Part 3 - Iguazu Falls

Day 9 – Monday, June 29.  Iguazu Falls.  We left our hotel in Porto Alegre at 5 AM to go to the airport.  While getting up so early is not fun, it was the only option to be able to not lose a full day in transit from Porto Alegre to Iguazu Falls which was what would have happened with the original proposal from Eureka Travel.  The proposed literary that they sent us said “June 29th Porto Alegre to Iguazu + half day Falls Brazilian side”, but then they had us booked on a flight that left Porto Alegre mid-day and arrived at Iguazu at 5 PM, close to sunset.  When we pointed out to them that this would not work and we would miss the Brazilian side of the falls they found us an earlier flight, but you have to question the value of a travel agency that has that poor of attention to detail.   

When we got to the airport in Porto Alegre we found another issue with the travel plans that Eureka Travel had made for us.  We were flying from Porto Alegre to Curitiba, and then changing planes with a separate flight from Curitiba to Iguassu Falls.   However, when we checked in at the self-service kiosk, it would only let us check in for the first flight.  When we tried to select the second flight it told us we could not check in for that flight until we had completed the first flight.  With only a 49 minute layover in Curitiba there was no way that was going to work – claim our bags, check in, recheck our bags, and go through security, especially since GOL Airlines requires check in a minimum of 45 minutes prior to the flight.  So, we got in line for the bag check to be able to talk to someone and find out what the problem was.  The agent we got did not speak English, and was intent on just taking our bags and sending us on our way.  After much insistence, she found someone who could speak English.  We found out Eureka Travel had booked each flight like it was a separate trip, like we wanted to go from point A to point B, and then from point B to point C, versus wanted to go from point A to point C with a change of planes in point B.  Eventually we got GOL airlines to fix this so we could get both sets of boarding passes and have our bags checked through all the way.

This situation would have been easier to resolve if the Blumar representative had stayed with us until we were all checked in.  In Rio that is what had happened.  Patricia had stayed with us until we got all our boarding passes, checked our bags, and she left us at the security entrance point.  She was there to make sure if there were any issues she could help translate and get them resolved.  In Porto Alegre the Blumar representative got us to the check in location and bid us farewell before we knew there was an issue.  Not sure whether Patricia went above and beyond what they required, or if the person in Porte Alegre bailed out earlier than they should have.  To make sure we didn’t have this same issue with the flights on our other multi flight segments I sent Eureka Travel an email, explained the situation, and asked them to fix it.  They quickly responded and said they would, but the next day they sent an email and said that they had not done anything wrong with the flight reservations and it was GOL Airlines policy that you had to claim your bags and then check in again for every flight segment.  They said the issue could not be fixed and that we would probably have enough time to claim our bags and check in again do this on our other transfers since we had layovers that were ~90 minutes.  Since GOL airlines had happily fixed the original issue once we got someone who understood English we were pretty sure it was not a GOL policy prohibiting checking in all the way to your final destination.  We ultimately got GOL to fix all our future flights, so the story Eureka Travel gave us about not being able to do anything because of airline policy was just that, a story.  Not sure if they were just too lazy to fix the flights, or didn’t want to admit that they had booked them incorrectly, but they left us to have to fix their mistake.  I don’t have a big issue with the mistake they made originally in booking the flights, as everyone makes mistakes, although an experienced travel agency should not have done that.  However, I have a big problem with them not fixing the issue and trying to blame it on “airline policy”.  Given the multiple issues we had with Eureka (not telling us about required visas and visa processing times, originally booking flights that would have had us miss other activities that they had booked us for, and making a mistake on how they booked the flights and not fixing it once we pointed out the mistake to them) I do NOT recommend people using Eureka Travel.  They came up with a good literary for us, but the lack of attention to detail and refusal to take accountability for and fix issues they made is unacceptable to me.  

We arrived in Foz Do Iguacu on time and were met by Carlos, our local guide.  Note that in this blog I am using both Iguacu and Iguazu interchangeably, as the Brazilian and Argentine spellings are different.  He took us to the Brazilian side of the falls in Iguaçu National Park.  This park along with the bordering Argentine national park have been declared a National Heritage Site by UNESCO because of the falls and the fact that they contain the most significant remaining rainforest in the southern area of South America.  After paying the entrance fee we got a quick snack and drove into the park.  We then took a trail that descends down the side of the canyon, and shortly were rewarded with our first views of the falls.  The falls that we could see were across the canyon, in Argentina.  Depending on the water level of the river there are more than 240 separate falls spread out over almost 2 miles.  In some cases the falls are a single drop of ~80m (260 feet), while in other areas the falls have two or three tiers to reach the river in the bottom of the canyon.  

Arriving at the airport

First view of a section of the falls

As we continued our hike we kept coming into view of more incredible waterfalls, each unique and beautiful.  We ended up in an area known as the Devil’s Throat, a U-shaped area at the head of the canyon.  Approximately 50% of the river’s flow falls into this narrow chasm which is 82 m high, 150 m wide, and 700 m long (~270x500x2300 feet).  We could hear the roar of the main section of the falls and the rising mist well before they came into view.

Looking towards the Devil's Throat

As we were hiking along we saw hundreds of beautiful butterflies flying around, or resting on the guard rail beside the trail.  We also saw a number of coati, an animal that resembled a raccoon but which had a snout that looked more like an anteater.  Carlos had cautioned us when we entered the park to finish our snack in the van before we started the hike as the coati can get very aggressive in the pursuit of food and bite people.

Butterfly on railing

Coati

After leaving the park Carlos took us to our hotel which was in the Argentine town of Puerto Iguazú.   The border crossing was easy, with Carlos taking our passports into the immigration office and we never had to get out of the van.  Argentina makes it much easier for Americans to visit than Brazil. They do not require Americans to get a visa, but since the United States charges Argentine citizens $160 to get a visa, Argentina charges US citizens the same amount. However, they make it very simple. I went to their website, entered all our passport information, provided my credit card number, and printed out the receipts which we needed to show at the border. About 5-10 minutes after I started I was $640 poorer but had all the documents that we needed. The entrance fee is good for 10 years assuming you keep a copy of the receipt.


During our visit we stayed in Puerto Iguacu, a city in Argentina of ~75,000 people.  After Rio and Porto Alegre it was a big change to walk around the town in Puerto Iguacu. It felt like a much smaller town than the actual population, with very little traffic, although that may have been due to the time of day. We were mostly walking around in late afternoon, and while most stores were open, we found that quite a few were closed and their hours were 9-12 in the morning and then they reopened at 5 or 6 PM.   We returned to our hotel for a rest, and then went out around 8 PM for dinner at a restaurant nearby our hotel that Yasso had recommended.  Excellent food and service, a great recommendation! 

Day 10 – Tuesday, June 30.   Iguazu Falls.  During the night the wind picked up and it started to rain.  When our guide Carlos picked us up at the hotel at 9 it was a steady light rain. It would rain off and on all day, and by the end of the day we were soaked, but not because of the rain - more on that later. 

After the hotel pickup we were driven to the national park on the Argentine side of the falls.  So far on our trip virtually every place we had been took credit cards, even many street vendors.  However, Carlos told us the day before that the park only took cash for admission.  He told us the admission cost (260 pesos per person) and said we should go to an ATM, or he said there is a black market for currency where you can get a better exchange rate. He even said some hotels would give a better rate than the official rate.  We didn't want to violate the law so we did the safe thing and went to find an ATM the prior afternoon after arriving in Puerto Iguazu.  However, we tried two banks and our ATM card would not work at either bank.  So, when we got back to the hotel we asked at the front desk of the hotel if we could exchange US dollars into Argentine pesos.  The man working there told Karen they did not have enough cash on hand and to come back after 8 PM. That seemed strange, as we only need to exchange ~$120 which should not be that much for a large hotel, but we didn’t think that much about it and said we would come back after dinner.  When we went back around 9 PM the guy first told us we would need to come back in 10 minutes, but after briefly going into the back room behind the front desk he came back and said he could give us 13 pesos for the dollar.  The official exchange rate was 9.1, so he was giving us more than 40% more than the official exchange rate.  Factoring in that there were no fees that we would have paid at an ATM or bank, we got ~50% more pesos for the same amount of US currency as we would have at a bank.  While I don’t know for sure, I think the currency exchange we did was not really with the hotel, and the guy at the counter was doing his own black market currency exchanges which is why he wanted us to come back when no one else was around.

After a short drive from the hotel we entered the park and paid with our discounted pesos.  We did four activities in the park, a hike out the lip of the devil’s Throat, an “upper trail” hike, a boat ride down to the base of the falls, and a “lower trail” hike out of the canyon after the boat ride.  To get to the Devil’s Throat trail we had to take a ~10 minute train ride.  From there we walked about a half mile on elevated paths across a section of the river to get to a platform at the lip of the Devil’s Throat.  We were able to get much closer that we were the previous day on the Brazilian side of the falls, and the spray from the falls got us fairly wet.  

Approaching Devil's Throat

Elizabeth at the top of the Devil's Throat

Devil's Throat

After taking the train back to our starting point, we took the upper trail, a hike of about a mile near the top of some of the lesser falls.  There were some nice vistas, but for many of the falls we were too close to see them well – views are rarely good from the top.  After we returned from the upper trail we had lunch, nice break indoors from the drippy morning that we had with off and on rain.

Argentine aide of falls

We had signed up for a jet boat ride to the base of the falls, so after lunch we took a “jeep” ride to where the boat launch was, a few of miles downstream.  In addition to lifejackets, they gave us dry bags as we got on the boat since you get totally drenched on the boat ride.  The first part of the boat ride was dry, with some rapids in the river and a unique view of the falls from river level.  Then they paused for a couple of minutes, and told people that anything they didn’t want soaked needed to go into the dry bags.  They then maneuvered the boat so close to the falls that we had sheets of water going over us. As we watched some of the other boats they would totally disappear from sight, and then reappear a minute later.  Then it was our turn to get wet again.  We did this several times, and when we returned everyone looked like drowned rats.  I guess there had not really been much point in using our umbrellas and rain coats earlier in the day to try and stay dry.  The drop off point was upstream of where we had boarded, and we followed the lower falls trail back up to the parking lot.  Our guide Carlos met us part way up the trail and took us back to meet up with the driver.

There's another boat in there on the left, really!

Karen, Matthew, and the falls

After completing the last trail we returned to our hotel to dry out our stuff and relax.  Later in the evening we went out to dinner at another restaurant that Yasso had recommended and then returned to the hotel to pack.

Day 11 – Wednesday, July 1.   Iguazu Falls to Manaus.  We had a late afternoon flight out of Foz Do Iguacu, and had one more activity planned before we left, the Iguazu forest adventure.  They picked us up at our hotel at 8, and drove us ~30 minutes into the forest.  Our adventure was supposed ot be three parts, rappelling, hiking, and zip lining.  It turned out they should advertise it as four parts, the fourth being the ride there.  We were in the back of a truck, with several rows of seats.  It was not raining tht morning, but had rained the day before and overnight.  Most of the roads we went on were dirt roads, and going up some of the hills the truck was literally turned at a 30 degree angle, with the rear wheels spiing trying to get traction.  On one hill we almost stopped moving forward even though the driver had the accelerator all the way down.  It probably took a good 1-2 minutes to do the last 50-100 feet up the hill.  How the driver did not go off the road was amazing – he obviously has done this many times before.  So, before we even made it to the adventure park we had already had one adventure.  After getting our harnesses and helmets we hiked to the cliff where we were going to rappel down.  Normally guests have the option of doing a dry rappel or a wet rappel (down the center of a waterfall), but they said there was too much water that day, plus none of us wanted to get soaked again.  

On the way to the adventure park

All ready for our adventure

Elizabeth  rappelling down cliff

After the rappel we did a hike.  We started by going to the waterfall that was the wet rappel option, and then continued our hike through the forest.  At one viewpoint we were next to the river, with Paraquay righ across the river.   .  Within a few miles of Iguacu Falls is the point where Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina meet.   It was a shame to be so close to Paraguay and not go there, but we wouldn't have had to do anything meaningful so Paraguay will have to wait for another trip.

At base of option rappelling site

Paraguay

Next up was zip lining.  There were three zip lines.  We have done zip lining several places before, but this was unique since part of the zip lines went through a narrow “tube” where they had cut out a section of foliage in the frees and ran the cable through this opening.  After zip lining they took us back to our hotel. The ride back was as adventures as the ride there.  Twice when meeting cars our truck slid off the edge of the road, but there was a tall embankment to stop us, but we slip into the embankment fairly hard.  The driver had to work for several minutes to get us going again, rocking the truck back and worth before finally breaking free.  I would have placed money on a bet that we would have needed to have been towed out, but somehow our driver was able to get the truck free.

First zip line platform

Karen finishing with the last zip line

Stuck (almost)

We were unable to get a late checkout from the hotel, so we had checked out before ewe left and had the concierge store our bags.  When we returned we were able to use the shower in the spa at the hotel to clean up.  We then receded our bags and went out to lunch.   At lunch we got another example of the generous exchange rate that people give the US dollar.  We had the option in paying in pesos or dollars.  We choose dollars as they gave us an 11:1 exchange rate, about 20% better than the official exchange rate.  This seems so strange, since normally merchants that take foreign currency give poor exchange rates.  For some reason they want US dollars, since the restaurant also would have let us pay in Euros, but the exchange rate the offered for Euros was very close to the official exchange rate. We returned to the hotel and had a bit of time to relax in the lobby before Carlos picked us up to take us to the airport.  On the way to the airport we noticed the concrete barriers on the side of the bridge that crosses between the countries was painted to match their national colors, blue and white for Argentina, and yellow and green for Brazil.  We had an uneventful border crossing and check in at the airport.

Argentine side of bridge

Brazilian side of bridge