"So Much Better than Magic Mountain": Iguazu as the Ultimate Water Ride

My friend Becca told me that I absolutely had to see Iguazu Falls, on the border between Argentina and Brazil. But I had seen Niagra and wasn't so impressed. Still Elisa needed to get out of the city for her week-long winter break, so Elisa, George, Miki (yes Miki, a high school friend bought her ticket from Chicago on a whim and headed to Buenos Aires to meet up with us!) and I got on a bus and headed North. What we found was absolutely fantastic.

We were running a little late (surprise), so we ran through the "lower circuit," a path to view the falls from the front, and kept making our way toward the sound of rushing water. We could see nothing through the dense jungle-esque forest and we joked that maybe there were just boom boxes with recordings strategically placed in the woods. And then suddenly, they were before us: multiple levels of falls, with endless torrents of water rushing into a fog of mist to meet the river, framed by rainbows and brilliant green foliage.

When we thought it couldn't get better, we headed down to the riverside for what we expected to be a leisurely boat trip to see the falls from a different angle (my idea). We didn't have rain-gear and we were told we might get a little wet, but we shrugged it off. We scrambled into a boat which soon zoomed off, headed straight for the falls . . . and then kept going. We were literally meters from where thousands of liters of water thundered into the water below - and positively SOAKED us. (Take that, Indiana Jones!) Then the boat zoomed to another set of falls and backed into them again as we squealed with glee and squinted desperately to kept the spray out of our eyes. 15 glorious minutes later, we emerged dripping and grinning, and George issued what might have been the most priceless comment of the day: "Man, that was soooooooo much better than Magic Mountain."

To top it all off, we walked along the top of the largest falls and saw what the pre-Copernican Europeans must have envisioned when they thought of world's end. We danced along the catwalks and were singing vintage REM for the rest of the day.