Photo Album: Iguazu & beyond
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We traveled over 12,000 Km in this journey, from Buenos Aires to the south along the Atlantic coast, then through the best of Patagonia and Southern Chile, up to the northwestern wilderness of Argentina, finally crossed back to the east, and here we were, at El Dorado, only 100 Km from this spectacular waterfalls, the great Iguazu.
So it was, “ to the fore…waterfalls”.
50 Km down the highway, everything was clearing, the road went from wet to dry, a very good sign indeed. The cloudy sky would made a good interesting background for pictures today.
We reached Puerto Iguazu just after 9, checked into a hotel, and was at the entrance of Parque Nacional Iguazu soon after.
But before we headed in, expecting to be a day long visit, we ensured the car was secured, engine disable, and nothing of importance was left in the car.
With tremendous expectations, we slowly made our way to the railway station which would take us to the falls on a short track....and there were amazing butterflies everywhere.
Just as the war cry “ to the fore…waterfalls” was being muttered, thunders were beginning to rumble, and it started raining big time…yeah, water falls alright!
And we had plenty of companies. These are South American Coatis, cute but can be aggressive. Unfortunately, people were feeding them despite being warned not to, by signs around the park. Feeding wild animals are not allowed and some are outright illegal, in most National Parks around the World, as this only breed aggressive behaviors and can cause problems for both them and human alike.
The train slowly travelled 2 Km, and we took a lot of pictures of some really colourful butterflies, along a fast running RED river. Then we began to see the first sign of mist throwing up in the air, and wow, here it was, right in your face, the brutal reality of this mighty rush of water…..
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| A Lazy Cayman lying in the calmer part of the river atop the falls |
It was said, when Eleanor Roosevelt ( wife of President Roosevelt ) first saw the Iguazu, she exclaimed, "Poor little Niagara !!". Indeed, but not taking anything away from the great and majestic Niagara Falls, I must admit, I had the same feeling when first saw Iguazu.
The waterfalls runs a good 2 km, spilling out from the Argentine side.
The water is red coloured, the red soils for the last 500 Km of travels explains this.
It reminded me of Hukou Waterfalls in Shaanxi & Shanxi China, which is yellow in colour, being in the upper reaches of the Yellow River. But Hukou is comparatively, very tiny in the scale of things.
There are upper trails that run up along the top of the falls, following the contour of the terrain, ending at the Garganta del Diablo, which is like a big funnel, with a mighty rush.
And then the lower trails, that let one gets really close to the water, and drenched.
And we did the all the walks on the Argentine side, which in my opinion, is the better view. But then again, we did not go over to Brazil because we had no visas, so that’s the excuse to come back in the future. In fact, the Brazilian view is equally spectacular, as I found out in early 2017.
The only disappointment was, the San Martin Island was closed, which is right in the middle of the big horse shoe, allowing view points directly facing the waterfalls, all 3 Kms’ worth.
However, this is a view of San Martin Island from the Brazilian side, taken at a return visit in early 2017.
And a view from the Brazilian side into Garganta del Diablo ( 2017 visit).
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| The Brazilan side |
But I did get mighty wet by walking right in front of a big wall of falling water, without my camera, and this time, my Driza-Bone hat in my hand….! Never wanted to lose it again.
All because of making a "wrong turn" driving out of Buenos Aires, it took us 7 weeks and 12,000 Km of road travels to get to this misty and noisy thingy....and it did not disappoint. It sure did not. And the butterflies, the coatis and other little animals that run around, and the chirping colourful cute looking birds, made the whole trip all worth it, if that's the only thing we saw for the entire journey. No, I lied.
We had a great day, the World's top Waterfall in my opinion, plenty of beautiful butterflies, birds and animals, a perfect mix in a sub-tropical paradise.
The question then was, where to go next, we were two days ahead of schedule…
Day 37 – The morning had a very very sad beginning. Bad news come when one is least expecting it. By the way of an email, one of my old friends, my chiropractor and a mutual friend of one my secondary schoolmates, suddenly passed away. Much younger, healthy and vibrant, with so much to live for, he faded away in the laps of his wife, totally unexplained. Preliminary autopsy did not offer any answers. Life can just snuff out in the snap of a finger…..yet there were still so much to live for…..really, really sad.......
We bundled our bags out of the hotel after a sumptuous breakfast, by the standards of the last few weeks, there was cereals…pastries, and wow, fresh fruits….a feast. The hotel looked run down, but the room details were absolutely star rated, for the price of $40. It is easy to forget how these old lifts worked, we waited for the door to open, until we realized that we have to open it and slide the internal folding gates to operate…..vintage ’50s. But they are still so common in this part of the World. Old and well oiled, and are still very useful. Two is a crowd in one of these.
Not far from the center of Puerto Iguazu, is the “golden triangle”, the Tri-Fronteria corner of Puerto Iguazu, the borders with Brazil and Paraguay. The three countries are jointed at the center of the confluence of Rio Parana and Rio Iguazu. We decided to pay a quick visit before heading out.
The place was quite low key, with a few tourist souvenir shops, there are only big flags flying, no security or police presence. But there is also a monument of sort to highlight Argentina’s claim of the Falkland Island, their Malvinas in the far south off the Atlantic coast. In fact, every now and again, the Malvinas claim signs appear on the roadside throughout Argentina as well. That’s part of their long sad history, which I do know not much more than the 1982 war with Britain which they lost badly. It was a case of a desperate dictator who tried to divert attention about his domestic problems. The failure caused the downfall of his dictatorship, of which, Argentina is still recovering after all these years of bad governance.
Iguazu was to be our last hurrah for this trip, the rest was supposed to be a long and winding down drive towards Buenos Aires, at least, that's what we had in mind when leaving Puerto Iguazu, and retracing south on highway 12.
As we reached within 50Km of El Dorado where we last spent our night before Iguazu, again we were surrounded by thunderstorms. We slowed to walking pace, and were very amazed by all the other cars overtaking us on solid double lines amid near zero visibility. The thunderstorm then turned to persistent rain for another 100 Km or more, before thinning out to a drizzle. Remember, this is about the same latitude from the Equator as that of Hong Kong and Queensland, a subtropical region, so it is not surprising about thunderstorm like this, what is interesting though, was why it only happens around El Dorado, and not up north near Iguazu. Not much rain when were there.
As the trip is now in wind-down mode, so it was a easy and relaxed drive, and we explored a Jesuit Mission ruin in St Ignacio, that was built about 400 years ago.
Can anyone recognise that these were once the facade of possibly, a grand cathedral ?
A huge complex it must have been, and an amazing site in its historical context. But we failed to find the other two which are supposed to be off the highway as we moved further south near Santa Ana.
On passing the YPF service station that the two polices were trying to accuse me of exiting wrongly two days ago. I surveyed it again, there were absolutely no traffic signs to say NO exit. And there were cars exiting from it in the same way as I did, and worse, some cross the busy traffic onto the other direction of the highway. I only turned right, without the need to cross the highway. I just could not see the finer point of this traffic regulation, if there were one, other than to bluff money out of us.
By the time we rolled into Posada, a big town off route 12 by Rio Parana, opposing Paraguay, it was well after 5 and it was time to find lodging. But none was to be found, until an hour later, after rejecting a couple of sleazy places.
Next Post : Day 38 - 39 Crooked Polices on Rt 14
Other Posts: Index - 2013 Argentina-Chile self drive.
Other Posts: Index - 2013 Argentina-Chile self drive.
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