I woke up early and had a good breakfast at the hotel. My friend showed up right on time and we left to go walk around the falls for the day. The hotel had a shuttle to a train that gave us a ride to the top of the falls. We walked along the trails at the top of the falls looking at the river above the falls and the lagoon formed in the flats before the Devils Throat part of the falls. There was an elevated walkway right up to the edge of the falls. We stood and watched fish swimming in the calm waters just a few feet before the falls. I wondered what happens to the fish when they go over the 210 to 275 foot plunge. So they survive? How does a fish learn to stay out of the current and not get sucked over the edge? There is only one lesson and it is a pass fail test.
There was a huge cloud of vapor drifting up from the falls as we approached it. The sound was growing louder and louder until by the time we arrived close enough to look over the edge it was so loud we could not hear each other talking and had to use sign language. There were lots of swallows flying around in the mist and rainbows feeding on what I don't know. Maybe there were a lot of insects attracted to the water vapor and mist. The sight of the Devils Throat was truly magnificent. We hung out taking pics and watching the water scream over the edge for a couple of hours before starting our hike around the trails to try to see the entire falls. There is no one place to stand and see all the falls at once. It is between a mile and a half and a mile and three fourths from one side of the falls to the other. It is immense. The tropical jungles surrounding the falls only make it look all that much better. I am sure glad there was no development build around the falls like so many other beautiful sights have been ruined by.
We saw lots of toucans flying around in the area around the falls. I was trying to get a picture of one but I was having a hard time getting close enough to take a good one. I chased each one I saw but they all flew away before I got good pics. It was frustrating. My girlfriend had a long telephoto lens and she was not able to get a good closeup either. We found lots of great places to view the various falls from. We ate some lunch at the falls after a long morning of walking up and down all the trails. I am pretty disabled for walking but the great vistas kept me going despite the pain and other problems I knew all this walking would cause me later. What the hell, you only live once. I had five days available to me to explore the falls so I did not have to do it all in one day.
We did not take a guided tour and it turns out that we would not have been needed our own guide because at almost every place we stopped to look at the falls there was a guide from a group yelling out their guide information about the history and all. We took lots of pics of other people with their cameras, especially of couples. This seemed to be a newly wed destination just like Niagra Falls is. Lots of tropical birds were in the trees along the hike. Many of them were the first time I had seen that type of bird. I was able to identify most of the species we saw but not all of them. We also saw more monkeys and some lizards and things. The entire first day we spent on the Argentina side of the falls.
After our long day hiking we took a shower and went down for dinner and a few drinks in the hotel. As we were sitting there a toucan flew up and landed in a tree about two feet away from me. I had been trying all day to get close to one and here one flew up to me and of course my camera was up in my room. I decided to race up to my room and get the camera in the hope that the toucan stayed close enough to get a shot of it. Luckily for me the bird stayed in the tree eating the berries until I returned. I quickly shot a few frames and then I tried to get a better pic but the big bird decided it was full of the berries and flew away before I could get a really spectacular pic of it. O well.
The next day we took a tour over to the Brazilian side of the falls. We had to take the tour in order to get across the border since we did not have a visa for Brazil. We rode in a taxi van with another couple from the hotel. The view from the Brazilian side is just as good as from the Argentina side but it does not allow as close up of a view of the falls. It was just as loud though. Our tour was a quick slam bam thank you ma'am stop look take a pic and get back to the hotel kind of tour. That was alright after all the walking the day before. My pain was pretty high from all of that walking and I had to take a lot of morphine to get up and out of bed that morning. We had lunch at the hotel and spent the afternoon by the pool.
The next morning we took a river boat tour at the bottom of the falls. I enjoyed that part of the trip. Our boat was a jet boat and the captain had fun scaring some of the passengers as we approached the falls. In fact he did such a good job of scaring one couple that they refused to allow the boat to go into the mist of the falls like we were intending. These two threw such a big fit that the passengers all agreed not to go so close. I was a bit disappointed not to get the closeup but I already did the Maid of the Mist in Niagra Falls so I wasn't missing out on that much.
I told my girlfriend goodbye and boarded my flight. I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to the falls and as our plane lifted off and headed back to Buenos Aires, I craned my neck to get some last glimpses of the falls from the air. If you ever get the chance to go to Iguazu Falls, do it.
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