Day 19
Our guide, Fábio, told us to be ready to go at 7:20 AM so we could be on the first train into the Park, which leaves the Central Station at 8:15 AM.
As I mentioned previously, the tour organizer advised me to have $800 pesos per person available in case the ticket line at the Argentine National Park was long, in which case we could have Fábio purchase our tickets using a special guide only line. When we arrived about 7:45 AM, there was no line at the ticket counter, so we were able to purchase our tickets ourselves.
We were in line when the park opened and briskly walked the ¼ mile to the central train station. As we were walking through the Park, right after the entrance we walked past a series of shops and cafés. There is one booth that we didn’t realize was important since we were with our guide. This is where they pass out train tickets which assign you to a specific train trip number. This is to avoid people standing in line once things get busy. For example, they might hand out 250 tickets for train number 239, then they would start handing out tickets for the next train, number 240 and so on. If you are doing the Argentine park on your own, keep your eye out for this booth. You will probably see a lot of people ahead of you getting tickets.
If you plan to walk to the Devil’s Throat viewpoint, buy a poncho at the Park entrance if you don’t already have one. The spray at the Devil’s Throat viewpoint was very intense during our visit. You also need to figure out how you will protect your passport, phone and other items from getting wet.
The train is like a people mover tram you might see at Disneyland. The train will stop once on the way to the end of the line. We continued to the end to start the 6/10 mile walk to the Devil’s Throat viewing platform. The train takes about 20 minutes to go the 2 miles.
The grated steel walkway to Devil’s Throat passes over the river about 10 feet off the water. The traction is very good, and even though it was sprinkling as we made our walk it didn’t feel slippery.
There wasn’t any delay on our walk out to the viewpoint since we were on the first train. Fábio told us that there would be long waits here as the day developed and people would end up shuffle walking much of the way to the viewpoint. My recommendation is to visit the Argentine side when you can arrange to get here for the first train.
Once we reached the end of the walkway, we could feel the power of the water as it cascades over the Falls. There is a photographer here that will take your picture for $500 pesos (about $8 USD).
It took us 20 minutes to make the walk from the train station to the viewpoint. We spent about 10 minutes enjoying the view before heading back.
After the Devil’s Throat Circuit, we went back to the Cataratas Train Station, at the midpoint, which is the starting point for the 2 other major circuits on the Argentine side. There are 3 major circuits, or walkways, on the Argentine side, as opposed to only 1 on the Brazil side.
- Devils Throat Circuit – 1.25 miles
- Upper Circuit (Superior Circuit)- 1 mile
- Lower Circuit (Inferior Circuit) 1 mile
We walked the Upper Circuit next, which took us about 1 hour. It is fairly flat without many stairs.
Our last circuit was the Lower Circuit, which also took about 1 hour and has about 40 steps up and down.
Upon returning to the midpoint station, be sure to get a train ticket number from the person in the booth as you did in the morning on the way to the first train.
While we had light rain off and on all day, the temperature was pleasant, and we enjoyed seeing the variety of falls throughout the park.
We probably walked close to 5 miles covering all the trails today. Each circuit is about 1 mile and then you have all the distance between trails and to and from the park entrance.
After our tour of the falls, we stopped for a late lunch at El Quincho, a touristy restaurant in Puerto Iguazu, made for large groups. The food and service were good and we enjoyed our meal.
We were back in our room around 3pm and decided to stay inside and rest as we were exhausted from all the walking, and it was still raining off and on. After a second round of room service Empanada’s we called it night. Our pickup time was at 9:30 AM for our noon flight back to Buenos Aires.