Total Miles Traveled: 14,103
While we were in Salta, we learned about Andes Air, a startup airline that is starting air service between smaller cities around Argentina with DIRECT flights. Note the emphasis on the word “direct”. Larger more established airlines – like LAN Argentina and Aerolineas Argentinas – require lay-overs in Buenos Aires for any flight in Argentina. So if you are on the west side of the country (say in Mendoza) and want to go to a city that is also on the west side of the country (like Salta). You cannot fly direct, you have to fly all the way east to Buenos Aires. In short, what should be a 1-2 hour plane ride turns into 5-6 hours, requires 2 flights, and more $$$.
Andes Air is starting to change that. We were very excited to learn that we could fly on a modern airline, direct from Salta to Iguazu AND pay a lot less. Check out our handwritten boarding passes!
Iguazu Falls
My first thought when I saw Iguazu Falls was “holy moly that’s alot of water”. It’s breathtaking and overwhelming to imagine how much water flows over the falls every minute. Not surprisingly, Iguazu literally means “big water” in Guaraní (the local indigenous language). The Iguazu Falls divide the same-named river into an upper and lower river. It’s also a place where three countries meet – Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. While Brazil boasts the best panoramic views, Argentina allows you to get up close to the falls. We opted to stay on the Argentine side (and save the $130+ Visa that Tony would have needed to enter Brazil).
Getting Up Close and Personal: Garganta del Diablo (Devil’s Throat).
We spent 2 days exploring the national park that houses the Falls. The first day, we took a series of cat walks …
… over the expansive upper Iguazu river …
and got up to the very edge of set of u-shaped falls called “Garganta del Diablo” (Devil’s Throat) which are the largest and most impressive of the series of Iguazu Falls.
Play the video below – it’ll give you a sense of the power of the water going over these falls:
Here are some more photos of the falls:
There are a couple hundred waterfalls at Iguazu so you can get waterfall desensitization, but below are a couple of highlights.
Ok so it’s not a picture of a waterfall, but I thought it was pretty cool… Tony was able to capture a butterfly while it rested on a window.
Also, not a waterfall … Tony befriended these raccoon-like animals called coati… But don’t go pet these creatures, they can be vicious when it comes to food, and they have sharp claws.
Getting up Close and Person: La Ducha (the Shower)
The next day, we revisited Garganta del Diablo, but this time from below… look at me, I’m on a boat! OK, not the same, but we digress…
Check out the video of us being bombarded by the spray from the water:
Also, here’s a link to the rest of our photos from Iguazu:
4 replies on “Iguazu Falls: Up Close on the Argentina Side”
reminds me of our trip there in b-school; good times! glad u got to see it from Argentina this time.
Yep – this time there was no “foz de Tony” because the weather was very cool!
Do you guys feel you don’t need to see anymore waterfall now?
ps. Our tour guide told us that if you do day trip to Brazil, you don’t have to pay for visa fee.
Yeah, Iguazu is very impressive and will be hard to beat. We, too, heard about a day trip without visa fee, but in the end were to lazy to go through the trouble of asking/finding out.