Las Cataratas de Iguazu

Now where was I...the last few weeks have flown by as they've been full of activity (programming?). After returning from the trip to Chile/Mendoza, I had exactly a week before flying up to Iguazu to meet my mom and dad. The week included Yom Kippur, which I observed with the Wertheins, spending some time with Erika, my friend from Colorado, and a fancy dinner with JAG (pronounced like the Hebrew ‘chag’, meaning holy day—what a pun!) the Judíos Argentinos Gays. I went to the dinner after speaking with the group’s director at the synagogue, thinking it would be a fun networking opportunity.

At 22, I was probably the youngest person in attendance by at least 15 years. It was still enjoyable, though, with a good dinner followed by some Israeli dancing (the ‘kiss kiss’ dance made famous at Harlam by Rak Dan is apparently a worldwide phenomenon) and entertainment by four professional singers doing Broadway favorites (‘Seasons of Love’ from Rent, ‘All that Jazz’ from Chicago).

Tuesday morning arrived fairly quickly and it was off to the Aeroparque Jorge Newbery for the short hop up to Puerto Iguazu, known to Argentineans as simply Las Cataratas. My parents had arrived at the other airport on the Brazilian side from Rio de Janeiro earlier in the day, and were already waiting for me at the Argentine airport upon exiting baggage claim. Our hotel, the Sheraton, was the only one located inside the national park, which meant we had a view of the falls from our room and unfettered access to the trails.

Let me stop here to say that the falls at Iguazu are breathtaking. I don’t know the numbers, but it’s safe to say that there is a serious amount of water falling here. There must be at least a hundred different individual waterfalls spanning miles of cliff in a semicircular shape, and catwalks have been built incredibly close to the edge.

Our first view of these falls was at night, on the Full Moon Walk. At around 9pm, we took the little train-cito to the 1km catwalk leading up to the largest of the falls, the Devil’s Throat. The catwalk is a sparse steel structure about 8 feet wide and for the most part is over open river. Being that it was night time, and there are no lights, the only illumination we had was from the moon, which (by pure coincidence) was perfectly full. So dark is this trail that the Full Moon Walk is only even offered five nights per month when moonlight is sufficient. Eventually, the sound of the waterfalls became deafening, and we began to feel mist on our faces, and there, out of no where, was the biggest waterfall I’d ever seen in my life.

We went back the next day to better appreciate the Devil’s Throat, and although daylight robs it of much of the spooky mystique we experienced the night before, I was better able to appreciate it’s magnitude with the help of the sun. Almost as incredible as the falls themselves is the catwalk—the balcony is literally even with the edge of a cliff, with water rushing beneath the steel mesh floor. Just to the right, beginning about fifteen feet from the edge of the catwalk, rushes one of the more furious gauntlets of water that is probably over a hundred feet wide. The whole thing is surreal, while the surging gusts of mist make the experience hardly serene.

The falls area is officially in both Brazil and Argentina, although I have to say, Argentina got the better deal. Over 80% of the falls are in Argentina, allowing the construction of catwalks that go right to the edge. Brazil advertises its “panoramic views” of the falls from the other side of the gorge, but from what I could tell, this was nothing you couldn’t see from Argentina and certainly wouldn’t compensate for the lack of close-up balconies.

In addition to the Devil’s Throat, two more catwalk trails allow close-up encounters with other falls on the Argentinean side. One snakes along the cliff and goes right over five waterfalls, and another much lower allows close up encounters with the bottoms of a few of the falls. These three trails, along with the obligatory get-soaked jet-boat ride made for a full day of experiencing all the falls had to offer.

Before leaving Iguazu, we did a 7km quasi-hike through the jungle, during which we saw monkeys and a beautiful, solitary toucan flying in circles for our entertainment. You could tell that the region wasn’t commercialized nearly the way in which many American National Parks are, although surely within a few years that will all be changed.

P.S. Photos from this trip were posted on facebook.