Around the World in 180 Days: Parque Nacional de Iguazu (part 1)

Day before yesterday, what with busy packing and scrambling to the bus station in the morning and then sitting on the non-wifi-full bus for the next 17 hours, then yesterday, what with wandering around looking for our hotel then running back out to get a taxi to the falls and then walking around and taking pictures of the falls for 8 or so hours and then taxiing back, eating, more non-wifi-full-ness and that brings me to posting this morning for the past 2 days.
The busride was twistier than that to Bariloche but I slept better on it. It was probably a combination of getting used to sleeping semi-lying down and exhaustion.
Arrived around 7.30 in Puerto Iguazu and, as usual, the guidebook had a misleading map and we walked off in the opposite direction as we were supposed to. A woman gave us instructions, so back past the bus station a few blocks and stopped at a street sign that wasn't supposed to be named what it was. Checked in with someone else about directions and finally made it to our hotel.
Since, for three people, it's just a 10 peso difference between taking a taxi and the bus we took the taxi. The entrance to the Iguazu park was packed with crowds going into the park. Once through the ticket booths and lines there was more space so for a while it was less crowded.
There were a few trails that you could take to walk around the falls, and we went on the inferior trail first. Stopping at different waterfalls coming through the underbrush to take pictures and be stunned, it was a surprise when we finally stepped out and saw a large part of the waterfalls. I would have been impressed if that was all there was, but it was just a portion. The problem with really writing about this day is that it was all about what the waterfalls look like, so I think I'll just say 'we did such and such' and include lots of pictures.
I will detour here to explain the extent of the falls. Taller than the Niagra falls and twice as wide, 1750 cubic meters of water pours over per second, and has the greatest average annual flow of any waterfall in the world. They consist of 275 falls along the Iguazu river, some of them up to 82 meters high though the majority are about 64 meters.
After walking along the inferior trail we took a boat to the island where you can look right down on this waterfall that we at first thought was the huge one called the Devil's Mouth because of the amount of spray, but isn't.
Besides the San Martin viewpoint there was one other viewpoint on the island that we hiked to, but it lead only to a platform surrounded by vulture nests from which, if craned your neck at just the right angle, you could make out a bit of spray.
The hike to the San Martin viewpoint from the beach was up a huge amount of stairs. Climbing down them was better than up, but just barely because they were uneven and slippery.
In Oregon there is an agate beach which I have never been to but always been interesting. It seems like, since it's a 'destination', though, you could look for 5 or 10 minutes and find an small agate, then look for 5 or 10 more and find another. Not so here. While we waited for the boat to come back we sat down on the stones that were at least 1/3 agate. Some of them were huge, and all were beautiful. We spent a few happy minutes making piles of them, but the because it's a park we couldn't keep even the most special.
Once back on the mainland we fought our way back through a press of people to reach the lookout of another waterfall.
Coatis are a raccoon-like creature that are cute and charming from a distance but at the park are rather scary and get close enough for you to see their long sharp claws and teeth. Because people feed them they become aggressive and unshy, and swarm you. At the table next to the one that we ate at one climbed up on the chair of a girl sitting there, grabbed her sandwich and ran away. I don't know why she didn't knock it off, but maybe because they are rather intimidating. Whole swarms of them walk along the path and leave no room for humans. Some people pet them despite the fact that they are wild animals and the sign showing the snarling coati and the bleeding human.
After lunch we took the train to the Devils' Mouth waterfall. The 'Garganta del Diablo' is as a U-shaped, 82-meter high, 700-meter long, 150-meter wide cataract that marks the border between Argentina and Brazil. The spray from it is unbelievable.
I'm sorry, but we just came back form our second day in Iguazu so I'm feeling wiped out and sunburned and, while I'm griping, I think I've become anemic since we left Olympia and stopped taking iron tablets and I have hives from some sort of ingredient in artificially-flavored-citrus-sweet-things and I have to leave in 10 minutes to get on yet another night-bus.