Having spent one night in Rio, I caught the bus to Puerto Iguazu (Argentinian side of the falls), a non-stop 22 hour trip. Unfortunately, as the bus was pulling out of the rodoviaria, I realized my i-pod was missing. Noooooo! I was pretty devastated, music being my perfect companion and about to face the longest bus journey of my life without it. Luck, however, was on my side, along with two brilliant friends (thank you Myra and Amanda!), and it was handed in at the hostel. Hurrah! It is being posted to my friend in Santiago where we hope to be reunited before I leave the continent.

My whole weekend at Iguazu was absolutely fantastic. The falls were mind-blowing and I was fortunate enough to meet some fantastic people to share the experience with. I had survived my 22 hour journey (with ease actually: the buses are sooo comfortable I slept virtually the whole trip) and arrived on Friday afternoon. After dinner with 2 German guys from my dorm, we met 6 Mexican students who invited us to play cards and share some beer. A hugely entertaining evening led to me arranging to spend the following day with them at the park. They were incredibly friendly and welcoming and I had a blast. My Spanish still isn´t conversational enough, but they spoke brilliant English. They also live in Buenos Aires at the moment so I´ll be meeting up with them there too.

And the waterfalls themselves... incredible. Awe-inspiring. Huge forces of nature and scarily powerful up close. I visited the Argentinian side first which is where most of the falls are located, and you get really close to them, walking to a platform which is at the top of the Devil´s Throat. The sheer volume and force of the water is unbelievable, and the view is beautiful. Hundreds of swifts fly in and out of the spray (which reaches up to the platform) and little rainbows form in the sunlight. We also took a jeep ride through the jungle (no exciting creatures unfortunately) and then a boat ride underneath the falls. Wow that was amazing! Quite a short boat trip but amazing being so close. It was like buckets of water being dunked on our heads. We got soaked to the skin!

Then to top off the day, we went on a moonlit walk to the falls that night. It only happens 2 or 3 days a month, if the weather is good, and we were lucky. The surrounding jungle is spooky and buzzing with unseen activity. The walkways are lit only by the light of the moon which is surprisingly strong in such isolation (no city glow to be seen!). It also lights up the falls themselves which is truly magical. More rainbows form and the sound of the water seems even louder. The spray was even higher and we got drenched again. Amazing (I know I sound like an adjective machine here but there aren´t really words to describe it!).

The following day I went with the 2 German guys to the Brazilian side, where you get the panoramic view of all the falls. Again, absolutely staggering. They were even bigger and stretched even further than I had thought. The views are just like the postcards, rainbows included! It was brilliant to see all the places we had been to the day before and get the perspective of them as a whole. We could still get quite close to the Devil´s Throat and got another soaking. We saw more wildlife on this side, though mostly of the creepy crawly variety. There were huge numbers of butterflies on both sides, as you can see from the pics!

It was an absolutely amazing weekend- it will be a tough one to beat!