Iguazú National Park
Saturday–Monday November 3–5, 2007
We flew to Buenos Aires EZE airport via Atlanta (7,138 miles) and spent two nights in the city before heading out to explore the country. Our first destination was Iguazú Falls.The Iguazú National Park is in the northeast of Argentina, on the border with Brazil and very close to the border with Paraguay.
The park, a World Heritage site, protects both the semi–tropical rain forest and the waterfalls. After a two hour flight from Buenos Aires, we arrived at the well–run Iguazú National Park, a World Heritage site. It was easy to walk through the park to see the waterfalls and forest. This is a calm section of the river before it reaches one of the falls.
This appearance is one of calm, but on the other side of this infinity pool, close by, the perspective is quite a bit different.
The water from the infinity pool makes up one of these falls. The large waterfall on the left, in the shade, will be in another photograph later on. The scale of the falls is impressive.
On another walk, over a well built pedestrian bridge, we could see the start of another waterfall. Brazil is on the left side of this photograph.
Approaching the viewing area of this same waterfall, the roar of the water was noticeable. This waterfall, “the Devil’s Throat,” is the Big One in the park—see the people on the Brazilian viewing platform to the left in the photo below.
To be in a position to take the photograph above required going on a boat trip. At the conclusion of the trip, the boat goes very, very close to the shaded waterfall in the third photo, above. Everyone got very wet. Most of the passengers wanted to go “under” the waterfall a second time, and we got off to take their photo. All of the waterfalls are bigger in life than they look in these photographs.
We went a few miles into the forest, with its rosewood trees and many different species of ferns. We saw monkeys, toucans and coatis. The forest is either in shadow or bright light. The greens are a nice contrast to the whites of the waterfalls.
This map shows all of the places we will be visiting on this trip.
Next—Salta and Jujuy, the high desert in the northwest, near Chile and Bolivia.
