26 Degrees South: Iguazu

We arrived at the Puerto Iguazu Airport yesterday afternoon and had a kind of quircky beginning to this leg of the voyage. After picking up our luggage, our group stood outside the airport to await our bus to the Iguazu Falls National Park. Moments later, a lady (who turned out to be our tour guide) came out of the airport lobby area appearing a little flustered and holding a sign that said "Grupo Bryant Evans". She came up to me and said "I was looking for you in the airport and holding up this sign and you didn't see me." Our group and I were surprised and bemused as we never would have thought to look for my individual name rather than the name of our group (maybe "Grupo Fulbright"). Ahh, the mysteries of life!

In any case, once we got things figured out, we headed on a 10 minute bus ride to our hotel, which happens to be right within the Iguazu National Park. When we walked into the lobby of our hotel, we could see through the window in the background the famous waterfalls for the first time, and even from a distance, they were quite amazing. Iguazu Falls sits at the border of Brazil and Argentina. They are over a mile wide and have a drop of about 240 feet. They are grand and at least as impressive as Niagara Falls. In the afternoon, our group walked across this long catwalk on our way to the Devils Throat (which is at the heart of the park) and then took a boat ride in which we got soaked by the mist of the falls. It apparently rains here a lot, so I felt fortunate that we had such a nice, sunny day to enjoy the falls.

Today, we will have the chance to hike more around the falls, including a full moon walking tour this evening (I feel really fortunate for that opportunity, as it is only offered 5 nights a month) and tomorrow we will be off to Salta and northwestern Argentina.