Las Cateratas del Iguazu y la garganta del Diablo (Iguazu Falls and the Devil's Throat)

Well, another weekend, another weekend trip :)
This past weekend I visited the wonderful natural paradise of Iguazu Falls. The town of Puerto Iguazu is about a 17 hour bus ride from Buenos Aires and is located at the Brazil/Argentina border. As such, it was warmer there than in Buenos Aires, which made for a nice weekend of touring the falls and chilling in the pool.

Iguazu is a series of 275 separate waterfalls, which is, in total, about four times the width of Niagara falls. Combined with the fact that the falls are situated within a beautiful rainforest setting (no casinos or tacky hotels for miles!), it's safe to say that Iguazu is a more impressive sight than Niagara!

We arrived in Iguazu on Friday afternoon and, after checking into our hostel and going for a quick dip in the pool, we set off for the falls. The falls are located within a national park and we opted to take a package tour of the park which included a jeep ride through the rainforest (kinda boring) and a speedboat ride under the falls. The speedboat ride was incredible! The boat held about 30 people and had twin-200HP motors! We got so close to some of the falls that the spray came with such force that it actually hurt! We also got completely drenched, which explains why I don't have any pictures of those exact moments.

The falls really do defy description. I wish I had a panoramic camera to try to take in the entire vista. All said and done, it was truly one of the most impressive natural settings I've ever seen.

On to the pictures:
- the first picture is Gene and I in the pool at the hostel. Ahh, the beautiful Brazilian sun!
- the second and third pictures capture most of the falls (as much as could fit in!). The Devil's Throat (la garganta del Diablo) is in the extreme left and is the most intense part of the falls
- the fourth picture is of Gene, Tim and myself after we'd finished the speedboat ride under the falls.