One of the top natural wonders of the world: Worth the trip?
When we decided we’d vacation in Buenos Aires, the drumbeat began immediately from friends who had been there: “Make sure you visit Iguazu Falls!” Turns out the falls is considered one of the world’s greatest natural wonders and a UNESCO World Heritage site, so it was certainly on our radar.
But when we arrived in Argentina and began to find out the logistics of the trip, we began scratching our heads: We’d have to drive 8 hours or fly up to the Iguazu Falls. Many people even advised us to go for two days and stay in a hotel.
We were confused and overwhelmed. Is it really that impressive to spend several thousand dollars for a day or two? We succumbed to peer pressure and put the wheels in motion, although we decided to do this in one long 23-hour day.
Imagine this:
*We got up at 2:30am to get an Uber from our hotel to the Buenos Aires airport which is about 45 minutes away.
*We had to pay hundreds of dollars for the flight, go through customs and fly up to Iguazu.
*The ride we had paid for to get us to the falls didn’t show up, there was very little English spoken, and it was starting to rain.
*When we got to the falls, we had to pay $45 each to get in the park. While we sat on the train that takes us up to the top of the falls, aggressive animals called coatis (picture raccoons) came out of the woods and blitzed the passengers, sniffing out any snacks in backpacks. We lost two brownies in seconds. It was alarming and surreal. We sat there watching as two animals fought over our snacks.
The Iguazu Falls were beautiful, they were a pleasure to see—but it took a lot of work to see them, and the day wasn’t over yet.
*There were a lot of people and it was hard to take pictures without others in frame—and we were there during the slow season in August.
*We were ready to leave by Noon, but our ride wasn’t due to return until 6pm to bring us back to the airport. (Fortunately he said, “If you find you’re done early, I can come back and take you into the closest town, Puerto Iguazu, where you can spend the afternoon walking around—and that’s exactly what we did.)
*But we were chilled to the bone. August is winter in Argentina which meant 50 degrees—and on this day it rained as well. I spent the afternoon walking around this charming town—shivering. Just to prove I can say something positive, we had one of the best meals of our week in this town—and even sat with some people we had met on the train. In fact they had just given us each brownies that were stolen by the animals.
*Our driver got us back to the airport at 6pm where we waited until 10:30pm for our flight.
*While still chilled and tired, we sat in front of a woman who sounded like she had Covid and coughed in our heads for the whole flight home. No surprise that two days later, I came down with bronchitis that lasted the next two weeks.
Getting back to our hotel room and finally taking a hot shower at 2am felt great.
Iguazu Falls? Beautiful, but next time you’ll have to go without me.
Ray Collins is a Sarasota-based travel writer who tries to find the positive in everything but ran out of gas on this article. He asks you to forgive him. www.raycollinsmedia.com/articles
