After spending quite a bit of time in Buenos Aires (because Pedr was sick) it was finally time to get moving again and start seeing northern Argentina. This meant that we went all the way to the northeastern-most corner of Argentina and then all the way to the northwestern-most corner of Argentina. Iguazu Falls in the northeastern jungles, and the colourful rock formations in the northwestern arid mountains.
Iguazu Falls
This is probably one of the most famous sights in Argentina and it definitely deserves its reputation for being an amazing force of nature. The amount of water flowing over the waterfalls is incredible. Especially coming from Australia where there isn’t much in the way of large waterfalls or fast flowing rivers. For us it kind of even felt like a “waste” of water. One sad thing that we learnt was that the water used to be clear. The reason why it’s brown now is because of deforestation upstream which is washing all the soil into the river.
It’s not just one big waterfall at Iguazu. It’s lots and lots of “little” ones, a couple of big ones and one stupidly big one. There are so many small waterfalls spread out over kilometres of cliffs, that the small waterfalls on their own would be pretty impressive. We spent the entire day walking around all the different circuits and kept seeing new waterfalls.
The biggest and most impressive waterfall is the Devil’s Throat. If you want to feel small and insignificant, just stand in front of this. It’s 82 metres high and you can’t even see the bottom because of all the spray that’s kicked up by the waterfall. About half of all the water flowing through Iguazu flows through the Devil’s Throat. It’s almost impossible to properly describe what it’s like to stand in front of it and be hypnotised by the amount of water tumbling down.
We also did some wildlife spotting while we were walking through the jungle around the waterfall. There’s plenty of monkeys and copatis running around trying to steal food from tourists. We saw a few people there whose full time job just seemed to be to chase the animals away.
We also had a close encounter with a couple of vultures. One was chasing the other in the air and then all of a sudden they came through the trees and ended up on the footpath right next to us. I think they were just as surprised to see us as we were to see them and we just stared at each other for a while. But I wasn’t quick enough to get my phone out of my pocket so I couldn’t get a photo before they flew off and started chasing each other again.
Quebreda de Humahuaca
After Iguazu it was back onto another bus to the far northwest of Argentina to see the Quebreda de Humahuaca. This is a long wide canyon with lots of multicoloured rock formations. You can see them as you drive down the highway that runs through the middle of it. But the most impressive formation is probably the Mountain of Fourteen Colours. Here you have to take a 4WD 1300 metres up a mountain to reach an altitude of 4300 metres to get to the lookout. But it’s definitely worth the bumpy ride and the thin air to see the fantastic mountain formations. They definitely don’t look like they’re real. (Unfortunately some of the colours didn’t turn out as bright in the photos so it’s not as impressive as in real life).
Amazing! still awesome photos even if not comparable in reality, probably more striking looking at those pink rock mountains, and the Huge waterfalls
It was amazing to see so much water flowing over the waterfalls, I don’t think there’s any river like it back home. And the same with the colourful mountain, I’ve never seen anything like it before.