When I arrived in Iguacu - after 28 hours on the bus(es) - mainly one thing I noticed; heat! The last hours on the bus going through perfect rain forest, tropical flowers everywhere, palm trees, bananas bushes growing as street trees in the villages... Plenty of bird life. After lugging my backpack to the hostel a few blocks away from the bus terminal, and after a first shower, back to the terminal and straight into the bus to the national park Iguacu in Argentina. Arrival at about lunch time. The little gas train takes me to the different walks in the park. Impressive views, colorful (and huge!) butterflies, parrots and other birds. Get to see my first toucan in the real world. At the visitors center a few leaflets on the park; one of them explaining in detail what to do (and what not) when encountering a puma. Very reassuring!
The falls are truly impressive! I do what I have to do and take too many
pictures. After about five hours walking around the falls I am very close to heat stroke, though. Only copious amounts of water which I have to buy in half-liter bottles for ridiculously expensive 4 pesos each (about 1,20 €) seem to save me. I sweat like hell... Most people walk around without shirts, girls in bikini tops.
Back to town. I book my return bus ticket to Buenos Aires straight away for the next day in the afternoon. To much heat. This, and there is not so much more to do besides the falls. I decide to skip the Brazilian part of the falls. Falls are falls, I think. I do change my mind spontaneously after a good nights sleep and get going to Brazil early next morning. Officially I am leaving Argentina, but the Brazilians can not be bothered with the day tourist and deny me an entry stamp. The Brazilian side of the park has great panoramic views of the Argentinian side. I am glad I went! Get to see more wildlife, a Iguana feeding on berries next to the walk, more birds, more butterflies. After a couple of hours in the heat again, the journey back to Argentina. Again close to heat-stroke. I save myself in a cafe with air conditioning. But the heat must have impeded my thinking. I am leaving late with only ten minutes to go until the bus leaves. I end up having to run for the bus terminal. Uphill. I reach the terminal just in time, but totally drenched in sweat. Just enough time to change my T-shirt before I get on the bus. At the moment I plummet into the comfortable seat, my fresh T-shirt is already drenched again. Thank god for the air conditioned buses, I think. Yes. As it turns out, the air-con is not quite up to the heat and gradually breaks down after half an hour or so. Sauna on the bus... Of course it is a modern bus of the type without any windows to open - it has a brilliant air-conditioning, nobody needs windows! Some passengers bitterly complain with the drivers. So after a couple of prolonged stops to let us passengers cool down in the 35+ degrees outside (it is evening already), the bus company decides to send a replacement bus. We talk about hyper-modern double-decker buses with better-than-business-class-seats! We meet the new bus somewhat later on the road, while the air-con seems to have miraculously recovered. Or is it just the absence of the sun?! Anyway, we change the bus, our luggage remains on the first bus.
As it turns out the new busses air-con is even weaker... Again sauna. Interesting conversations with my fellow passengers - nobody understands what is going on. So a couple of hours later, we change back into our first bus which has been following all the time, and hope the air-con is not breaking down again. Which, thank god, it did not do until we arrived in Buenos Aires.
