the problem of Iguazu falls

1. The only people who go to Iguazu (who aren´t already in the neighborhood) go as tourists to the falls. Like me, they hop on a plane from Buenos Aires, get off in the tropical heat and humidity of the airport, get picked up by a prearranged car service and go to their lodgings.
2. Perhaps unlike me (but maybe not) they stay for more than 24 hrs and then head out on a plane back to Buenos Aires again.
Problem: How to actually see the falls in less than 24 hrs.
If you are me, you decide to simply assume the role of ugly tourist and hire a car to take you to the falls and back for 80 pesos. You enter the parque at 3:30 when it closes at 6:30. Rush to go see the Devils´s Throat. Then rush to walk the upper circuit of the other but lesser falls. You then pay another 60 pesos to join a tour group to come back the next day so that they can pick you up with your bag (which you then leave at the park gate locker area) and then once again pick you up to take you to the airport. You do this even though the public bus costs 2.70 pesos each way.


If you are me, though, you are also so thoroughly impressed by the force of the Devil´s Throat as it cascades down in what seems like a giant avalanche of water, and of the sheer elegance of the cascading lesser falls, that you are glad you behaved like an ugly tourist. And you are glad you had the added benefit of seeing the falls at different times of day under different conditions )the park was empty in the afternoon). Your one regret is that you didn´t get to do the nature walk where you might have seen toucans and monkeys.




I have been searching the past few days for words that can do justice to the spectacle -- which can adequately explain why masses of people descend in really insufferable conditions to behold the cascades. The Devil´s Throat felt as if it were sucking me in. I felt a real temptation to fall into the water and ride it down. The roar of the water was load, deafening even, but a loudness that snuck up on me. When I was standing there I didn´t realize how loud it was; it was only once I had walked away that I realized that people were shouting at one another, and that really you could hear nothing but the water. And the walks of the upper and lower circuit, especially the lower circuit, were really well designed, affording nice vistas of arcs of falls against the green forest and the blue sky, and in some distances a close encounter with a fall.




A flight back to BA, a 3.5 hr wait in the airport, a n2.5 hr plane ride, and I found myself in Salta, where I am now. I´ve been going on rather interesting tours of the province of Salta, sitting in an SUV for 10-12 hrs each day. More on that later though.