A Weekend in Iguazú Falls, Argentina
Iguazú Falls is an UNESCO world heritage site home to the largest waterfall system in the world. Since it’s a quick 1 hour and 45 minute flight from Buenos Aires, we figured it was completely worth squeezing a visit in during our time in Argentina!
Knowing this is a very popular destination, we planned to visit for two days during the week to attempt to encounter minimal crowds. We flew in to Cataratas del Iguazú International Airport on the Argentine side of the park and the closest town is called Puerto Iguazú. If you’re planning much further in advance than we were, there is a hotel inside the park, the Gran Melia Iguazú, that gives some serious perks including views of the falls from your room and access outside the normal park hours. It can be a bit of a splurge, but this was still the first place I checked. It was unfortunately all booked up during the time we planned to visit. We ended up booking an airbnb in town, and it was a nice home base to also visit some of the sites in Puerto Iguazú during the evenings.
The falls span both Brazil and Argentina, with about 20 percent in Brazil, and the remainder in Argentina. The Brazilian side lays claim to the best panorama views of the waterfalls and has boat tours that run more frequently to get you up close and personal with the water. Having the lion’s share of the falls, the Argentinian side has a lot more hiking and vantage points that bring you much closer along the falls allowing you to feel the mist and strength of it all. I did a lot of research ahead of time and if you only have time for one side, it was pretty unanimous to pick Argentina. We originally planned to visit both sides (one full day in Argentina and then a half day in Brazil) however the visa process for an American to get into Brazil was more complicated than I expected at the time so we spent our full time in Argentina. The only thing we really missed out on is not getting to do a boat ride, as the Argentine side wasn’t running the tours while we were there but we could still see the Brazilian boats flying through.
Whether you plan for a boat ride or not, the most important thing to consider is that everywhere you go in the park you’re going to have mist or strong water spray coming off the falls and covering everything. We packed a dry bag to keep our belongings in, water shoes and we both incorporated swimsuits into our daily outfits to allow for quick air drying. The huge advantage of the constant mist is that it keeps you cool in the unrelenting heat and humidity!
Day 1
We flew in the night before and settled in right away. We woke up bright and early the the first day and hired a taxi to get to the park right when it opened at 8am. The Tren de la Selva (or Jungle Train) is available to take people around the park, starting at 8:30am. Knowing this, we hiked to the Upper Circuit path to beat the train crowd and have some time on our own before everyone else arrived. The Upper Circuit is a shorter half mile hike that took us about an hour to explore. It is made of catwalks that lead to the tops of the nearly 200-foot waterfalls. We had a fantastic time exploring here while the park was still low-key in the morning. On our way back to the main trails we ran into a local man setting up an artisan stand of hand painted tiles. He had all his painting supplies and started painting tiles right there, each one taking him about 60 seconds flat and capturing all the beauty of the falls and the surrounding wildlife. They were absolutely gorgeous and I was so impressed with his talent. I picked out a tile for our travel wall at home, as well as a magnet for my mom.
Next we headed to the Lower Circuit, which took about 3 hours (including lots of photo pit stops) to complete. There are a lot of different viewpoints and paths along this section, and it brings you along the same falls as the Upper Circuit but it feels much more immersive as you’re walking closely along the crashing water. The falls were so loud along this route, we were awestruck at the power of it all. The park had gotten a lot busier as the day went on, and here we ran into a big crowd for one of the prime viewpoints, as everyone was lining up to take photos. Naturally we also waited in line for a quick photo or two, you can see how awesome this spot was (and swipe to see the crazy the crowd!) on my post below.
We hopped on the Tren de la Selva and found an outdoor food court for some lunch. There are signs throughout the park but especially in food areas mentioning the Coati (an adorable cousin to the raccoon) who are not afraid of people and will come up and steal your food. The signs all say not to feed them and have an example photo of a bloody bite on someone’s hand to be explicitly clear. We did our best to give them a wide birth, but they were quite persistent climbing over themselves to get to food and I enjoyed taking some photos of their efforts.
The park closes at 6pm, so we found our taxi friend (you can schedule your ride home in the morning, so we ended up having the same driver for both days we were there, and he was incredibly friendly!) and headed back to the airbnb. After a quick decompress, we headed out to explore the town and find some dinner. There was a bit of a party town vibe, since most of the people there are visiting. We found a cute little empanada shop and stuffed ourselves silly. On our way back to the airbnb we stopped at the Hito de los Tres Fronteras monument, which is along a riverfront pathway. Here, the Paraná and Iguazú rivers join and the 3 river coastlines each form the border of a different country. Standing at the monument you are in Argentina and can see Brazil and Paraguay across the rivers.
Upper Circuit
Lower Circuit
Day 2
We were up and at ‘em early again our second day, and met our taxi friend who brought us back to the park. He was the one to confirm getting to the Brazilian side wouldn’t be as easy as I thought, but he vehemently recommended the Argentine side and that we wouldn’t be missing much. Since there was nothing we could do about it at that point, we trusted his recommendation! We decided to hit two of the spots we hadn’t had time for the day before, and then return to anything else we wanted to see again.
The first stop for the day was Garganta del Diablo, which translates to The Devil’s Throat. This is the biggest waterfall in the park, and we had actually popped over to see it at the end of the day yesterday. Knowing we had more time now, we came back first thing to try and catch the views with a few less people around. There are catwalks built above the rushing river to get to this fall, and it honestly boggles my mind how they were constructed. Before you even get eyes on Garganta, you can hear the roaring water crashing down a descent of 269 feet and you start to feel the mist enveloping you as you get closer. This waterfall has water converging from 3 different sides before crashing down, which is what makes it so unique. Standing at the viewing platform, you are completely engulfed in the spray and overwhelming sound. We were absolutely soaked through and it was such a rush. There are thousands of birds, Great Dusky Swifts, that fly around in the throat of the falls, as they like to nest next to the waterfalls and rocky cliffs. There was a park photographer who was taking photos for guests in a blocked off section to keep others out of the background. A and I had him take a photo for us, and right when he went to snap the swifts flew up in a crazy wave right behind us. The photographer was really excited about the timing, and we have that photograph framed on our bedroom wall now.
From here we headed for one of the lesser known trailheads in the park, Sendero Macuco. This is an hour long hike into the jungle ending at one of the smaller of the Iguazú Falls, Arrechea Waterfall. Knowing we were allowed to swim in the waterfall at the end, we budgeted about 3 hours for this hike. The trail was really fun to wander along, and we encountered quite a bit more wildlife. There were of course more coatis, colorful tropical birds, and we even ran into some capuchin monkeys wandering along the path. As soon as they were spotted people began trying to lure them out with bread, even though it’s not recommended to feed wildlife. They were incredibly cute, and cautious around all the people. We had a blast hanging out in the Arrechea Waterfall, sitting along the rocks and periodically getting a ‘natural shower’ as the water cascaded down over us.
After the longer hike, we had worked up quite an appetite and headed to the main restaurant in the park. Fortin Cataratas Restaurant is an indoor buffet style lunch and it was nice to get away from the heat as well as to avoid any coatis trying to steal from us. A was feeling adventurous and ordered el mondongo (aka tripe), and said it was the best he’d had on the trip so far!
Garganta Del Diablo
Sendero Macuco & Salto Arrechea
We had a late evening flight to get back to Buenos Aires, which turned out to be much more of an adventure that we were expecting! There was a big storm coming through, and being in the middle of the jungle our flights were all delayed. The airport terminal started leaking rainwater through the ceiling as we were waiting, the staff coming through and squeegee-ing huge puddles away periodically. It was touch and go for a while and we started prepping to sleep in the airport, however we got lucky that the storm passed through quickly and we were able to board a flight and get back to Buenos Aires in the wee hours of the morning. We were thankful to be back in our dry apartment and ready for another country-hopping adventure the next day!
