Argentinean Iguazu

The next morning we packed our cases and were picked up after breakfast by Edir again. We headed out of the park and then across the border into Argentina. We had to stop at the Brazilian border for them to see us out of the country, then we crossed the river and stopped at the Argentinean border for them to let us in. There was a massive queue of cars waiting to come the other way; apparently petrol is much cheaper in Argentina so the Brazilians head over the border to fill up. We put our watches back an hour and realised that we’d soon need some Pesos in exchange for our Reals. There are 6 Pesos to the pound which is handy for me as I’m used to working with Dirhams, which are also around 6 to the pound.
After a couple of hours we arrived just a few hundred metres from where we’d set off from but on the other side of the river and in a new country – we could even see our hotel very clearly! We took an open train through the forest to reach the falls. Although the Argentinean park is smaller they have created a lot more walkways from which to view the falls so it was well worth the visit to see them from this perspective. At the very top of the falls they have built a walkway of 2km which takes you across the widest point of the river to arrive at the top of the Devil’s Throat. It was just amazing to stand above these mighty falls watching the water thundering down into the abyss. The water in the river looks so innocuous, just like a fast running river in the Yorkshire Dales, with only the noise and the ‘smoke’ giving you any hint that it is about to plunge over the edge of a cliff. We saw huge turtles sunning themselves on the rocks and cormorants fishing under water. We came back on the train to reach another setting off point for a very long trail which took in the lower falls both above and below (below always results in a soaking) and either way involved a great many steps! We watched the boats taking their passengers for their ‘shower’ as we had done the day before. There are Jaguars, Pumas and Raccoons in the park but since the forest is so dense and their are so many people around we only saw them on the special TV channel in the hotel.
I am so glad we had the chance to see the rainforest and this incredible natural phenomenon. John has seen Niagara and says these are far more impressive. I can certainly say that it will be hard to be impressed by a waterfall ever again! We took lots of photos and some short video footage which I will try to put on the blog.
After a full day of walking in the heat of a beautiful sunny day we were pretty footsore when Edir dropped us off at the Argentinean airport for our 2 hour flight to Buenos Aires but very happy to have been privileged to see this amazing sight.