The Iguazu National Park (Argentina)

A few weeks ago, I told you about the Iguazu Waterfalls in Brazil - the largest system of waterfalls in the world. Today I will tell you about the Iguazu National Park on the Argentine side of the border. Mostly in photos, as I have allready given some facts about the falls in my previous post. (I have left a link to that post at the end). The Iguazu Waterfall is devided between Brazil and Argentina, by the river of the same name. The river forms the border between these two countries.

The day before this visit in Argentina's national park, we had allready been to the Brazilean national park. We did it as a half day guided tour. The drawback was the pressure on time. On the Argentine side we organazied the tour by ourself. We took a taxi i the morning and arranged with the driver to pick us up in the afternnoon. This day was a full day visit. The national park covers together with the park in Brazil 250.000 hectares, but around 80% is located on the Argentine side.

There are more trails here. If you want to walk most of them you can easily spent a day here. There is a small train that will bring visiters to the two points furthest away. Our plan was to start taken the train to the top. From here we would be able to get a close up view of Devil's Throat. Because of mud slide the day before, it was closed and not possible to go there. Devil's Throat is the highest drop of the falls - 82 meters.

Just to repeat a few numbers from my previos post and to give you an idea of the size of the waterfall: «The total length of the Iguazu Falls is 2,7 kilometers with drops that vary from 60 – 82 meters in hight. I have read that there are 275 drops, but I have also read that it's believed some of them are not seperate drops, but a continuation of drops».

We took the train halfway up, got off and started to walk along The Upper Trail. Unlike the day before, there is plenty of space and no queues on the any of the paths. There were possibly the same number of people here, but we were more spread out since everyone doesn't have to walk the same path at the same time. The photos above shows the path up to the last point, San Martin Waterfall.

Just like the Brazilian side of the river, this park has also many metal walkways to enable visitors to walk "on the water" and out to the edges of some of the falls. The waters are in many places calm, floating quitly on their way to the edge. It gives a completely different look than on the the Brazilian side. This landscape of water is spectacular.

After a lunch sitting in the shadow, we started on The Lower Trail. This path took us along the river, more or less. The vegetation is dense and we saw lot's of butterflies. My sister was very patient to wait for them to sit on her backpack or a branch nearby. Birds are also easily spottet. The park is home to wildlife like the jaguar and ocelot, but they are not easily spottet.

Now we have reached the furthest point on this trail. To the right we can look towards the walkway at San Martin's Fall and to the left we see the platform in Brazil that we stood on the day before. Amazing to see the falls from this side as well.

We end our tour back where we started, but didn't take the train. We walked on the trails through dense forrest. There are lots of flowers and trees that kept us busy stopping many times. There are many more activities to do in the park, like going on a boat trip up close to the falls. But be prepared to get soaking wet! We didn't do that, as we hadn't brought dry clothe with us. Even it's the same waterfall, it was a different experience from the day before. As you can see on the photos from both sides, the Argenting side is vast, with many more possibilities to «walk on water», enjoy flowers, trees and wildlife, like butterflies, birds and lizrds. This system of water is huge and absolutely worh a visit.