Finding monkeys, nearly missing a bus.

My bus out of Iguazu is not until late in the evening and the day is too lovely so I gather some pesos, and a camera and board the cataratas bus once again. Iguanas are out in force throughout the park sunning themselves. The coatis scrounge for handouts by the food courts. I take the catwalk above the falls, a section I had mostly neglected before. I then revisit the lower falls in sun rather than torrential rain.

On a popular connector trail, the Green Trail, some park visitors are gathered by the mangroves. They spot a coral snake. I make a note of it and am wary of stepping off the trail from that point forward.

I search in vain at first for the Sendero Machuco which I finally find next to the train station. I am immediately relieved to abandon the throngs of tourists, senior citizens, school children and wander off in relative solitude. The trail is favored by the occasional group of young Argentinians clad in bathing suits and bikinis walking to and from the lagoon several kilometers out with a lone waterfall and flat rocks for sunbathing. I stop by a group peering into the canopy above. Small monkeys are swinging high in the trees and they, and I, are following them with digicams.

This is one of my favorite spots in the park. These falls are isolated and unfenced and accessible by a challenging trail. Exploration and adventure inevitably heightens beauty and solace in a way accessibility never can.

I return to the hostel hungry and listless and wait out the rest of my time by the pool wielding a Fanta and a book.

Here I am at the bus station staring at the Andesmar bus to Mendoza for twenty minutes not thinking to ask if it is going my way to Resistencia. As the bus pulls out, the baggage man frantically asked me my destination, snatches away my backpack and ticket and rushes me onto the departing bus. I settle in for a not so champagne, this time, semi cama ride drinking warm Fanta and eating cold ravioli, and not sleeping well for my ten hour ride.

Washing, Baking

Today is my day of rest, to go downtown, take care of some delinquent chores and then lay prone by the hostel pool with a book and bake. And that’s what happens. The sun is hot today, and spring is just beginning. I will not book any trips here in the summer. I throw my soiled dainties into a garbage bag and hump it to the lavaderia, a kilometer further then I anticipate. I eat another tasty hostel buffet and Irish invites me to a social gathering with his friends, but it is time to pick up my laundry. After such frantic activity in BsAs there isn’t room in my budget for too much more beer, regardless. My laundry is late, so I take another stroll around town.

Laundry in hand, I sit by the bus stop. An Argentinian girl in her twenties asks me, I presume, a question about the bus which I am too confused to answer, but she doesn't give up and proceeds to talk to me. After several discombobulations, she recommends that I use a diccionario, and how can I argue? But what really stifles the conversation is when I tell her my age. A friend of hers stops by in his car and takes her away and that is that.

Gran Aventura

I intend to go into town, mail postcards, gather provision for the day, but the day has other plans for me. The same Aussie who often joined us for nights out in BsAs ended up in Iguazu as well and he is along with El Salvador, another BsAs hostelmate, and Irish, a young lad I ate dinner with the night before. We share a taxi to the falls.

A black cloud billows as we sign up for the gran aventura tour and I worry the whole thing is going to be a little corny, but I go with it for once. The rain comes pelting in a full fledged tropical downpour as we take a guided, and open, jeep down to the river. A poncho holdout, I’m drenched to the bone. An older Argentinian woman working the dock asks for my brazo and slips on a clear plastic poncho. Our gear which is by this time drenched as well is nevertheless dropped into dry bags. The power raft driver lets us know the score right at the get go. He accelerates to a ridiculous speed and banks the boat at an angle so steep that the passengers on the side of the tilt can dip their hands in the river. The rain feels like sleet as we shoot ClassIII rapids up river. The sadist captain then points the raft straight towards the maw of a miniature niagra and accelerates. We skirt the torrents and the large, warm drops pour down.


The four of us take a circuitous hiking route around dozens of cataratas, many in coves isolated from the main falls, over a large network of metal grate catwalks. I eat an overpriced salami sandwich and sip on coffee and we backtrack to the boat launch to embark on a short ride to Isla del Sol. No sol, but plenty of rain. From the island, we get a close up view of the cataract that seemed to be on the verge of swallowing us hours before. Next to Garganta del Diablo, it is the most powerful fall I observe in the park.

I revisit Garganta Diablo, with the posse. No rainbows today. In sharp contrast to the morning, we take a languid raft ride back through the mangroves, sans motor, sans rapids, but several alligators lurk in the vegetation. The row man assures us that we’ll just throw in the fat one. Toucans are perched high in the canopy, well out of my camera range.

Parilla is served at the hostel that night and we have entertainment. Brazilian dancers in Carnivale costumes shake their nearly naked booties and grab as many in the audience who are willing to shake along.

A Iguazu

I say a rushed goodbye to L who is moving to the Palermo hostel with the will o the wisp. Out of curiosity, I wander the lovely sycamore lined lanes of Palermo, where the wealthy reside, that day and when I get back it is time to leave.

I nearly doze on the cement bus platform, dabbled with stagnant puddles, before I find myself wide awake on my full cama seat, in pleasant solitude, but a smidgen too close to the water closet. The steward walks by, in turn, with a shot of rum, a candy drop, cheese strata, tomato salad, chicken and mashed potatoes, wine, cake and then a champagne night cap before lights out. I read Travels with Charlie by Steinbeck instead of watching the four action movies that play. The 16 hours to Iguazu goes by mercifully fast.

I arrive at a resort of a hostel with club music playing at all hours, an outdoor pool, hammocks, a bar by the pool and an indoor one as well, and a restaurant. The place has not strayed far from its casino roots.

I almost immediately make my way for Iguazu, the cataratas, in the soup, the hot sticky air. I walk down the road and a guide in a tourist van, probably questioning my sanity, pulls over and gestures to me. He wants to know if I need water. Out of pride, or reticence or simply sheer stupidity, I wave him off with a gracias and continue to trod on in full exposure to the sun. I am 11km away when I feel like I should be 5. I consider waving a bus down, or anyone really, when all I have left are a few ounces of lukewarm water.

I’m quite frazzled from the heat and sun but I make it and head into Iguazu NP, board the park train and cross the catwalk to Devil’s Throat, Gargantan del Diablo, one of the most dramatic cataratas on planet earth. The drought plaguing the region several months before is not in evidence now.

Swallows zig zag in and out of the towering mist rising from a deep chasm into which the raging falls disappear. Whole seas seemed to be drained in the space of minutes. A rainbow sifts through the vapors. I take some pictures and walk to the bus stop at the entrance of the park.