Iguazu Falls

From Starred Photos

We enjoyed our bus ride out to Puerto Igauzu, it was on a company called Via Bariloche which was the same one we took to Bariloche way back in January. We took it as first-class which was really nice. Thinking about it now, it's the best bus ride in terms of comfort and service that we've ever really experienced in South America. They had personal TVs with headphones allowing you to opt out of the movies if you so chose and they had multiple channels of movies as well. Throw in the fact that they serve wine with their excellent dinner and then top it all off with champagne at the end and you just go a step above every other company we've traveled with. A lot of companies could learn a bit from these guys. :)

We arrived around 12pm still tired from the trip but found our hostel right next to the bus station and after talking with the hotel staff decided to head to see the park right away since the weather was so nice. We hopped on the bus to the falls and arrived at the park.

Iguazu falls is yet another amazing place to visit. It's absolutely huge. We've often gone places in SA where there are really pretty waterfalls but they're always pretty short (height-wise) or not too powerful, but Iguazu falls is another animal entirely. It's waterfall after waterfall, all of which are tall and powerful. It just goes on and on until you get to the crown jewel of the park, which is the garganta del diablo or “the devil's throat”. This waterfall is absolutely huge, we have a video below and some pictures as well. It's kind of like a horseshoe with waterfalls on every side with the main part of the horseshoe being just awe-inspiring. :)

Video (you might have to click the image to play the video):

From Iguazu Falls

From Starred Photos

From Starred Photos

Any waterfalls are a great place to try your neutral density camera filter to get the cool flowing soft water effect, so why not try it here!

From Iguazu Falls

Argentina actually shares Iguazu falls with Brazil but they got the better end of the deal for sure. Their side holds most of the waterfalls and their park has all sorts of trails and walkways that allow you to get up close and personal to the falls. I can't say too much about the Brazil side since we would have had to apply for an expensive visa to get over there, even for a day, but from what we hear all you get is a good panoramic view of the falls.

A Zoo?

The falls were not only amazing in their beauty, but the wildlife that surrounds them is amazing too! Suzanne said right away that the tourist facilities, which were really good, reminded her of the Omaha Zoo (she loves that zoo in case you didn't know) but I had to agree with her after spending our second day constantly running into an amazing variety of wildlife. We found coatie's (see picture), monkeys, giant lizard things, butterflies (so many they would swarm around), toucans, turtles, and alligators!

From Iguazu Falls

From Iguazu Falls

From Iguazu Falls

From Iguazu Falls

After a great two days we got on a bus and headed back to BA. As we were getting on the bus we ran into Ross. Ross was on our galapagos cruise with us way back in May! After 5 months and completely different paths, we happened to be in the same bus station and on the same bus with seats next to one another in a country thousands of miles away from where we spent a week together. Small world...

Anyway, if you want to see all the pictures, (we just couldn't delete too many of them, they were all good!) check out the below slideshow:

~Mike

Buenos Aires

I'm writing this post on the bus to Bariloche at night on the 22nd. It ended up being kind of a long entry, hopefully its not too boring for everyone.

I can't believe this was only our third day in Argentina! Wow. Here's what we've been up to. We slept poorly on the plane into BA. It's hard enough to try to sleep sitting up but when you throw in the fact that my seat control panel broke and I couldn't turn off my reading light, or my TV screen it made for an especially difficult trip. United was nice enough about it though, giving us a little ticket with some gift options as an apology. We chose 7000 miles since that's pretty much all that was applicable. Anyway, we landed and got our luggage, paid the reciprocal fees (130 bucks each!) and got though customs without a hitch. Then we took a cab to meet a friend's boyfriend (the friend was in Chile on work). Andres was awesome. He took us out to eat for lunch and gave us some tips for getting around. We then left our stuff at his office and walked around BA for the afternoon. We saw the Casa Rosada (pink house, same as our White House) and walked through the barrio of San Telmo, which was nice. Suzanne loved the architecture of the city a lot. Then we headed back and met Andres who took us to their apartment. In true Argentinian fashion, we hung out a bit and at around 10 pm went out to eat. Andres took us to a restaurant and introduced us to parillada which is kind of like a smorgasbord of meat of all types. Mmmm. :) We promptly concluded that John N would absolutely love Argentina! We got wine and salad and paid for Andres, all for a whopping 40 bucks after tip! Who hoo! Anyway, we were still very exhausted so we went back after a quick stop at an ice cream shop and went to bed.

We slept till 12:30 pm the next afternoon! We got up and spent the rest of the day walking around the city of BA. It is a lovely city. It's large to be sure but we loved walking around and seeing all the wonderful architecture and watching the people walking around as well. Once we got lost and randomly asked a guy on the street for directions and he was extremely friendly and got us on our way, even trying to speak in English to us gringos! Then, when on the subway, a lady gave us her seat when we walked on. If most Argentinians we meet are this friendly and welcoming then we are for sure in for a great time.

Suzanne's friend Ximena then came back and we all went out for dinner. Ximena was a foreign exchange student who stayed with Suzanne's family in Omaha during her high school years. The girls were so excited to see each other they talked past the time to go out for dinner, which in Argentina is late! So we ended up going out for ice cream again and calling it a night. We then woke up and got ready to go on our long bus trip to Bariloche!

When we were planning on going to Bariloche, we decided to splurge a bit and get the first class bus. Wow. What an experience! The seats fold all the way down to make a nice little bed, they show movies (all movies here are in English with Spanish subtitles), they have already fed us two meals (one with wine) then they came over again and offered us Champagne or Whiskey as an after-dinner drink! The Argentinian countryside so far is very flat and full of farmland. I think between here and the mountains its just all farmland. Suzanne thinks its like Nebraska but I'll let her describe it.

So so far, impressions are great! This place is definitely worth the visit. We've been spoiled so far though. We had friends who pretty much took care of us and helped us through anything difficult. We are so grateful to them! Tomorrow we will wake up and be on our own however and while I'm confident that we'll be able to handle anything that comes up, it's definitely going to be a bit more difficult. I'm looking forward to the challenge.

Just arrived in Baroliche and that'll take a whole other post.

~Mike