IGUAZU FALLS (Happy Birthday Niall!)

View of both sides of the Falls: Brazil, left & Argentina, Right

After a quick 2 night stop in Buenos Aires - to get a feel for the place and decide which area we wanted to stay when we returned here for our last week - we booked our bus ticket to Iguazu.

On the bus to Iguazu - leaving Buenos Aires

We got on our 'Via Bariloche' bus in the evening and settled into the most comfortable seats we had yet sat in! The assistant on the bus (every long haul bus in Argentina has a driver and an assistant) was very friendly and came around with wine after dinner and later on a choice of whiskey or champagne! We felt like we were sitting in first class on a long haul flight, especially since we were treated to a couple of movies as well - this was by far the best bus journey we had taken - all 15 hours of it!

We arrived in Iguazu (the most Northerly part of Argentina, bordering with Paraguay and Brazil) at about 12pm. Iguazu Falls are located in Iguazu National Park, which is essentially a rainforest, so the typical jungle heat & humidity hit us immediately...I was so glad there was nothing else to do in this small town other than see the Falls, which meant we were out of there again after just one night!

View Larger Map

We got some advice from the helpful guy at our nice hostel (Bambu Mini) and given our limited time here (we were leaving again the next day at 2pm) we planned to head into the Argentinian side of the falls straight away, and to the Brazil side the next morning since the Brazil side apparently doesn't take as long to view.

The park was huge - lots of walkways and plenty of view points. For some reason we had imagined being shuffled into a single view point of the Falls and out again - didn't expect to be in a huge beautiful park which you could easily spend 2 full days in! So we went around to the different viewpoints and eventually got to where the famous boat ride leaves which takes you right under the waterfall but unfortunately they had closed for the evening.

The Falls themselves were breath taking - literally! You couldn't get near the Falls without getting a mouthful of water and getting completely soaked! It was great fun and gave a feel for how powerful they really are, even though we were soaked to the skin 100% of the time!

We made a decision later on that we would prefer to go back to the same park and do the boat trip than go to the Brazil side the following day... a decision that we'll never regret thankfully!
It was Niall's birthday on our second day there, and as he said himself - it was the best and most memorable birthday he's ever had! The pictures & videos speak for themselves:

Video from boat into the Falls:

...Happy Birthday "Nee-al"!