Adventure to the Amazon

This weekend was probably one of the coolest experiences I have ever had. Some friends and I left last Thursday for a 20 hour bus ride to Igauzu. The Iguazu falls are the second largest waterfalls in the world, and it is situated in the amazon jungle. We stayed in a hotel in the small tourist town of Puerto Iguazu, which is about a 20 minutes bus ride from the actual park. The first day we headed up to the park we did not actually tour the falls. Instead we took this hiking trail that a lot of people do not know about. It was amazing because we were hiking right through the forest and could see a lot of cool wildlife. We saw monkeys jumping through the trees and a mother with a baby monkey on its back. We saw tucans and hundreds of the brightest and decorative butterflies that I have ever seen. There were also a ton a cool hawks and these weird caitos, which are racoon like animals with pointy noses and would walk right up to all the people. Basically it felt like and episode of Planet Earth on the Discovery Channel. The best part was at the end of the trail there is a waterfall and we were able to hike down to the base of the waterfall where there is a natural pool at the bottom and we were able to swim in the river! I was able to bring my waterproof camera and get some really cool pictures in the river and the waterfall.

The next day we returned to the park to check out the waterfalls. When we first saw the falls, I couldn´t believe how incredibly large they were and the amount of water being dumped off these cliffs. There were two parts of the falls and they constructed walkways along the jungle edge in order to get right next to the falls and have amazing views.  One side of the falls is in Brazil so we were unable to go there because we didn´t get a visa but most of the views were from the Argentina side. One of the coolest parts of the trip was when we paid for a boat tour of the falls and all got on a boat that drove us right up to the falls and dunked us under some of the smaller falls. The final trail took us over the river on a long steel bridge to the ¨Devils Throat¨which is the largest part with the most water dumping over the falls. This part was amazing because we were able to stand right over the falls and look right into them. It was a majestic experience and well worth every hour in the uncomfortable busses.

Aside from the falls, the town of Puerto Iguazu was very cool. The first night we met some cool locals that were actually from Columbia. One showed us his giant scar he got when he was attacked by a jaguar in a jungle which was obviously really cool. The second night we went out and met some other really cool travelers from Europe and other from Chile. We also stopped and saw some ruin´s from an old indigenous town and a diamond mine where they showed us diamonds growing in the rock quary.

All in all, it has been my favorite weekend thus far. The weekend after this we will be heading to Patagonia. I´ll try to update you all soon on progress…