A Boring Post about a Boring Place

Finally, it's here. The much awaited blog post about the Iguazu waterfalls. Or at least for me, because this has been my favorite trip, favorite place and favorite weekend so far of studying abroad. My friends all left last Thursday night on a 19 hour bus right, but since I have my class at UBA on Fridays and can't miss it, I flew down on Friday afternoon to meet them. They were in the hostel after a long day of traveling. We got dinner which our hostel very nicely provided for us, even if it was fried empanadas and gross pizza, and headed to bed for our big day at the Iguazu waterfalls the next day!

Let me just say that I knew Iguazu would be cool (which is why I'd ventured to the northern tip of Argentina in the first place) but I wasn't prepared for how unbelievable the waterfalls actually are until I approached the Garganta del Diablo, the devil's throat. We had decided to go here first because it's the biggest and most famous part of the park. I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to the falls. Here's what we saw as we neared the end of the bridge:

Oooh but wait it gets so much more incredible. Pictures don't do it justice at all, but I'm going to try...

Basically you can't see the bottom at all and there's 10000000 gallons of water falling and there's mist everywhere so you're soaked and you can't hear anything because the boom of the water is so loud. Oh, and its incredibly beautiful!

So we dried off, lunched and took an ecological boat ride down the river before we saw the next waterfalls. The ride was lame, except that we saw some little caymans. I'd say that they're cute but they're really just little alligators so I am not a fan.

Next we headed to the upper and lower trails of the rest of the waterfalls. They were only SLIGHTLY less impressive than the Garganta del Diablo. Not quite as dramatic but there was a lot of greenery and it looked like Paradise. We even saw a rainbow, thus proving it's paradise. And we could see Brazil. I thought I was being super tricky having discovered the "panoramic assist mode" on my camera (which I've only had for 4 years) so I took a lot of 180 degree picture series, but then they didn't turn out panoramic. I'm still working on it. Meanwhile, it's not least bit uglier in regular photos: 

We also saw some birds and coatis, which are cute but evil, and that about wrapped up our first day. We returned to the hostel tired and sweaty, showered and ate and called it a night. The next day was already Sunday so we packed up, dropped off our bags at the bus stop (I still had to buy my ticket, since I was joining the plebs in my long journey home), and headed back to the park. Since we'd already done the big stuff the day before, we took a nature trail into the spider-infested forest to a secluded cascade and natural swimming pool. Seriously we saw so many giant spiders and even a hairy one that I have no doubt was a tarantula. I was really jittery by the time we got to the pool. We hopped in and took some pictures, and then I got too cold so I got out and took more pictures. It was a nice, chill day and we got in a lot of walking, thank goodness, so that our legs didn't clot and die on the bus ride back. The ride was uneventful; I meant to do a lot of homework but instead watched some not so great movies, ate some not so great food and got some not so great sleep. Anyways, here are more pictures that ARE great!

I hope you all agree with me that Iguazu is beautiful and breathtaking. As always I have lots more pictures up on facebook so go check those out. Stay tuned for my next post when we remember together my 21st birthday, and pictures of baby Antonia surface. Also Mac and Cheese? No more clues than that for now!

Just kidding about the title of this post, 

Rachel