Picked up and back we go through the village towards the airport until we reach the turnoff for the park. Our guide is giving us information as we go including things like a puma attack several months ago and how they closed the park for two weeks to try and find the puma. Wowzer. First thing - the puma mauled a child that had wandered away from the parents. Second thing - it had been quite dry so food was a bit scarcer than usual hence the puma wandering into people areas. Third thing - they never found the puma and the child was OK, just a little bit "not going to wander away from mom and dad ever again." And finally, would have been super bummed had we come and been turned away during those two weeks because we only had one day to do this. As I am sure so many others as well come for the day.
Into the park and we must wait for the train to take us to the next station. At one point you could walk between stations but some of the paths are still closed due to the puma attack. We're not going to see a puma - we should be so lucky (at least to see one and not have it attacking anyone) but she says we will see monkeys and coati mundis. LOVE coatis as they call them. I figured we'd see some up in the trees and such but she assures us we will see them up close.
We take the train from the visitors center to the Cataracts Station and change trains and go to the Garganta del Diablo Station (Throat of the Devil). Here I head over to the toilets as there isn't one for awhile now and on the way over there, the coatis start coming around. We are one of the first trains on the day so the coatis have just started arriving. The coatis live around here because they know that people mean food. Totally unafraid of people. and they steal. if they see someone with a sack - which they recognize as food - they will grab it and run off with it. Really fun to watch such con artists. And yet people still don't realize that they are still wild animals. I saw several people with children trying to get their kids close enough for a photo or trying to get the kids to feed them something for a photo. I am wondering if the parents whose child was hurt by the puma were actually also trying to do the same with the puma! I have certainly seen stupider parents.
So after our guide gives us time for photos and toilet break, we start walking towards the Devil's Throat which are the main and largest falls. It's a bit of a hike and you are on an elevated walkway over the Iguazu River most of the time. I can see mist in the distance. As we start closing in on the falls, it gets louder and louder and finally around the last bend and we can see the falls. Fantastically Majestic and Wonderful. OMG. how so very impressive. And also a bit chilly as the wind was whipping around and we were getting very wet on parts of the walkway. Our guide brought an umbrella with her and she holds it over my camera whenever the wind starts whipping towards us. It is not too crowded as we are in the shoulder season now so we are able to take our time and get some very good photos of the water going over the falls and further down the river and the Brazilian side. It doesn't look as if they have as good of a view but since then, I have seen that they actually walk over part of the waterfall so guess it would have been good to get that visa after all.
After we have taken about a million photos of the waterfalls from every conceivable angle and are very wet indeed, we walk back to the station and take the train back to the beginning point where we will do an upper walk around the top of the rest of the falls and a lower walk were we are walking closer to the base of the falls.
One of the pathways is still closed due to the puma sighting. so we walk a different way and our guide hears toucans. She looks around and spies two of them sitting in the top of a tree which to our great luck, doesn't have any leaves up there. The silhouettes are unmistakable. I am able to walk quietly enough to get close enough to use the zoom and get some shots of both of them as they sit there and chat with each other. This nature stuff is so amazing to me and I love it so much to be able to see animals in their natural habitat. But as we are walking away, several groups of tourists walk by with their guides and a group without a guide. Our guide tells them all about the toucans and not one of the groups detoured to go see them. wow. had they all had their fill of toucans already? We never saw another one.
On to the rest of the falls. On some of the walkways, there are coatis waiting for tourists and food. One group was tagged for study. they all looked pretty healthy to me but a few of the other groups were pretty ragged. They run in large families apparently. Never saw any up close to any of the falls. maybe they don't like the noise or getting wet.
You can take a boat ride to the foot of some of the falls but you will be guaranteed to get wet. We decided not to do this as we have done the Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls and while it is interesting, mostly you are just hoping you don't tip over and you are busy getting wet therefore a bit harder to take photos and keep your camera from drowning. But we did love walking around the falls and watching the water and the people.
Finally it is time to head back to the ranger station. I hit the toilets again and when I come out, my hubby is sitting next to a large puddle that has dozens of butterflies landing and taking off from it so some butterfly photos. Then a coati comes up and hops up on a table and steals a lady's lunch who sat there and watched it come towards her and never moved her lunch then was quite upset that it was stolen. Come on people - some common sense?
We were in the park around 7 hours walking and looking at coatis and monkeys and water. We had stopped for lunch at one of the cafes which had a large population of coatis that kept getting chased away from the picnic tables and then would immediately return once the broom wielding proprietor had gone back inside. That man got plenty of exercise as this happened about every 10 minutes. When we came back that way, a small troop of Capuchin monkeys had arrived and the coatis and monkeys were about to throw down on each other. But the proprietor comes out with his broom and gets to chase two groups away which, again, was effective for about 10 minutes. But at least we got to see monkeys too. Our guide was more of a birder though as the coatis and monkeys are old hat to her. So every bird that flew by was identified for us. We did see some lovely ones which I had to write down because I never would have remembered them. There are LBB's (Little Brown Birds) and BBB's (Bigger Brown Birds), and then just birds.
A very enjoyable day and well worth the effort to get there. Should have tried to stay longer, done the Brazilian side, and hit the ferry for a ride into Uruguay. again, Next Time.
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