Chapter three · Two nights
Two thousand kilometres north of the Patagonian steppe, in a red-earth subtropical jungle, the Iguazú River arrives at a fault line in the basalt and falls off it — 275 separate cascades spread along nearly three kilometres of gorge. Eleanor Roosevelt is supposed to have seen it and said "poor Niagara."
The Devil's Throat in full flood · Cassio Avila, CC BY-SA 4.0
The place
Puerto Iguazú sits at the very top corner of Argentina, at the confluence of the Iguazú and Paraná rivers. Stand at the Hito Tres Fronteras and you can see Brazil across one river and Paraguay across the other.
The climate flips completely from the rest of the trip. This is subtropical rainforest — humid, loud with insects and birds, thick with vines and bromeliads, sitting on iron-red laterite soil that stains everything it touches. Average October daytime temperatures run in the high twenties Celsius, with a decent chance of a warm downpour.
The national park protects 677 square kilometres of it, and holds around 2,000 plant species, 400 bird species, and a healthy population of animals you will hear but almost certainly not see.
Day nine · 25 October
Private vehicle, private English-speaking guide, roughly seven hours. Three circuits, each giving you a completely different relationship to the same water.
A level walkway that runs along the top edge of the cascades, so you are looking over the lip and straight down as the river leaves. About 1.7 km, flat, and the easiest walking of the day. The best wide views of the whole system.
Down into the gorge, underneath the falls, where the spray is constant and the noise is physical. This is the hardest section — a lot of stairs — and by common agreement the most spectacular. You will get wet.
The ecological train carries you to the trailhead, then a kilometre of catwalk crosses the braided river to a platform on the rim of the Garganta del Diablo — an 80-metre horseshoe taking about half the river's entire volume. Train fare included.
Bring your passport — the park requires photo ID. Comfortable walking shoes, a windbreaker, water, sunscreen and insect repellent. The national park entrance fee and meals are not included in the trip price. Expect to be sprayed, and plan for a camera you don't mind getting damp.
Rainbows over the falls, Argentine side · Pierre André Leclercq, CC BY-SA 4.0
The neighbours
Travels in loose gangs along the walkways. Extremely bold around food, with the claws to back it up. Do not feed them, and do not leave a bag open.
Big, unmistakable, and surprisingly clumsy in flight. Most often spotted in the canopy along the Upper Circuit in the early morning.
October falls inside the breeding season, so expect to see young ones travelling with the band. Females and young move in groups; adult males go alone.
Jaguars, ocelots and tapirs all live in the park. Nobody sees them from the walkways. The realistic list is coatis, capuchin monkeys, toucans, parakeets, hundreds of butterflies, and a great many lizards.
A decision worth knowing about
The falls straddle the border, and the two countries offer genuinely different experiences. Brazil gives you the panorama — a single afternoon, one long viewing path, and the classic postcard of the whole system from across the gorge.
Argentina holds about 80 per cent of the falls and puts you inside them: three circuits, a full day, catwalks that reach out over the water, and the walk to the rim of the Devil's Throat. Crossing to Brazil means a border, a visa question, and half a day spent in transit.
This trip spends the whole day on the Argentine side instead. There is also no boat run under the cascades — the well-known Gran Aventura speedboat — in keeping with the no-boats rule that applies across the entire itinerary.
