June 6th or: just another waterfall

We woke up to rain knocking on our windows. Not the best weather to do some outside sightseeing, but hell, we're only in Iguazú once. Carlos picked us up to go to the argentinian side of the falls, where we booked not only the entry to the park, but also two boat rides. One on the river in the hope of seeing some rare animals, the other to go straight below the waterfall.

First of all, we went to see the "garganta del diablo" though. It is a 150m wide, 700m long canyon with insane amounts of water flowing down. Standing right above it is pretty terrifying and fascinating at the same time. Definitely worth going there, it'll be difficult to see anything comparable again.

Then we took the raft ride down the river. We didn't see any real animals, but learned a couple interesting facts about the falls. The water level varies with each day, and sometimes it goes up so high that the normal walking trails cannot be used anymore (which is impressive because they are 2m above water level and the river already carried more water than normally). Moreover, the water going down the falls used to be crystal clear, but due to deforestation lots of soil erodes, thus coloring the water brown. And of course the myth about the creation of the falls was important aswell: the guarani god Boi demanded the sacrifice of a virgin every year. Once, the virgin fled with her beloved one down the Iguacu river. The god spotted her and smashed her, thus creating the falls of Iguacu. The virgin turned into a stone, her lover into a tree on the other side of the river, and they were separated forever.

Enough with the tales now. We wanted to do some real life business. So we took a speedboat ride right next to the waterfalls. Needless to say, we were soaked completely. And by completely, I mean every single centimeter of the body. The rain had stopped by now, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. We then took another trail, looked at more stunningly beautiful waterfalls, but it basically was an overload of great panoramic views. They were "just another waterfall". Aaaaand another one, and so on. You get the idea. 

After getting somewhat dry and warm, we wanted to enjoy some more argentinian beef. We ordered a barbecue plate and 600g of finest steak, indulging ourselves into great meat. Oh man, I could eat this every day. Great finish for a great day.

Sadly I don't have any pictures for you today. I didn't bring my camera or phone, because it just would have gotten destroyed. Yesterday should be sufficient to give you a first impression though.