Iguazu Falls
UNESCO World Heritage Site (Iguazu National Park, 1984); Inside Parque Nacional Iguazu, Created 1934. The Brazilian Side Is A Separate Park And A Separate Listing · Puerto Iguazu, Misiones
Iguazu is not one waterfall but around two hundred and seventy of them, strung along almost three kilometres of cliff where the Iguazu river drops off the Parana plateau on the border between Argentina and Brazil. About eighty per cent of the falls lie on the Argentine side, which is why this side is the one you walk: metal catwalks run along the top of the drops, underneath them and out across the river to the Garganta del Diablo, the Devil's Throat, a horseshoe of water so loud and so wet that you stand inside its spray. Brazil has the panorama; Argentina has the immersion, and a full day barely covers it. The falls sit in subtropical Atlantic forest with toucans, coatis, butterflies in clouds and swifts nesting behind the water. Flow changes enormously with rainfall upstream, from a thunderous flood that closes the lower trails to a thin dry-season curtain, and the walkways have been rebuilt more than once after the river took them. It is one of the great natural sights on earth and it lives up to it.
Parque Nacional Iguazu, Ruta Nacional 101, Puerto Iguazu, Misiones, Puerto Iguazu, Misiones, N3370, Argentina
The Argentine park opens every day of the year in daylight hours, roughly morning to late afternoon, with last entry well before closing; confirm the current times. The jungle train to the Devil's Throat runs on a timetable through the day. Full-moon night walks run on a handful of nights a month and sell out. Isla San Martin and the boat trips close when the river is high.