Dec. 7: The Iguazu Falls

Tara woke me up this morning with a simple question: are you ready to go see some kick-(word I'm not allowed to use on this site) waterfalls? I immediately asked her if seeing them could wait five minutes. She told me no, so I told her yes.

I stayed half asleep as I got ready, ate breakfast and rode the bus to the park. As soon as I saw the first fall, I was wide awake. There were so many of them. The park says there are at least 220 of them, I think that number could easily be low.

The beauty of the falls is the share volume of them. Separately, each fall is alright on its own, but put together, they are amazing.

We spent all morning walking around the falls and saw the view from every possible angle. Every view was picture perfect, which explains the nearly 200 photos and five videos from the park. I'm pretty sure anyone who knows Tara or I who has ever wanted to see the falls but hasn't yet could probably see the entire park from our pictures, not that any amount of pictures could ever do it justice.

We basically had the park to ourselves for most of the morning. We ran into people occasionally and for some reason, everyone would ask me to take their picture with their camera. Apparently, I must not look like a camera thief.

We took a boat across 40 feet of water to an island in front of the falls. There, after much climbing, we stopped for lunch. I was pretty much ready to be done with the falls after lunch, but we found a path that took us directly in front of them, it was easily the best view of the day.

When we climbed back down, we saw people swimming on the island's beach. Tara said she wanted to go swimming, a possibility I thought wasn't one since we didn't bring swimsuits.

Tara had other thoughts as she decided she could swim in her underwear, after she made me promise not to take any pictures.

As I sat there watching her swim, I realized I was going to tell the story this story the rest of my life and that it could go one of two ways.

I joined her in the water a short time later.

Nobody seemed to notice, or care, that our swimsuits were made by Hanes or Vickies. But other peoples swimsuits were more offensive, like the old guy wearing a Speedo or his wife who decided to change out of her swimming suit on the beach.

After our swim, which felt good in the heat, we took the boat back across the water. We quickly noticed that the park was being overran with tourist when we were leaving that part of the park. I was glad Tara had insisted on getting there early, before the tourist and heat kicked into high gear.

We took their train to the other side of the park, where the Spanish phase for "Throat of the Devil" awaited us. We had to walk across a bridge for about 1/4-1/2 of a mile over an insanely wide river that looked more like flood land then any water I'm accustomed to seeing. The bridge continued to the giant fall, where it made a loop and came back.

Once there, we could see the hugest waterfall ever. Ever. There was so much water you couldn't see where if fell to because of all the mist.

Two rainbows were visible off the mist and hundred of birds placed above the water. I've never seen anything like the waterfall before, which was joined by many more smaller ones.

From the bridge we could see Brazil and people standing on their own bridge looking at the falls on the other side of the boarder. We discussed going to Brazil to see the falls from that side, but the $200 visa ended our conversation, plus people who went to both sides said the Argentina side is the best side.

I wonder if I can count looking into Brazil as being in Brazil. Perhaps Sarah Palin would know the answer to that question.

The hostel we're staying at, Peter Pan, has a pool in its center courtyard, which is the greatest thing ever. Since we've gotten back, Tara and I have been sitting around it reading or writing, getting in the pool long enough to stay cool.