Lower Falls Trails.

Here at the Estacion Cataratas we saw another of the ubiquitous signs that are all around the park cautioning visitors to keep their distance from the wildlife. Approapriately, as if on cue, no sooner had we encountered the sign than we encountered one of the coatis mentioned on it.

A Coati

Coatis, also known as coatimundis, are members of the New World family that includes raccoons, coatis, kinkajous, and ringtails. These animals, generally omnivorous, are diurnal and native to South America, Central America, Mexico, and the southwestern United States.

Adult coatis measure 15-25 inches long (not counting the tail, which can be as long as their bodies). Coatis are about a foot tall at the shoulder and weigh from 5 to 15 pounds- about the size of a large house cat. Males can become almost twice as large as females and have large, sharp canine teeth. All coatis share a slender head with an elongated, flexible, slightly upward-turned nose, small ears, dark feet, and a long, non-prehensile tail used for balance and signaling.

We actually saw a number of coatis during the day. They weren't particularly frightened of people, perhaps having learned that they are a good source of easy nutrition (not the people themselves, but the food items they often carried). We saw a few people actually feeding them while someone else took a picture, but most often they were on or near the trails, foraging on what people might drop. Fred did get that good picture above (which would have been clearer had it not been for the fact that the coati was spooked a bit by a train arriving at the station. We hopped on the train when it stopped and in only a few minutes were on our way to Estacion Garganta ("garganta" meaning both "throat" and "gorge").

Me on the Train to Estacion Garganta

We Pass a Returning Train

Two different trains run to Estacion Garganta- one from Estacion Central and the other, we one we are on, from Estacion Cataratas. They have to be able to pass each other on the long stretch where there is a single track, and I leaned out to take a picture at the passing section. I also made a couple of movies as we rode along:

Leaving Estacion Cataratas (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

On the Way to Estacion Garganta (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

At Estacion Garganta, we disembarked and were heading over to the beginning of the Devil's Throat Trail when we heard our names called out. In an amazing coincidence, we ran into Lynn and Ron Hunter- shown in the picture with Fred and Silvio. Lynn and Ron were two passengers on the Viking Jupiter who I'd played bridge with on our sea days! I knew they were staying on in Buenos Aires, like we did, but I did not know they were planning a side trip to Iguazu Falls. As it turned out, they were staying in the Park's lodge a short ways from the Visitor Center. We were pleased to see them; we have their contact information and will stay in touch (they live outside of Asheville, NC).

The Boardwalk Trail to Garganta del Diablo

From the Estacion Garganta, Silvio led us over to the beginning of the Devil's Throat Trail and we headed off. We are actually a bit above the falls at the moment, and here the Iguazu River is broad and placid, with numerous islands (whose position and shape change with each major flood.

We are headed out to the very top of the falls, and to get there, we essentially have to go out to the middle of the river. This trip is accomplished via a series of raised metal walkways that begin at the train station and leapfrog from island to island. In the picture at left, you can see what these raised walks look like. And below you can see the portion of the park map that shows the trail out to the Devil's Throat.

The walk out to the Devil's Throat was pretty amazing, because we were taking advantage of the hard work and ingenuity of the engineers and workers who built the walkway we were using. Sometimes the walkway crossed an island, but it still had to be raised, as when the river is high many of these islands can be swamped. Other times, the walkway crossed open water, as in the panoramic view below:

At a couple of places, Silvio pointed out things we might have missed, including some old sections of walkway that had been destroyed in the last major flood on the Iguazu a bit over ten years ago. It's not as if we were oblivious to our surroundings; we didn't need Silvio to point everything out; Fred spotted this odd species of turtle on a rock in midstream.

Walking along, it was hard not to take lots of pictures; here are about a quarter of the best of the pictures we took on the way out to the Devil's Throat:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

As I have said many times before, while pictures like the ones we took can give you a good idea of what our surroundings were like, I think that movies are even better. I could wish that my own were more professional; I know they are a little amateurish (as I have no remote start and stop facility or an image stabilizing selfie stick), but still I think that some of them are worth watching:

(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

Eventually, we came to the last long section of footbridge, and by now we were way out into the middle of the Iguazu River. Here was the view when I stepped out onto this last section and could see the end of the walkway ahead:

Starting out on the last section, I thought that had the walkway failed at this point, we, and the hundred or so other folks out here would easily have been toast, for by now the roar of falling water was very loud. But looking around, you couldn't see the waterfalls that were generating the noise. Not, at least, until you got a little further and got your very first glimpse of the falls, but from a perspective that, in my experience, was truly unique.

When we came out onto that last walkway and could see the end of it ahead of us, we noticed something off to the right. It wasn't rapids, but something else, and Fred's closeup view told the tale. Click on the whitewater in the center right of the picture at left and you'll see what we mean.

Walking along, we got closer and closer to the "anomaly". It was almost as if the water were dropping into another dimension, or that someone had pulled the plug in the middle of the river and the water was draining into it. Here are some impressive views:

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What made this scene so surreal was that although we knew that we were at the top of the falls, we could not yet see them, and it was almost as if they weren't there. It is hard to express how odd the scene looked, with much of the river literally disappearing before our eyes.

At left is a beautiful picture I found on the Internet. Obviously taken from a low-flying plane or drone, it shows you what was still out of sight for us- the canyon into which the river was falling. On that view, you can see the walkway we are on, approaching the top of the falls from the left.

Down on the walkway, we were both making movies of Devil's Throat (the name given to this spot where the river's water disappears. The best of those movies is below, and on that aerial view I have marked both Devil's Throat and the spot from which our movie was made.

Our First View of Devil's Throat (Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

If you compare the movie to the aerial view, you'll see both the Devil's Throat itself and also the smaller area nearer to the walkway where water was also disappearing in front of our eyes.

The scene was surreal. The mind refused to accept what the eyes were seeing. How could a broad river just start to disappear? As we walked along, we had little context in which to place what was the top of Devil's Throat off to our right.

At Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat)

But we continued to follow Silvio out to the end of the walkway that you can see ahead of us in the picture at left, and to overlook platform at the very top of Iguazu Falls. The views that opened up were simply amazing. Here are some of them:

(Click on Thumbnails to View)

Of course, as you might expect me to say, still pictures are only a small part of experiencing something like this, and both Fred and I took numerous movies. Some were repetitious, while some were spoiled in some way (as the platform was extremely crowded). Here are the first two of the four best movies from the top of Iguazu Falls:

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(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

The viewing platform was right at the edge of the cliffs on the east side of the canyon into which the Iguazu drops. I was thankful that it wasn't cantilevered out over the canyon itself; that would have made a bit too nerve-wracking. Anyway, here is a view looking along the platform. While movies help convey the size of these waterfalls, panoramic views do as well. We took a number of them. Here is a panorama that Fred made that takes in both walls of the canyon and the waterfalls going over them:

And here is a view of the largest waterfall at Devil's Throat- a composite of two separate pictures, as we were too close to get it all in one picture. Imagine yourself sitting on the rock outcrop at right!

The large platform was so crowded that it was hard to get selfies without scads of other folks in the pictures, and, of course, everyone wanted the prime spot at the corner nearest the big waterfall. But here are a couple that turned out well:

Looking Across the Iguazu Falls

With Devil's Throat as a Backdrop

Here is another panoramic view of the falls:

And, finally, here is what I think is the best of all the panoramic views that we got here at the Devil's Throat:

And lastly, here are two more movies that we made; each of them shows the power of Iguazu Falls:

(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

(Mouseover Image Above for Video Controls)

Returning to EstacionGarganta

We'd taken about all the different pictures we could out here at the platform overlooking the Devil's Throat, so Fred and I and Silvio began the walk back to the train station. From a short way back along the walkway, I got another good panoramic view of the area around the Devil's Throat:

We got back to the station and as luck would have it found a train just pulling in, so we didn't waste any time getting aboard it for its return to the Cataratas Station and the beginning points for the other two hikes here in the park.

The train trip back was enjoyable as we got to sit down for a while.

At left is a sign we saw at Cataratas Station near the entrance to the next hike. Visitors are cautioned that coaties and monkeys, cute they may appear, can "bite, scratch, and steal things". We took that to heart and observed from a distance.

Here are the last few pictures on the way back to the station from the Devil's Throat:

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If you would like to continue with our exploration of Iguazu Falls, please click on the link below and we will explore more of the Argentinean side of the Falls.

If you want to end your visit to these incredible falls, you can use one of the links below to continue to another album page.

	December 7, 2019: A Walking Tour of Buenos Aires
	December 5, 2019: A Boat Tour of the Parana River Delta
	Return to the Index for 2019