October 13, 2018: Day 2 At Iguazú

More incredible views and one minute of the worst turbulence of my life. My mom may argue otherwise but seriously guys I thought we were going down.

This is mostly going to be one big post of all the photos we took on the trip but here is a brief (probably not going to be that brief) summary of all that we did!

We got to the airport well ahead of time Friday morning and spent a good portion of our waiting time on the phone with Sprint trying to figure out how the frack to make our phones work in Argentina. Turns out I have access to way more features than I had known about this entire time! Oh well, better late than never.

The flight was pretty shaky the whole way but we landed in beautiful Puerto Iguazú and took a taxi directly to the Iguazú National Park. Since we didn't have too much time (park closes at 6) we decided to just check out the main attraction, La garganta del diablo (Devil's Throat). It's essentially a lookout positioned just above the most massive waterfall / row of waterfalls and it is INCREDIBLE. Since we were on the Argentina side, we were looking across at the Brazil side... I imagine the two views are pretty similar though. Just some water rushing over some rocks.

The sound of the water barreling over the edge was overbearing! If you stared directly into the main waterfall, it almost looked like the earth was folding in on itself. There was a permanent rainbow shining in the mist created from all the splashing water. It really was like nothing I've ever seen before. Flip through my photoshoot below ;)

We had to take 2 trains and then walk about 1000 meters to get to this lookout. It was kinda spooky to be walking directly over the water on this little rickety bridge! We passed a few little tortugas tanning on the rocks and MANY nasua (raccoon-like animal... look it up) begging for our food. Chill out animals! We saw one steal somebody's lighter lol. Just a young raccoon-like critter trying to light up.

Around 6pm, we headed to our hotel in a bus. It was a cute little hotel with a friendly community area and we met María and her husband Guillermo there. I love how people here are so friendly and so willing to converse with almost anyone! We finally went out to eat and the food was DELICIOUS. My momma and I split a salad and butternut squash risotto. Oh baybee. Look at my cute freaking mother!!!

After dindin, we walked back to the hotel, watched some kind of Dancing with the Stars show, and then *tried* to sleep. The heaviest rainfall I've ever heard was coming down on our roof and at 4am my mom and I questioned whether the building would hold up lol. The rain was really that loud and aggressive. Clearly, we made it through the night.

We started this fine morning with a hotel breakfast sufficiently loaded with pastries. Gotta eat 'em while you're here, ya know? When in Rome... We then went and sat (well, I laid down and fell asleep) in the community area and waited for the rain to ease up so that we could head outside.

Once at the park, we decided to do all the paths that we could since we had already seen the main attraction. We all agreed that the paths we did were even cooler than what we saw yesterday!! They afforded incredible views of the waterfalls from afar and from right up close. Plus we got to see some cute little monkeys in the trees!

It was especially awesome because you could really see just how expansive the falls were. And it was very interesting to be situated right above the falls because you could see that the water was surprisingly calm and slow-moving just before it reached the edge, and then it rapidly and suddenly picked up speed as it poured over the edge. Waterfalls are an interesting phenomenon... not sure how they work to be honest.

There was an island right in the middle of all of the falls and we really wanted to go to it but sadly it was closed this weekend. It's alright though because what we did see and experience was incredible.

Mmmmm tasty!

We ate a late lunch at one of the hotels within the park and it was also very very delicious. We all got the pumpkin soup (10/10 amazing) and I got a Caprese salad and ugh those little mozzarella balls were so good.

We chilled for a little bit at one of the food court / bathroom areas and then walked back to the entrance and headed out for the airport. 1.5 days felt like the perfect amount of time to spend in Iguazú. We all agreed that you could see the entire park in a day, but it makes for a nice little 2 day vacation if you want to see the cute town as well!

My mom is gonna roll her eyes but I just need to tell you guys about this flight back to Buenos Aires. Ok so it was very very smooth the entire time, maybe a little shakey-shake here and there, but, with about 20 minutes left, we hit a bumpy pocket out of nowhere and that was anything but pleasant. We were shaking a lot and I could feel the plane dropping a little as if it had somewhat lost control. At one point the left wing took a pretty severe drop and I thought, This is it. It's been a good life. But we landed!!! Ugh I am so dramatic but I think even my parents will vouch that it was a rather unsettling minute and a half of turbulence.

We took a taxi to the Airbnb and then walked to Palermo Soho to explore Buenos Aires nightlife. And boi was there nightlife! We went to Plaza Serrano and the whole world was out there living it up. We stopped at a pizza place to fuel up and a party was leaving so we took a leftover slice of theirs and ate it heh heh heh.

The night wouldn't have been complete without ice cream of course so I took my parents to my favorite place, Rapanui.

Cheers to a good trip, a good night, and good ice cream.

Song Recommendation of the Day: "Waterfalls" by TLC (only because it's ironic)