Iguazu Falls, Argentina - Last Day

January 12

Today we were up early to walk the Macuco Trail and Arrechea Waterfall. It was pretty buggy at first even with our bug stuff. It also was really hot today with little breeze. It was quite muddy as well.

We walked from the hotel down the main road to get to the entrance. (I think the normal entrance from the Park was under construction) A butterfly decided to catch a ride on Greg's hat.

 a monkey bridge over the road

 Greg's hitch-hiker

 

At first we weren’t seeing very much but we did see an Agouti and then came across a troupe of Cai monkeys. (Black-faced Capuchin monkeys) We watched them for quite a while, but they were so active we didn’t get very good photos. Then we came across an area that had quite a few birds.

 Greg on the muddy trail

 Greg picked up another hitch-hiker that stayed with him almost the whole way

 

We finally made it to the end and there was a waterfall there. Actually, a lookout over them and we had a bit more to walk to get to the bottom. It was a gentle enough waterfall that quite a few people were there swimming in the pool underneath.

 top of the waterfall

 some of the steps to get to the bottom

 seems like a reasonable request....

 on the return hike monkeys were on the trail

 

We headed back and took a different way once we got to the main road. It eventually took us to an area of the park we had not seen; the main entrance. Since we were staying inside the park we used a different entrance. So, we explored that area and then went in search of food. We found a huge buffet with a churrascaria (grilled meats). The meat wasn’t of the best quality…kind of tough, but the rest of the buffet was really good.

 young Boat-billed Flycatcher

 craft market

 lunch!

 Chopi Blackbird

very young Southern Lapwing

We decided to skip trying to get on one of the boats that goes under the fall since it was always booked and we didn’t want to waste any more time on standby for  a cancelation. It was a beautiful sunny day and we headed back to the Devil’s Throat in hopes of getting some decent photos and views that weren’t there the first day in the rain. Wow, it was beautiful! We had to wait for 2 trains full in a hot long line and I really thought we both would pass out. Not a bit of breeze. Finally, we got on and we grabbed a cold drink back at the hotel. We had time to revisit some other areas before it was time to check out of the hotel. (they gave us late checkout at 4:00)

 

We grabbed our luggage and went down to the bar for dinner and to wait for our cab to the airport. After seeing the airport we were glad we had dinner at the hotel. It’s a really small airport with like 2 or 3 gates.

Again, our plane was about an hour early than it’s 11:25 PM time. Fabian was there in just a few minutes to pick us up and take us back to the Urban Suites Hotel.

We crashed and burned and got a bit more sleep since we didn’t have to meet Pablo until 9:30 tomorrow morning. Tomorrow is our last day of touring and we are visiting the Tigre Delta area of Buenos Aires.