ODO: 343,007
Everyone wakes up with a tummy ache…Guess that fancy steak house was as good as it tasted. The plan was to be at the entrance to Iguazu Falls National Park at 8:00am when it opened. Our thinking was, since sunrise is at 7:30am, we may get to see some dawn-ish wildlife. Unfortunately, we sleep late, and arrive around 11:00am. There are only a few hikes within the park: The Lower Walk, the Upper Walk, The Devis Throat, The Green Trail, and the Macuco Trail. We start with big ambitions to do them all, not a one is longer than 3 miles! And we have until 6pm! Max explore here we go!
We plan our day based on which trails we think will be coolest (the first three), and plan to to the rest afterwards. To get to the hikes we ride the Eco Train deep into the jungle. First up is the Lower Walk. At 1700m in length, the website guesses it will take 90 minutes to complete. It starts with a steep downhill, followed by catwalks through the jungle. There are several small view points where we glimpse the falls. At the halfway view point, which has incredible views, we find a pack of Coatis. It’s painfully obvious these little critters are used to being fed because they swarm us as we try to get our cameras out. We see them climb into a stroller, try to steal from people’s purses, rip open a large paper bag that did not contain food, and generally be a menace. The views only get better as we get closer to the falls. Very abruptly the trail ends, and we are directed towards the exit. There was some recent flooding that did a lot of damage in the park, and that is why we cant finish this path.
The exit to the Lower Walk is right next to the entrance to the Upper Walk. Well planned, Argentina. This is the upper track of what we just hiked, and at 1750m, its supposed to only take us an hour! This walk has different (less exciting) views, being positioned right along the top of the falls. While lovely, its hard to view a waterfall from directly above. Once we finish this loop, we head back to the train station and find monkeys! Capuchin monkeys to be exact. They are frolicking and generally being cute at the train station/food and gathering area. We have seen so few monkeys on our trip, since we mostly skipped Central America, so we are VERY excited.
Back on the train, we head up the tracks to the final station for The Devil’s Throat walkway. At 2000m, this is our big walk of the day. The catwalk is entirely over the river, no jungle or land underneath at all. It’s also out in the hot, hot sun. The view is so worth it. We stand at the top of an 82 meter drop, with 1800 cubic meters of water per second raging past us. We, and a full balcony of other tourists take in this impressive sight. Its around 5:30pm, and we are tired. It’s been hot, and sunny, and we’ve walked almost 16,000 steps. We decide we’ve seen enough and drag ourselves back to the train. No dice on the other two hikes, we still have driving to do! We make it about an hour towards the south, and find a nice spot next to a very quiet lake.
Good news! We think we have finally found someone in Paraguay that can fix the truck! Under Berne’s close supervision, of course. This means we can kick off having parts shipped in from the USA. This is the problem with the really custom parts of the truck, replacement parts are not usually easy, or possible, to find locally. On our way to the border we want to cross, we stop to see the ruins of San Ignacio Mini. It’s one of a series of Jesuit Missions built in this area in the early 1600s. Parts of it are really neat, especially the fact that we have it almost all to ourselves! But generally speaking, we’ve seen so many amazing stone ruins, that this “newer” stuff, just isn’t as high quality as the older work from ancient people. After working out our cameras for a little while, we find a spot along the river for the night. Since learning we can have the grocery store cube our meat, it’s been beef stew all the time! Tonight is no exception.
New day, new country! Welcome to Paraguay! This border crossing is extremely fast and easy, just the way we like it. There is a large border town, it looks like this is where the Argentinians come to buy their things. We resupply and point towards Asuncion. Our parts will hopefully meet us there sometime early next week. It’s very, very windy and hot. The roads out of town are great! To begin with…They quickly deteriorate into Argentina quality roads. Good thing we’ve had lots of practice. Our first spot for the night is very flooded, good thing we got here early. Our second choice is a more official campground, Salto Cristal, with a waterfall nearby. The guard is very friendly, and offers us several great spots. We settle in and do a little work before enjoying another beef stew before bed.
Oh boy is it a slow start to the day! Our bed is constructed of a layer of air mattresses underneath our actual mattress. We used to have a foam topper as well, but it was too much for our camper and broke our latches way back in Baja. Well, one of our air mattresses has a hole in it, so one of us did not sleep well last night. There is lots of milling around, slowly organizing things and procrastinating going on a hike we can find no information about. We eventually decide it would be silly to not to, so here we go. Its a very steep down, but very short hike, around half a mile in to the falls. Once we get down to the river, the hike turns into a scramble over very slippery rocks, so very slow going. The payoff is a very nice waterfall with a swimming hole at the bottom. It’s not quite warm enough for that, so we take some pictures and head back home. We run into some interesting bugs as we carefully pick our way back through the jungle. We get very sweaty on the way back, and its the first time in a long time its been warm enough to use our shower, so we shower!
Packed up and back on the road, we are turned around by a very sketchy bridge on the way to our next spot . Half of it is collapsed to the layer below, and the layer below looks very rotten. We find a new way around, so we can cozy up to a small cliffside. And we arrive early! The novelty never wears off. Sweating so much earlier took it out of us, so we manage a girl dinner and go to bed early.
There are purple trees on the hill opposite us when we wake up! Purple trees! This cliffside spot is popular with the locals. There is a small group of tannages hanging around when we wake up, and a group arrives and wrangles a barbeque down the hill towards the river. More road, followed by more groceries. We are heading to our friends today, Jason and Kara! Catching up takes up our entire afternoon and evening, when the rain starts. Big rain, with lots of thunder and lightning. Big allergies also start tonight. We are parked just slightly head down, so KoKo has to sleep backwards to avoid her sinuses exploding when she lays down.
There is SO MUCH RAIN overnight. We wake up in a swamp that wasn’t here yesterday, and to a rooster calling. The day stays wet, with alternating rain and sprinkles. It’s a good day for the wall of meetings everyone has. After talking into our computers for way too long, we enjoy a late dinner and another visit with extra friends! Hanno and Ana arrived while we are at work, so its a full house.
We decide to take the morning to run into town for some errands. First up, we are unsuccessful at getting a yellow fever vaccine. They tell us to come back in two days. They can only open a vial if they have ten people who want it. Oh well. We get a months worth of laundry dropped off, which feels great! And we try, also unsuccessfully, to find a new step as ours is falling apart. After some lunch, we head back to the house for more work and more friend time. And more waiting for parts.
