Welcome to the Jungle

Coati: The long-snouted South American racoon, very goofy
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Wow! We´d heard about just how incredible Iguazu falls were, but they still managed to take our breath away.  Approximately 270 waterfalls covering 2.7 km located in lush jungle and directly between 2 countries so that you look over the falls through the mist across to Brazil.

We arrived in the numbingly hot and humid town of Puerto Iguazu, gateway to the Argentine side of Iguazu falls, after a horribly long 23 hour bus ride without movies or food.  However, it was definitly worth the detour.  We checked into Hostel Inn Iguazu where they only had space in an 8 bed dorm without air conditioning but they did have a huge swimming pool.  The swimming pool was key since neither of us had even experienced such intense humidity before.  There was some competition for beds due to overbooking and no one really wanted to put their things on the muddy floor; however, this led to the quick bonding between several of us who arrived into this disaster zone at the same time.  Our first night we attended an asado (BBQ) at the hostel followed by a Brazilian dance show which quickly became very interactive.  So we danced the night away, and by the end we´d made lots of friends and arranged to go to the falls the following day with Adrian from Alberta , Susan from Germany and Sarah from California.

Not only were we covered in water, but also butterflys of all sizes and colours.

Absolutely Disgusting Giant Black Snake
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We went to the Iguazu National Park first thing in the morning where we hopped on a little train that took us to a serious of catwalks leading to the Garganta del Diablo (Devil´s throat): an absolutely massive waterfall set amongst smaller ones.  We were absolutely soaked as we gazed at it´s immensity.  Not only were we covered in water, but also butterflys of all sizes and colours.  It was a pretty surreal experience.  From there we took a half hour rowboat ride which allowed us to observe caimens, and a variety of birds.  We spent the rest of the day hiking various trails around the park viewing dozens of gorgeous falls and even swimming under one.  We also saw monkeys, lizards, some kind of giant snake and coatis (kind of like a South American racoon - very cute with long snouts).  By the end of the day we were all exhausted but entirely satisfied with the experience which was everything we´d hoped for.

Hostel Inn Iguazu
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We were more then ready for the buffet that awaited us at the hostel when we returned.  After a refreshing swim in the pool, we feasted on a variety of meats, pastas, and surprisingly vegetables, followed by a selection of Argentine Malbec wines.  This led to an excellent evening on the patio discussing everything from our travel experiences to communism to our countries immigration and foreign policies.  It was quite educational.

It was a little reluctantly that we said our goodbyes the following day and boarded a bus for the border town of Posadas.

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Side note -  After travelling for about a month and a half now this seems to be a fairly standard conversation between Eubie and I:

Eubie: Sabrina do you have anything clean to wear today?

Sabrina:  Well I´ve only worn this shirt two times, I think, it seems to smell the least bad, how about you?

Eubie (digging through his laundry bag):  I don´t know this one´s got some kind of stain on it but it´s not too bad, smell it and tell me what you think.

Garganta del diablo
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I hope you´re not too disgusted, but we really did pack light (I´m quite proud of the fact that my bad only weighed 25 lbs at the airport, and Eubie´s was just over 30).  It was especially bad with the humidity and red mud everywhere in Puerto Iguazu we were more then ready for a laundrymat when we left.