Iguazu Falls

WOW. The falls were magnificent. I went for the day with two people I met in my hostel -- a Canadian brain surgeon (yes, you read that right... the people you meet backpacking, I say) and a lovely Dutch woman. The park around the falls is great -- all subtropical green with cicadas singing and birds calling and lizards and coatis (who are WAY too used to tourists, incidentally). And then you come out to the ´small´ falls, which were already enormous. I´m going to try to upload some pictures here. I actually thought in terms of beauty that the small falls are more beautiful than the "throat", which is stunning in terms of noise and volume and sheer size. But the small falls had these amazing vertical gardens and water running straight through these hanging plants and making small waterfalls beside the main ones and moss on the rocks and birds nesting practically *in* the water. So very cool.

There is also a little ferry that you can catch to the Isla San Martin (which isn´t really an island, but you can only get to it by ferry, so I guess the name isn´t a complete lie!), which is where most of these pics came from. We went wading (not swimming because Kirsten and I didn´t bring bathing suits) in the river, which was excellent because the base temp was over 40C yesterday. It was still 38C at 6pm... It´s HOT here. Then the finale of the day was to visit the Throat, which was awesome. What I loved though was to watch the starlings (sparrows?) by the thousands swoop in and out of the mists created by the falls and dive back into their vertical nests. They looked like living black ribbons against the sky. So wonderful...






I decided against going to Paraguay and am heading south to Rosario this afternoon. Another 15 hours on the bus (and no cama this time, sadly) and then I think two days and one or possibly two nights there. Then over to Uruguay for a few days and then it is almost time to go home. Hard to believe...