After our red-eye flight to the top of the country, we were collected by a super friendly tour guide and taken on and impromptu city tour on the way to our hotel.
Puerto Iguazu is on the border of Argentina with Paraguay and Brazil, and our hotel over looks the river intersection that is the meeting point of these three borders. So we were on the very southern-most tip of the country two days ago looking at Chile across the waters, and today we are at the very very northernmost tip doing the same.
We caught up on some sleep and then went to get some lunch. I ordered a cheese and tomato toasted sandwich, because I flippen LOVE toasted cheese and tomato. I can eat it for lunch every day. The waitress was not listening and bought us cheese and ham - which firstly was not what I ordered and secondly had gross ham on it and thirdly tasted like the tears and weeping of disappointment. Not Cool!!
Moving along, we were collected from the hotel again and taken through the town and across the Brazilian border post to go see the Brazilian side of the Iguazu Waterfalls. The border post wasn't much to write home on but it is kind of thrilling to tell your head you are in a new country. Sadly we only got our passports stamped for exiting and re-entering Argentina :(
Before we left the town, we collected. Few other tourists including two guys from Australia. We were very delighted to find two other english speaking tourists for the first time this trip. We exchanged south american tourism experiences for most of the rest of the trip.
Before we get onto talking about the waterfalls, lemme tell you about the Puerto Iguazu town. It has a kind of ramshackle small run down town appearance. And yet the hotels and shops are modern and shiny and new. But the houses look like they were abandoned in the jungle for a few years before anyone moved in. It is a town of contradictions because the Iguazu is a major tourist attraction.... So why does the town itself look like the poor step child of Parys and St Lucia towns?
Anyway, the Brazil side of Iguazu was mostly green and spaced out with lots of tourist shops along the road. From the national park we took a bus trip to the falls and then had a 1.2 km walk to the falls. The falls are quite simply enormous. A 2.7km long wriggling cascading line of water. The mist coming off the falling water obscures some of it from a distance. The path takes you right up to walk past the face of the water (okay like 100 m away, but still we were like right there). We bundled up in our rain coats and covered our electronics in plastic and went to stare at the face of the wall of water. Once we were tired of fighting for photo opportunities with the other tourists, we looked at the line for the panoramic elevator ride and took a walk up the pedestrian path instead. Finally we climbed on the bus and started the long ride back to the beginning.
On the ride back to the Argentina border post, we took some photos of the sunset in Brazil.
For dinner we tried Surubi which is the local fish which was rather tasty (a little like kingklip) and some of the local vegetables which, as best we could identify, seems to be mash potato dumplings, stewed bamboo and corn cake. We also tried the local white wine called Torrontino (I think). The local red wine is also really nice called Malbec.
When we got to our room we discovered that they had given us a free bottle of champagne (again). We have had three hotels now give us champagne which is a very nice gesture but I dunno why it always has to be extra brut. You can't complain when it is free stuff.
Tomorrow, more waterfalls. Wooooo...
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