Right now I’m in the Mascarpone caf�, one of the only places near my house that’s open on a Sunday with WiFi. I’ll take this opportunity to say that most places in Buenos Aires are closed on Sunday, including most grocery stores, farmacies, printing shops and a lot of restaurants. Most places also don’t open in the morning until 9:00 or 10:00.

That said, scrolling through my pictures of Iguaz� in the comfort of a hot coffeeshop, the whole experience seems a bit unreal. I’m still surprised that places like Iguaz� actually exist, and on top of that, that I have the good fortune of being able to visit such places as a tourist.

It’s impossible to capture certain things in words. Pictures often don’t suffice either. At one point, I became so disheartened at trying to convey the scale of Iguaz� that I just wanted to put my camera away.

I don’t want to overhype the falls, but I think it’s impossible to visit them and not feel at least somewhat impressed. It’s like God himself reached down and tore a chunk out of the earth. Niagara Falls really is child’s play in comparison.

And these pictures are all I have to demonstrate that.

Trails lead all around the park, showing various mini waterfalls and nice views.

(These little guys, coat�, are as common in the forest there as squirrels are in the States.

They have sharp claws and can attack you looking for food or entertainment, as they did to me…

…tearing open a plastic bag with our water bottles.)

There were good photo opps.

The trails were nice and all, but the highlight of Iguaz� for me was seeing La Garganta del Diablo, or the area right at the summit of the waterfalls.

By some crazy feat of geology, there’s a dip there that creates this whirlpool-thing right at the edge of the precipice. It’s what I envisioned when I read The Maelstrom by Poe or any fisherman tall tale related to sea monsters.

You get a sense of “big,” as in, “Wow, I’m really small, and if by some off chance I fell into that water, there’s no way I would ever come out alive.”

It’s like when you watch tornado coverage on TV, or documentary footage of volcanoes, etc. It’s pretty mind-blowing is all, and it’s definitely worth seeing.

After seeing the Garganta, Sylvia (dark hair), Joanna (light hair) and Robert went on a boat ride that rode right into the falls for seemingly no other reason than to get us wet. It was like the Maid of the Mist at Niagara but about 12 times more intense.

We went on a tour in an Indiana Jones adventure style truck thing through the national park, receiving an ecology lesson. A man from Brazil was another tourist on the truck, and I was confirmed again in my belief that Portuguese is one of the most beautiful languages on the planet.

I apparently took pictures of some important trees, etc. There was also a nice sunset.

Location: Avenida Pueyrredon 1200, Buenos Aires, Argentina