Iguazu Falls

11 February 2017- It was time to head off to Iguazu falls! The falls are located near the borders of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. We were flying from Sao Paulo to the Brazilian town of Foz Do Iguacu and then crossing the border into Argentina where we were staying. After touching down in Foz we had the option of a 200 pesos (about $20AUD) private transfer to our hotel or catching a series of local buses to cross the border with a total cost of about 20pesos ($2AUD).  We all know which option Jen was leaning towards!

The local bus option involved catching a bus from the airport to the centre of Foz then another bus headed to the town on the Argentinian side of the border. We then had to communicate to the bus driver that we needed to stop at the Brazilian immigration as the bus would not normally stop there for the locals. However, the bus wouldn’t wait for us to clear  Brazil immigration and we would then have to wait for the next bus to take us to the Argentinian immigration and on to the town of Puerto Iguazu. Once in the centre of town we then had a 2km walk with our packs to finally reach our hotel!

Clearly Tristan was in favour of taking the local buses for the massive savings on offer and to prove he really is a true backpacker. Jen had (unfortunately for her) booked dinner in at expensive Italian restaurant that night and this was exactly the leverage Tristan needed to get them to take the local bus option.

Somehow, with only a few minor hiccoughs, we managed to survive the border crossing without WW3 breaking out (although what would have taken 20mins with private transport, took over 3 very long hours)! We enjoyed a massive feast and two bottles of Argentina’s finest red wines that night which left us in a comatose state.

The next day it was off the falls themselves! We had a good day walking around the national park and seeing some of the 275 individual drops. A fortuitously timed downpour cleared out the crowds and allowed us to witness the raw power of the  bigger falls all by ourselves.

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The next day we spent wandering the town of Puerto Igauzu including checking out the view of the three-way intersection between Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. It was then time to jump on the overnight bus for our mammoth 24hour+ journey to Montevideo, Uruguay. Let’s just say at the end of that journey Jen was happy she had booked herself in the all female dorm for some much needed R&R from her loving, exhausted and smelly husband.