Iguasu Falls - Part 2

So after checking out the hostel that the Scotish couple (Spruce and Sonia) had found we decided to move and stayed another 2 nights at Casa Cuentas (whose staff were really friendly, it was cheaper and the place had free internet).

Another reason for moving was that catching a bus to our next destination of Rio proved a tad tricky, as the day we wanted to leave they only had seats beside the noisy bus engine, so I just decided to stay an extra night, relax in Puerto and catch up on the blog instead. It also gave us the opportunity to visit the Brazilian side of the falls at our leisure, and after being informed by Spruce and Sonia that an organised tour wasn't worth the money or the trouble, we decided to just make our own way over to Brazil and tour around ourselves (yet again, this definitely proved to be the much better option).

It turned out to be a fantastic day, and the freedom of going ourselves rather than taking the tour allowed us time to check out the cool hotel in the park (much nicer in my opinon than the Sheraton on the Argentinian side), and visit a bird park next to the Brazilian Falls. Although the Brazilian Falls were very impressive (you get more of an overview as opposed to the Argentinian side which gets you up close and personal), it was certainly worth the little bit of trouble getting across the border and getting local buses. The infrastructure on the Brazilian side of the falls consists of just one walkway and a few viewing platforms, so even with checking out the hotel (and getting out Brazilian money there), it only took a few hours to see everything. But the highlight of the whole day for me was certainly the bird park just outside the park entrance.

The bird park itself was actually huge, much bigger than I was expecting. It also had a number of large avaries that you were free to enter and wander about, which of course I thought was fantastic. It meant you had the opportunity to get right up close to the birds, although at one stage I had a strange big bird jump right on my back, and gave me quite a fright I have to say (but he didn't do any damage). But by far the most incredible critters were the multitude of toucans in the park (although Sarah was most impressed by all the humming birds - they are very common here, our hostel even has loads of the them visiting each morning). Also impressive was the shear number and variety of parrots and parakeets, and getting to have a huge tame parrot feed on our arms (ok, so that bit was quite touristy, but still hard to resist). Also mighty impressive was the bird-eating tarantula, which even though I've seen quite a few huge spiders in repile parks and the like, this particular guy was by far the biggest and meanest looking one I've ever seen.

Unfortunately we weren't sure what time the last bus back over the border was, so we had to leave the bird park a bit early - I definitely would have taken another loop around the whole park otherwise, even though I was tired from three days of hiking through national parks. Back in Puerto, we met up again with the Scottish couple and another English couple who arrived that day, and all 6 of us went out for a few beers and dinner. But it was Sunday night, so the town was pretty quite, so we just came back to the hostel for a last late beer before bed (the poor English couple, Clare and Dave, had to get up for a 7:30 tour the following morning!).

The next day and a half we just took it easy, the weather was gorgeous now, and we just waited around for our overnight bus to Rio. Spruce and Sonia were on the same bus, but they were only going as far as Sao Paulo. So once in Rio it was a cheap bus to the centre and the usual search for cheap accommodation.