Iguazu Falls

As a big fan of waterfalls (who isn't?), Iguazu has been on my bucket list for a while now. So when my friends and I planned a two week trip to Argentina in December, it had to be on the itinerary. We flew into Puerto Iguazu from Buenos Aires on JetSmart (it's a budget airline, but we had a good experience both ways) and spent two nights there seeing both sides of the falls.

Where to Stay

We booked the La Aldea de la Selva Lodge in Argentina which was a mix of nice and affordable. I was also loving how many places in this country offered triple rooms with three separate beds as it was very convenient for our girls' trip.

This place was right in the jungle, with one main lodge and a bunch of wooden paths through the trees connecting it to the cabins and pool.

Things I liked: All the cats on the premises!

The way that we were just surrounded by greenery. It was all we saw out every window of our room.

The food at the lodge. Breakfast buffet was amazing, including all kinds of bread, at least eight different pastries a day that were delicious (best alfajores I had in Argentina), eggs, roasted vegetables, plenty of fruit, and more. The night we arrived, we just had dinner at the lodge, and that was also fantastic (especially the mushroom risotto).

Things I didn't like: Mainly just one thing, which is that they were weirdly stingy about water. It was an upcharge to drink the water bottles in the room fridge, and they had no coolers onsite to refill your own bottles, so you were kind of forced to buy theirs (we were pretty sure it wasn't safe to drink tap water in Iguazu). They even had a sign on their water cooler at breakfast prohibiting anyone from filling their bottles there, and the cups they gave for drinking were barely larger than a shot glass. I ended up bringing my water bottle to breakfast both mornings and filling it in like 5-6 increments by bringing those tiny glasses back to the table like some kind of post-apocalyptic water thief.

Also, the lunch food at the separate pool restaurant wasn't great.

Day 1 - Brazil Side

After our resort breakfast, we ordered an uber to the bus station in Puerto Iguazu and booked onto the Rio Uruguay bus to get to Brazil. We just asked for tickets to Foz du Iguacu, and I worried they would bring us to the town center, but they took us right to the park entrance.

We did all get Brazilian visas before the trip, and I'm glad we had them for peace of mind, but we did not get asked to show them. In fact, we only actually got stamped out of Argentina, then our bus driver asked if everyone was just on a day trip (we all were) and skipped Brazil immigration altogether both there and back.

The Brazilian park entrance was nice and had kiosks to buy your tickets. From there, there was a shuttle that took you all the way to the end of the walking trail beside the falls.

I'd been super bummed in the lead-up to this day because the weather forecast showed that it was going to be pouring rain morning to night. And it did, but it did not dampen the experience at all (I mean, literally yes, but figuratively no). My only regret is not bringing a rain jacket or umbrella, because after hours walking around in a soaking wet hoodie and pants, Chelsey yelled at me because my fingertips were purple, so it's possible I almost gave myself hypothermia. In my defense, I didn't know that was possible in 60 degree weather.

The trail on the Brazil side had more panaramic views than we ended up seeing on Argentina's. It's a straight path, and the falls are across the water. They are spectacular, and I was definitely surprised by how long they are! They just keep going and going.

Easily the best part, and possibly my favorite part of our entire Argentina trip, was the Devil's Throat observation deck that's right out on the water. As soon as you start on the walkway to it, you just get hit with a wave of heavy mist from the falls that are right beside you. There are cliff drops on either side of the path where you can see the falls rushing over too. It's awesome, and we would have ended up drenched even if it hadn't been raining.

We took the lifts there up to one last observation point where you're right above the falls, then we caught the bus back to the park entrance.

Right across the street is Parque das Aves, an incredible bird park that you absolutely have to visit, especially since it's so close. It's really nice, like a zoo in the jungle and full of separate aviaries that let you walk right alongside the birds.

We saw parrots, flamingos, owls, butterflies, hummingbirds, toucans, raptors, eagles, and species I'd never seen before. They were close enough to reach out and touch (but don't do that).

Also, the gift shop is amaaazing. I walked away with so many awesome souvenirs and it was really affordable. From there, we went to the bus stop right across the street on the median and saw the Rio Uruguay bus coming by within 10 minutes to take us back to Argentina.

After getting back to our hotel to put on dry clothes, we headed to a tango show at Madero Tango to end the night. It's beside the casino, and there's a fancy hotel restaurant in the building where we had dinner first (alternately, you can arrive earlier to the tango and get a dinner ticket there).

I had been ambivalent about seeing a tango show in Argentina since I'd almost fallen asleep during the flamenco show I saw in Spain, but this was so much better! Really fun to watch with lots of very hot dancers, changing stage backgrounds, a live band, costume changes, and varying performances. Also table service for drinks and VERY generous pours.

Between my dinner cocktail, wine filled to the brim, and the bottle of champagne Jackie ordered for our table, I was very tipsy by the time we left.

Enough so to bum a cigarette off some guy in the casino.

Start to finish, this was my favorite day of our two week trip!

Day 2 - Argentina Side

Despite feeling the effects of drinking the next morning, we dragged ourselves to breakfast early so we could get to the Argentina park in time for our 11:30 boat tour. It seems Gran Aventura does run afternoon boats, but the only timeslots that could be booked online were the three morning ones, and we had grabbed the latest of those to make sure we got on.

Still, we wanted time to figure out where to go for it, and the Argentina park had a very different feel to the Brazil side. We had to buy tickets at the counter, which was a line, so you may want to get them beforehand online instead.

The park itself felt much more official, with different restaurants and shops scattered throughout and signs leading down walkways to the various trails.

Nicer overall, except a big complaint of mine was that there were no free water refill station that we saw, whereas the Brazil side (and bird park) both had them available. Not sure what it is with Argentinian Iguazu and withholding water, but this is not a luxury item, guys! Kind of need it for survival.

We were told up front by the Gran Aventura attendant at the booth outside the park how to get to our meeting point, so we wandered that way and changed into swimsuits at a bathroom when we got close. For the record, this is not necessary, because there ended up being changing rooms on the tour right before you board the boat.

A big highlight was seeing black capuchin monkeys all through the trees! They were so cute, I can't even handle it. Although watch your head, because I felt a splatter near my feet at one point and realized they pose a similar threat as birds.

Once we found the Gran Aventura station, we waited in line to board the open-air trucks that trundled us through the rainforest to the boat docks. It was actually a long ride, probably 20-30 minutes, but our guide talked to us throughout in both English and Spanish.

There were so many butterflies near the docks, definitely was deep in the park. They gave us dry bags to store our things for the boat ride, then we boarded, getting handed life jackets on the way. The boat was really cool, they sped us through the water and right up to the falls. Definitely the best view you will get!

I was also excited to go under the falls but that was so much more chaotic than I expected. They took us beneath two different sections, and the water poured down on us so heavily that I had to cover my face to keep my contacts from falling out. So crazy but very fun.

We changed back into our dry clothes once we docked again, but since we had a flight that evening, we really only had time to do one trail in the park before heading back to the hotel. The Devil's Throat (not the same as Brazil side, this one looks like it's along the upper edge of the falls) is the most recommended, but it involved a train ride to get there and was estimated to be about two hours walking, so we had to choose one of the shorter ones.

Our guide recommended the upper falls since the lower would be similar to our boat views, but once we'd started on that and reached our first waterfall, I changed my mind. We were up in the trees, and I preferred getting views looking up at the falls than down on them, so we backtracked and did the lower falls trail. It took less than an hour, and we got some pretty views and photos.

We had no luck getting an uber out of the park, so we had to grab a taxi from their line, and we had enough time back at the lodge to jump in the pool for an hour and order food and drinks from the restaurant there.

Our flight back to Buenos Aires was at 8, and while I'm so happy with this Iguazu portion of the trip, I would have definitely liked to have another day in the area just to unwind. Out of all the biomes on our trip, though (city, jungle, coast, and mountains), jungle is my favorite, so I just wanted to soak in a bit longer.

Absolutely include Iguazu in your itinerary if you're heading to Argentina or Brazil! They are some of the most incredible waterfalls and well worth the detour.