Day 249: Puerto Iguazu – Argentina – Feb 21st

Rolling into the bus station at 8am, we had to take a local bus to our hostel which was inconveniently located along the freeway instead of in town. The location was poor, but the facility itself was pretty cool. Spacious and large with this extremely pretty pool in the front, it sort of made up for it. Then again, the people working there were some of the worst service staff we’ve seen so far in our travels. Horrible.

Background: Iguazu Falls is neatly situated along the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. The falls itself is a UNESCO heritage site shared by Argentina and Brazil, and to see everything this natural wonder has to offer, most people say you should visit both sides. Problem is, for Canadians you are required to have a visa! We scrambled back into town to get our visa application in, paid about $60USD/person, paid $8USD for print-outs at the hostel next door and hoped that we got our visa the next day. We were already here, and Iguazu is so far away from anything that you really don’t want to have to travel here again just to see the other side of the falls….. the perils of traveling. We’ve actually heard stories of people crossing the border without visas or even getting their passport stamped, but we asked around and that doesn’t happen anymore… so we didn’t want to risk getting shut out at the border and paid up for the stupid visa.

By the time we got everything done, it was too late to go to the Argentinean side of the falls, and we were sort of stranded in Iguazu without much to do, and to add to the fun it started pouring rain. Fun. The rain stopped and we headed out to a animal rescue centre close by. It was pretty cool as it was all privately run and worked off donations, but instead of acting like a zoo where they kept animals in captivity, they would release animals back into the wild whenever they can. Unfortunately, some wild animals were injured, domesticated and could never be returned, but at least they take good care of the animals!

It was buffet night in our hostel, and since we were living along the freeway where there was no other choice, we ate at the hostel and drank a few beers, chatting up with some people for a couple of hours before calling it a night.