Argentina All the Way!

(Ok, I lied, and split it in two…)

The next day we set off over the border again, this time legally and very glad to finally wave Brazil and its hefty transportation costs goodbye. And I have to admit, that as soon as I stepped out the door, I could feel a difference. It is perhaps a little hard to explain, but I certainly wasn’t the only one experiencing it, with Martin echoing my thoughts almost immediately. Perhaps it just seems a little more like home, a little more well-set up, a little less hazy, or should that be lazy?

Again we take the bus straight out to the Falls, after dropping our bags in at the hostel, and spying the pool out the back. Unlike the Brazilian side, included in our Argentinian pass is a train to the main walking point, another around to the “Devil’s Throat”, and a ferry across to the island in the middle. Not bad, I think.

We get off at the Lower Trail and are greeted by some of the most beautiful butterflies I have ever seen, and a group of native rodents (the name of which I am still searching for, but consider then something between a possum and a quokka) that try to steal whatever edible things they can from us. We push past and move up and down over the steep maze of paths to several different vantage points. Unlike the Brazilian trail, an almost straight journey to the end, Argentina has been blessed with various hidden vantage points from which to experience the Falls (on this side, and in this language, called the Iguazu Falls). It is so much better than Brazil!

Of course I take way too many pictures, suddenly captivated by the idea of landscape painting, and how it must have been many years ago when terrain such as this was not uncommon. It makes me feel a little sad too, when I realise that this is such a privileged experience, to be so close to an original environment, one which we have all lost in our daily lives, as ‘progress’ and technology has claimed so much.

Only constricted by time, and the fact that the last train is leaving for the “Devil’s Throat”, we climb aboard the train and walk our way over to the waterfall’s edge. And climbing out onto the “Devil’s Throat”, having traversed the relatively peaceful river, we are showered by the spray of the waterfall edge, our voices lost over the crashing water below. Now, I am not one to typically be awe-struck by nature, but the impact of it all was, in a word, magnificent.