La Gran Aventura

The sound of crashing water completely surrounding you, bouncing off the rock walls of the cliff behind you. You look in front of you, and across the river you see a line of people from all over the wall waiting for their turn to take a step down the wet, stone stairs so they can get closer to the little ferry boat that will carry them to the island you're on. You take off your sandals and allow the soft sand to burn the soles of your feet as it works its way through the cracks of your toes. Realizing that you can't stand in one place for more than a few seconds, you run to the little roped off swimming area. The water is clear and cool, and hundreds of small fish the size of toothpicks circle around your ankles, curiously nipping you as you wade through the water. You hear screams of excitement to your left as the next group of tourists are swept back and forth under a small waterfall, bathed in the fresh jungle water. At around 2PM this past Sunday, I was lucky enough to have that experience. Where you might ask? Iguazu Waterfalls in the Misiones province in northeastern Argentina, right on the border of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil.


On Friday afternoon, Jessie, Brittany, and myself grabbed a cab to the Retiro train station and bought our tickets for Puerto Iguazu at the Via Bariloche office on the upper level of the station. It was about 5PM, and Kim wasn't going to be out of class til 6, so we passed the time filling our stomachs with some food, having not eaten much earlier in the day while recovering from a night of partying. When Kim showed up, she went to go talk to the guy who worked at the ticket office, but neglected to bring her passport, and her passport # was exactly what she needed. Luckily enough, Kim knows her passport # and after showing her driver's license was allowed to get her ticket. Our bus left Retiro at 6:50 and for the first 40 minutes Kim and I bickered like an old married couple. She kept chastising me for forgetting to bring playing cards, something she was apparently looking forward to so that we had something to do while drinking the boxed wine we had bought for bus ride. I passed out for about 2 hours while they played a "Bienvenidos a Via Bariloche" video and awoke to dinner time. The food wasn't that great, but seeing as how I hadn't eaten much that day, it was very welcome. The bus then proceeded to play Nim's Island on the TV screens, a god awful movie in which absolutely nothing happens. Jessie, Kim and I then cracked into our boxes of wine, had a bit of conversation and eventually fell asleep.

We were woken up at 7AM the next morning by the bus attendant for breakfast, after which I passed out for the next 4 hours. We finally arrived at the bus terminal in the town of Puerto Iguazu around 2PM and purchased our return tickets after checking out all the different times on the schedule. This process, however, took quite a while because Kim didn't have her passport and the lady in the office had to call up some office to confirm her driver's license and passport number. Afterwards, we walked over to our hostel, Hostel Sweet Hostel, which was only 3 blocks away. We checked in and got into our rooms, which were actually the nicest I'd seen out of every hostel I had been to. We had air conditioning, our own bathroom and a pool! However, by the time we had settled in and everything, it was 3:30, which meant we wouldn't ahve time to really do anything at the Iguazu Park, so we walked into town, did a little bit of shopping and returned to the hostel. When we got back we signed up for an asado dinner and the girls did some swimming. I, of course, had forgotten my bathing suit. We headed to be around 11:30 because the next day we would have to get up bright and early to make it Iguazu in time to do all we could in the park.

We woke up the next morning and arrived at the national park around 10:30AM. We walked to the train station, only to find out that we would have to wait in line for about 30 minutes before getting to see La Garganta del Diablo, the largest and main waterfall of the park. We decided that since we had signed up for La Gran Aventura, a safari/boat ride tour program that took about an hour, we'd have to put La Garganta on hold so we could make our time for the tour. We walked to the Gran Aventura starting point and got our tickets. By this point it was about 12 and our tour didn't wouldn't start until 12:45, so we decided to walk through the upper circuit. Forgive me for not knowing the names of the waterfalls, but there are quite a few names on the website, sin mapa, so I can't really tell which is which. Either way, we got our first glimpse of some of the falls on the Argentine side, and it was absolutely amazing to see. Below the platform we were on there was a pool of water over rocks with holes that looked like moon rocks, which poured down to create a small waterfall. Across the way was a large wall of waterfalls that fell down onto different levels to create a beautiful scene of churning water against the green jungle background. After the upper circuit we made our way back to the tour station and began our tour. We got into a large truck with rows of seats and were led through a safari path by our guide Paula. On the trail we were surrounded by green, but couldn't see much into the jungle itself. The hanging bamboo creates a thick wall of greenery that prevented from really seeing into the jungle, but it was a great peaceful ride nonetheless. A couple time the truck drove beneath huge spiderwebs with spiders the size of golf balls sitting right in the middle.



After the safari ride, we walked down a path to the little beach area to board our boat for the second leg of the tour. The boat led us down the river, cutting left and right to make the trip exciting and we bounced up and down small rapids. It was a lot of fun and great to look at the rocky cliffs and jungle around us as we made our way to the waterfalls. We even had special bags to put all our stuff in for when we would get wet. The river finally opened up into the waterfall area, and straight ahead of us, although quite a distance away, was La Garganta. The view down the length of the river leading up to La Garganta was amazing and upon seeing I couldn't wait until we had the chance to get closer. We took our last pictures before being driven underneath some of the smaller waterfalls and getting drenched in our waterfall shower. We then drove up between Isla San Martin and the rocky cliff that the circuits followed and drove into a small "U" shaped area with beautiful waterfalls on the Argentine side and proceeded to drive through those waterfalls. Water crashed down around us and although you couldn't really keep your eyes open, it was extremely fun to feel the water pound down on your head, making you feel really "in" the experience. After that ride we were dropped off at Isla San Martin and we sat on hte beach and ate a lunch of food we had bought the night before. Cheese, bread, salami, grapes, crackers, oranges, apples, and wine. A perfectly sublime moment just sitting there observing the wonders of nature around us. We then went in the water for a bit and the girls started tanning. After a few minutes, we checked the time, 2:30 PM. We thought the last train to La Garganta was at 3:30 for some reason, and me and Kim wanted to walk up the trail on Isla San Martin to see the waterfalls in that area from a closer vantage point, so we decided to go up the trail and see everything, trying to make sure we got it done by 3:30. We got to the top and once again a breathtaking view. I'm sorry if my descriptions fall short of what you guys might want to hear to visualize it, but it's impossible to describe. The photos I have also only give you a taste what it's actually like to be there. Kim and I stared around us in awe at the top of the island, while a hippie couple stood across from us passing a joint between each other. It must have been especially wonderful and romantic for them that day. We then headed back, only to realize that it was almost 3:30PM. We got down to the beach as quick as we could, only to see that the girls had left...without taking our things. We got to the spot we were at to see both our bags just sitting unattended on the beach. Brittany and Jessie had left our bags, which held all my money, ipod and passport, so that they could run to get the last Garganta train. Needless to say, Kim and I were a little upset, but seeing that all our stuff was still there, we decided to brush it off. We caught ferry boat off the other line and figured that sine we missed La Garganta we would walk through the lower circuit and see the falls from the closer, lower paths. After all of that we walked back towards the train station and Kim overheard a man telling the people he was with that if they hurried, they could make the last train to La Garganta. Apparently we had been mistaken and seeing as how it was 4, we rushed to the station so that we could catch the last train. We made it just in time and got the train at 4:15. When we got to the Garganta station we walked down the path, which was an amazing view. While the other places in the park had been surrounded by jungle our busy touristy stuff, the path to La Garganta was much more reserved and tranquil, out of the hustle and bustle of tourism. Long bridges crossed the river and around us we were completely surrounded by shallow river that looked like marshes which went on for yards.



When we finally got to La Garganta, my jaw dropped at the sight of one of the most beautiful and immense things I've ever seen in my life. i literally felt like a speck of dirt compared to the size of the waterfall. Tons of water poured over the side of the cliff creating a wide and forceful wall of white water falling into the river, which you couldn't even really see due to all the mist shooting up from the bottom. Water sprayed us even from all the way up at the top of the cliff. As if that wasn't amazing enough, to the left we could see the river leading up to La Garganta from the area we had been earlier, a large panoramic view that was absolutely insanely beautiful. By the end of the day, Kim and I were lucky and got to see every single thing there was to see in the park and were completely satisfied with the day. The next day we checked out of the hostel and got onto our 18 hour bus ride back to Buenos Aires. Although it's behind me now, i will never forget a single moment I spent at Iguazu. There are few things in this world that will ever compare to that day in my memory. Seeing wonders like that have me starving to travel even more. I can't wait for the next couple of trips I'll make in Argentina and after graduating, I am going to work my butt off so I can save up to do some more traveling, either through more of Latin America, or maybe even over to Europe. There is so much to see in the world, so much outside of the little bubble of our lives, it's insane to stay put in the US if you can acquire the means to travel. God, well done on the perfect and awe-inspiring creation that is planet Earth.

Links to the albums from the trip:
Album 1

Album 2