Goodbye Argentina, Part 1: Iguazú and Salta

NOTE: Before arriving back in Ecuador, Karla and I spent the last week and a half visiting several regions of Argentina, leaving Buenos Aires behind and following an almost-square pattern.  We took a bus north to Iguazú, then flew west to Salta, and finally headed south on another bus to Mendoza.  This is the first of two parts describing our journey.

Iguazú

Iguazú is an indigenous word which means "Big Water", according to our tour guide (although she neglected to mention the language or which tribe used to live in the region).  The word refers to the Río Iguazú, the Iguazú Falls which are of course in the river, and to the town of Puerto Iguazú, which is nestled at the confluence of the Río Iguazú and the Río Paraná, across from Brazil in one direction and Paraguay from another.

While in the area, we visited the Iguazú Falls national park and Güira Oga, an animal rescue and rehabilitation center, and stayed at the 4-star Hotel Orquideas.  Staying at the hotel, which is outside of town, nestled in tropical forest along the road that connects the town with the park, was something that would have been beyond our price range had it not been for the incredible fact that, as mentioned in a previous post, we had won a free stay at the hotel along with a free tour of the falls, donated by Say Hueque Travel Agency, at the South American Explorers grand re-opening party for their Buenos Aires clubhouse.


To the Iguazú Falls national park, adventuring by both land and by boat, the falls are an incredible sight to behold.  They are almost too big to fully comprehend, and no picture truly does them justice, although a few videos that pan their width help to place them into context.  Truly beautiful and amazing, cutting through the jungle, there are two sets of falls, broken by an island - the Garganta del Diablo and the actual Iguazú Falls.  After walking along several paths that lined the upper portions of the falls, we caught a truck that took us down to the river, where we boarded a raft and motored to the base of the falls, getting soaked in the process.  Both the video of the Garganta del Diablo and the Iguazú Falls can be viewed on our flickr feed, along with numerous pictures of the park and falls.

While in Iguazú, we also visited Güira Oga, the animal rescue and rehabilitation center, also known as the House of Birds.  Conveniently located right next door to the hotel, we took a 90-minute tour of the grounds and witnessed many of wild jungle animals rescued from captivity in homes or from black-market traders, or found injured on the side of the road.  The animals included a plethora of birds, including toucans, parrots, peregrin falcons, several types of owls, and many other species for which I can't recall the names.  There was also a capuchin monkey family (apparently a wild male came along and mated with the captive female one night through the chain link of the enclosure) and a howler monkey, some type of wild cat, a rodent similar to a raccoon, and a few very smelly capabaras.  It was great to see the work that they were doing to rehabilitate and release many of the animals back into the wild, while providing safe havens for those that couldn't be returned (too domesticated or too injured to survive), while also continuing a breading program to help re-populate some of the bird and other animal species that have been endangered in the region.  Pictures can be viewed on our flickr photostream.

Salta

Our next destination was a quick overnight stay in Salta.  We arrived in the evening to freezing temperatures and a slight but constant snowfall, a very uncommon experience for the region.  After asking a few locals, we learned that there hadn't been snow in the city for ten years, and that it was highly uncommon for it to be so cold.  Nevertheless, we had a good (if all too short) time exploring a limited portion of city - partaking of sushi in a freezing (almost literally - since it's not usually that cold, people were scrambling to find heaters to warm up all of the buildings) sushi restaurant and the next day climbing to the top of the nearby Cerro San Bernardo, a hill that overlooks the city.  It was beautiful and snowy from the top.  We took the teleferico (a type of gondola system) back down the hill for the experience.  Children and adults were making little snow men and throwing snowballs at each other, and the whole town seemed to be out enjoying the novelty of the weather.  Sadly, we didn't have time to visit any of the wineries in the region.  Pictures will be up on our flickr feed when we get a chance to post them.