Puerto Iguazu, 1-3 January

Happy New Year! So, this is hopefully the first post of many!

We touched down in a very wet Buenos Aires early morning on the 1st of January and promptly boarded a bus for the domestic airport in order to catch our internal flight to Iguazu.

Two episodes of Game of Thrones later (this will be a recurring theme), we arrived in tropical heat, grabbed the first air conditioned bus we saw and set-off for Puerto Iguazu – the base camp for the Iguazu falls on the Argentinian side.

We managed to find our hotel, explored the area and enjoyed our first Argentinian dinner, which consisted of (real) empanadas, Argentinian beer (Quilmes), followed by some excellent ice cream (Lolo’s favourite – another recurring theme). We were in bed by 8h30, completely exhausted from the journey but excited and thoroughly looking forward to visiting the falls the following day.

The Iguazu falls are part of Parque Nacional Iguazu, which spans both Brazil and Argentina. The waterfall system consists of 275 falls along 2.7km of the Iguazu river. Some of the falls are up to 82m in height, such as the Garganta del Diablo (the Devil’s throat), which is u-shaped, 150m wide and arguably the most impressive of all of the falls, marking the boarder between the two countries.

Iguazu currently has the greatest average annual flow of any waterfall in the world, although, at their peak, the Victoria falls have more water passing over them. In case you were wondering, Niagra is less than half as wide as Iguazu and not as tall.

What surprised us was the sheer scale of the park. We only experienced the Argentinian side of the falls, which was an endless network of trails, tracks and walkways, allowing you to explore every inch of the park and experience both the lower falls and the upper falls, as well as an up-close-and-personal view of the Devil’s throat.

It was a very impressive operation and aside from getting trapped on some of the walkways behind some desperately slow group tours, who collectively took too many pictures with too many selfie sticks, we made great progress and had effectively explored the lot by early afternoon. Good thing too, since the temperature had risen to the mid-30s and the crowds had swollen significantly.

We returned to our hotel for some rest and recuperation and started to plot our first assault on some parrilla (Argentinian barbecue).

That evening, much to our excitement (well mostly Ed’s!) we stumbled across a street market, consisting of stalls selling local produce and small, busy bars, which would serve large bottles of beer and excellent snacks to a crowd mainly consisting of local families, enjoying their Saturday night. Suffice to say, we settled-in for more empanadas and beer. Still hungry and firmly of the view that we were due a decent New Year’s Eve dinner (British Airways tried their best), we went in search of steak and red wine.

Unsurprisingly, this did not prove to be a difficult task and moments later we’d found a non-touristy steak house in the centre of town. We feasted on Morcilla (black pudding), chorizo (sausage, not to be confused with the Spanish version), bife de chorizo (steak), mandioca fries (deep-fried sticks if yucca), a bottle of Malbec and some complementary Limoncello. Satisfied and well aware that our budget would not support such luscious living for the entirety of our trip, we crawled home, delighted with our day’s work.

Next stop: Encarnacion, Paraguay…

Highlights: