If you know us, you know we love the BBC programme “Race Across the World”; it’s partly why we started travelling more with the kids. In the South American series, the contestants visit Iguazu… and we always knew if we came here, we’d have to try and make it to the falls. We’re delighted we made it! The name “Iguazu” comes from the Guarani words “y” meaning water and “uasu” meaning big. The Iguazu falls are the largest waterfall system in the world.
Our day began at 4:20am with loud banging on the door of our chalet at the Estancio. Within 15 minutes we were out the door with our bags and our “breakfast box” they’d provided, in the taxi and on our way for the two hour trip to the airport. Back to sleep in the car it was!
The flight took an hour and a half, so it wasn’t long before we were in a taxi heading to our hotel. We’d had a bit of a kerfuffle with the hotels as Kate had booked a flight-and-hotel deal not realising that the company thought it was a good idea to book a hotel on the Brazilian side of the falls, despite the fact that we were flying in and out from Buenos Aires! Luckily as it’s winter here, there were plenty of hotels on the Argentinian side to choose from – so we booked the same one as the Grants as our stay overlapped with theirs here.
A quick toilet stop and chance to leave our bags, and we were back in the taxi heading to Cataratas Iguazu. Although we are here for 2 days, you have to book entrance to the National Park on specific dates, and we had booked Tuesday – so there was no time to waste!
It’s when you arrive at the National Park that you realise how huge it is – there are several trails you can go on, the three main ones being the lower circuit, the upper circuit and the devils throat. We settled on starting with the lower circuit…
There are so many waterfalls here, just walking the circuits is beautiful – but it’s when you come to a viewpoint of the “main” falls you realise how massive they are.
Once we’d completed the lower circuit, we walked back towards the main centre, to take the little train up to the devils throat circuit. You don’t pay for the train, but you do have to get a timed ticket so that they can control numbers.
The devils throat circuit, takes you across multiple raised platform bridges across the top of the river – it was a really beautiful place to just wander and enjoy the views (before the crowds at the “real” viewpoints).
Instead of taking the train again, we decided to walk along the track down to the central area, to then find the start of the upper circuit. We stopped briefly for an ice cream to keep the energy up and happened upon the Grants – who decided to come with us along the upper circuit before their taxi arrived to collect them.
A decent 9 miles of walking later, and we were ready to head to our hotel. The kids went for an evening dip in the freezing cold pool, and then we popped into the town centre for dinner. All in all, a pretty gorgeous day.
Coyle Family Adventures 