Day 8

Another amazing day that I will remember forever. We got up early today because our bus left at 4:00 and we had to be out of the hotel by 2:00 and we still had lots of stuff we wanted to do at the falls. We started the day by walking down to the Macuco Trail that is separated from most of the other trails and is said to have lots of wildlife. Do Not Go Here! The ONLY wildlife we saw were mosquitoes and lots of them. They have freaking killer mosquitoes here that leave open wounds. My legs are chewed up from yesterday and today. We walked about a mile or so in and couldn´t even hear any falls in the distance so he decided to turn and haul our buts back to civilization. We saw nothing but mosquitoes and one huge rodent. No people. No birds. No monkeys. Nada.
Next we had planned to go on the Gran Adventura tour. A little wierd because Chad and I hate organized tours where you are hearded around but this one looked too cool. We had to wait about 45 minutes for one to start but we just chilled and enjoyed and I got oreos in the snack shop. We then boarded some 4x4 trucks that hold about 30 people. We drove along some trails in the rain forest but they said that since the trucks go by every 15-30 minutes that all the animals stay hidden. We saw some butterflys and racoons. Then we got to the end of the train and walked down 200 meters of stairs to a dock. Once there we put on life jackets and packed out stuff in waterproof bags and headed up Iguazu River (full of Paranas by the way) to go see the falls and be ¨baptised¨ as the broucher said. The boat was supposed to dip under one of the falls but the water has been too high and rough to do that but were were close enough in the speedboat to get completely drenched. I felt like it was raining. At some points the spray was so much that you couldn´t even see the falls because the water was going straight into your eyes. We went up to the falls on the Argentina side and they took us up the river to the Brazil side too. Again pictures wont do it justice, especially because we had to put the cameras up because the would have been ruined.
Afterwards we rode the trucks back to the front of the park and then to the point they picked us up at. We sat down at a restaurant there for lunch. It was already 12:30 and we had to check out by 2:00 but Chad really wanted to sit and eat. The we scurried back to the hotel and jumped in the pool to cool off on the way up to our room. Then we had about an hour to chill in the hotel until it was time to get a taxi to the bus station. It was sad to leave but I felt like we did everthing the park had to offer so it was great.
As a side note I read that the Parana/Iguazu forest is only 6% of what it once was. I was glad that both Brazil and Argentina had made what was left into National Parks. They were different from the parks in the US where in Yellowstone or places like that it is rare to see a store or restaurant or hotel inside the actual park. There were stores at all the major destinations, which was nice, but I wondered what was lost to put them there and if all that stuff kept more of the wildlife away. Just a tiny little enviromentalist in me raising a tiny little objection in my mind. I quickly squashed her in favor of having warm empanadas fresh off the trail.