Alison: We took yet another overnight bus to Puerto Iguazu and arrived there early in the morning after a mere 16hours. On waking up on the bus and looking out of the window, the landscape was very different to what we had already seen in Argentina. It was very tropical looking with tall palm trees, red rocks/sand everywhere. When we got off our nice air conditioned bus, we also found out that it was tropical weather.....very hot and 100% humidity. By the time we walked to our hostel with 20kg backpacks on, we were drenched in sweat. Since the end of our travels were looming, we had only allowed one night here so after a quick freshen up, it was time to head out to the attraction that Puerto Iguazu is famous for - Iguazu Falls.

The Iguazu Falls are basically a huge collection of waterfalls that are created by the Iguazu River and are situated on a section of the Argentinian and Brazilian border. To add some perspective to just how big they are, I've consulted everyone's best friend Wikipedia for some facts - the Iguazu Falls are 2.7kms wide and consist of 275 individual falls that range in height from 60 to 82m. The Iguazu Falls are taller than the Niagara Falls which are only 50m in height and they are also wider than the Victoria Falls although because they are composed of a collection of individual falls, Victoria has the largest curtain of water at around 1.6kms wide and 100m tall. You can't beat Wikipedia for fast facts....who cares if they are true or not?! ;)

Before catching the bus to the falls we walked up to a part of town where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet. The countries are separated by a river. After a quick photo with each country we hopped onto the bus and after around 30mins we arrived at the entrance. When you first go in there is a museum and tourist information and then you get to the company that runs the adventure tours. There are various things you can do including safaris, rapids, and a number of boat tours. We decided to go for the rather short (12 minutes) but most popular boat tour which takes you up close to a couple of the falls.

To get to the waterfalls, you can either walk or take a little train - in that heat and humidity l'm not ashamed to say we took the train. Since our boat tour was at an allocated time, we first headed off on a few of the short treks around the park to look at the waterfalls from above. We heard them roaring before we saw them and it was so nice to see them come in to view through all the trees. They are massive. We walked around the various walkways and bridges marvelling at them from every angle possible...I'll let the pictures do the talking on how beautiful they are!

When it was time for our boat tour we headed down to the water, put on life jackets, and wrapped all our stuff up in waterproof bags. We had heard that you get very wet on this particular boat tour but I wasn't quite prepared for how wet you do actually get.....we were as wet as if we had jumped in a swimming pool fully clothed! The boat first sits and looms at one of the falls so people can take pictures and then once the cameras are away it is time to get up close! You speed up to the water cascading down and the boat sits in the area just in front of where the main stream of water hits the water below. This means that you get not only the lighter sections of the cascading water but you also get a thick spray from the main sections of the waterfall hitting the river. You can't see a thing because it is like someone spraying a shower in your face! We did this a few times at a couple of sections and there was lots of screaming and cheering! It was really good fun apart from the fact that I didn't bring a change of clothes and Nigel did. It is very unusual for Nigel to be more organised than me and he knows it which, I imagine, is the reason that he spent the rest of the day looking smug in his dry clothes whilst I squelched along in mine complaining of chaffing.

The only downside to the park, in my opinion, was one of the animals that live there. They are called Coatis and they are a member of the racoon family. Although they look vaguely cute there are big pictures everywhere showing someone's hand that has been sliced open by one of them and is bleeding. This picture is enough to put anyone off striking one but what I didn't realise is that they actually come and attack you if you have food! On a couple of occasions I saw a gang of them unexpectedly run out of the trees and viciously grab hold of bags containing food. It was pretty scary stuff. I wasn't going to let one of those fur balls take my cheese sandwiches so if they dared come near me, I was ready to swing my handbag at them and fight for my lunch at whatever cost. Luckily it never came to this :)

The Argentinian side of the Iguazu Falls were amazing. Since you can see the falls from both Argentina and Brazil, there is a bit of a debate between which view is better. We had heard the pros and cons of both sides so we felt it was only right to head over to the Brazil side to see for ourselves!