Puerto Iguazu - February 22nd

Because of the rain the previous day we didn’t get to see the San Ignacio ruins, but luckily we haven’t been booked on an early bus so we have time to see them this morning.  After breakfast and checking out we walk over to the ruins where there appears to be a large bus tour pulling in.  We hurry to get ahead of them so we have clearer pictures.  The ruins themselves are not as good as the ones in Paraguay.  They do have more of a jungle feel than the Paraguayan ones, which were in grassy fields, but these ones are more run down.  They do have the same basic layout though; the big square, the church, the college, and so on.  The site also has more of a feel of a school tour because there are interactive exhibits set up amongst them.  We get through the ruins as the big group comes in, they went to the little museum first, so we go back there to finish.  That is actually quite good, meaning it is worth doing both the Paraguayan and Argentinian sides of the river (we are actually only 20km from the Paraguayan ruins as the parrot flies).

We leave the museum, go back to the hostel, collect our bags, and walk back to the bus stop on the edge of town.  We get there early which is just as well because we discover the bus we have been booked on is not stopping at our stop, and we have to get an earlier bus and change in a town called Puerto Rico.  So luckily we got there early.  The change did go without a hitch, but it was a slightly annoying way to end our long distance bus journeys in Argentina which otherwise have gone perfectly well.

After we get to Puerto Iguazu and check in, we walk to the town’s only interesting sight (the waterfalls being in the national park).  This is the three border point, where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet.  It is at the confluence of the rivers Parana and Iguazu, with one country on each bank.  They each have an obelisk painted in their national colours to mark the spot.

But besides that, the only point of the town is to get people into and out of the national park.  Unlike all the other Argentine towns it is not based on a grid pattern either, so it is a bit messy looking, more like the frontier town that it is.  We join the hordes for a beer, and then we have dinner, before getting to bed early so we can get out to the waterfalls ahead of the crowd.