Day 5 - Love at First Sight

Day 5 – Love at First Sight

Most of the day was spent traveling from San Rafael (SR) to BA to Iguazu. The gravel drive into the SR airport made me chuckle, and the Departures and Arrivals doors are right next to each other, separated by about 8 feet. A 3-person musical group (guitar, flute and drum) was playing in the small lobby so it was quite loud. Without getting into the details, suffice to say that Aerolineas Argentineas treated us very well and were very accommodating. During our layover in BA, we stopped at Hard Rock Café for some familiar food. Since it was Wednesday, Steve had to get the burger while Bob got an omelet WITH A BEER! Now, that’s a combination you don’t see very often, except perhaps in Germany or at a meeting of AA drop-outs.

We left early from SR and it was 72° and arrived in Iguazu at 102° … while it was -7° in Indianapolis! What’s up with this planet anyway?!?

Our guide -Marco - took us from the Iguazu airport across the Brazilian border to Iguassu (note the Brazilian spelling). This is not to be confused with Iguaça, which is the indigenous people’s spelling. In any case, it means “big water” or something like that. As we got out of our van, we could hear the roar of the Falls – Igua(z)(ss)(ç)u Falls, which is right across the street from the hotel and ever so slightly visible. Now the great part about this hotel is that (a) it is the ONLY hotel in the Iguassu National Park; (b) the Park closes at 6pm, which means only hotel residents are in the Park for the evening and early mornings (it doesn’t open until 9am) and (c) it has spectacular views of the largest waterfall system in the world.

The Belmond Hotel.

After checking in, we made the walk across the street to get a view of the Falls. Of course, words could never describe the enormity and awesome power of the cascading water over hundreds of feet of rocky cliffs. We could only see pat of the Falls since there are 275 distinct waterfalls that make up the system, spanning 1.7 miles of jungles and cliffs. The Falls are 200-270 feet high. We walked along a path taking in more and more of the Falls and viewing the natural wonder from different angles. I will simply let a few pictures tell a very small story. The three pictures below show about 80% of the total Iguassu Falls system.

The view of the Falls directly across from the entrance to the Belmond.
Note that this view represents only 25% of the totality of Iguassu Falls. 

Walking the trail near the Belmond and enjoying some views through the rain forest.
Again, this is just a portion of the total system of falls.

Another view up the Iguassu River and into the Devil's Throat, where the mist is rising like a cloud.

We hung around until sunset and snagged a few more pictures of staggering beauty. Thereafter, we retired to the hotel lobby bar for a casual dinner – the first time on the whole trip that Bob did not drink wine!

We retired for the evening, anticipating our formal tour of the Falls from the Argentinian side tomorrow.