Our South America Adventure - Day 9 Gran Melia Iguazu

This morning we woke up early and Daniel drove us to the airport. Daniel was our driver during our tour of Buenos Aires and he was great. Such a friendly guy. He was excited to show us his city and assured us we needed more time. While we would have loved more time in Buenos Aires we were headed to our next adventure. 

Anyway, we caught a flight this morning to Puerto Iguazú. This is the town on the Argentina side of Iguazu Falls. 

We arranged through our hotel for a car to pick us up at the airport. Our driver took us straight to our hotel. We are staying at the Gran Melia Iguazu. We splurged a bit on this hotel. It is located within the national park and we got a room with a view of the falls. It was 100% worth it. The view of the falls from the hotel was phenomenal. 

Our room was ready when we arrived. So we headed up to drop off our stuff. We sat on our balcony overlooking the falls for a few minutes before heading out. 

Our first stop was the headquarters of the Gran Adventure Boat ride. We waffled on whether or not we wanted to do this experience, mostly because we knew we would get soaked. But then multiple people told us we had to do it, so we decided to give it a chance. We walked over to the Gran Adventure headquarters (they are next to our hotel) and signed up for the 2pm boat tour. 

In the meantime, we headed back to the hotel and out into the national park. Just outside the hotel, we saw a toucan and a small owl. This area is a rainforest so there are all kinds of wildlife around. 

Burrowing Owl

We continued along the path into the national park and decided to explore the lower loop today. The way the path is set up is remarkable. They have built metal walkways through the rainforest right over the water. At various times we were walking over rivers and sometimes we were standing right over a waterfall. There is so much water here. 

The lower path ends at a nice viewpoint where you can see many of the impressive waterfalls. We took some time to watch the water crash down. It is quite a sight. 

We had to head back to the hotel to get ready for our boat adventure. As soon as my phone connected to the hotel Wi-Fi, I noticed I had a voicemail from PetSmart asking for me to call them. Alison and I called them back, we assumed maybe CC wasn’t eating or that she was sick and might need to see a vet. This was not the case, they gave us the devastating news no pet owner wants to get - CC passed away overnight. It was so unexpected and abrupt. They told us she was fine the night before and they came to check on her in the morning and she was gone. She was our first fur baby. We were devastated. It did not even feel real. Alison called her dad to get some support. It was so hard because there was nothing more we or anyone else could do. There are no words. 

Part of us wanted to stay there in that hotel, or leave and come home, but neither of those was a good option. There was nothing we could do that would change what had happened. We decided to go on the boat tour to try to take our minds off of this terrible news. What else could we do? Our hearts were heavy and we would spend time a lot of time grieving over the upcoming days. 

The boat tour was a wild adventure. They loaded us up into a truck-like vehicle and took us on a 30-minute drive through the jungle. While we were making our way through the jungle a guide told us about the plants and animals of the jungle. We kept our eyes peeled, but we did not see any animal or birdlife. It was sunny so we saw so many butterflies. 

At the end of the drive, we had to walk down a few hundred stairs to the dock. On our way down they gave us each a life jacket and a dry bag. At the dock, they loaded us into the boat and we were on our way. 

We sped up the river toward the falls. The river is really high right now and there were some rapids we had to navigate. This made for a bumpy ride. We reached the falls and stopped a little ways away to take some photos and enjoy the view. Then they signaled that we needed to put everything in the dry bags. Next thing we knew they were driving the boat right into the falls. We got absolutely soaked. The wall of water hitting us was so strong. We went under the falls 3 times before heading back up the river. 

While we were on the boat there were little rainbows that would follow us around. Alison said this was our little cat saying goodbye and telling us everything would be okay, even though everything is not okay.

Back at the dock we disembarked and climbed up the stairs. We had a chilly 30-minute ride back to our starting point. Then we walked the short distance to our hotel and we each took a warm shower. 

We got cleaned up and headed to the rooftop bar. From here we watched the moon rise and the sunset as we reminisced about our little cat. We also watched monkeys climbing all of the hotel balconies below. You have to lock your balcony door really well or the monkeys will ransack your room. We saw the monkeys ransacking the room of an unfortunate guest who did not lock their room. Eventually, some of the monkeys came up by us and a family was feeding one of the monkeys to try to get a picture with their kids and the monkey. This was a terrible idea and led to the monkeys getting a little too close for comfort. The bartender had to come over and run them off. 

Once the sun had set we headed to dinner. Everyone here eats late. We ate dinner at 7:30pm and we were one of the first ones to eat. I had Ojo de Beef (rib eye) and Alison had risotto. Both of which were excellent.

It had been a long and draining day and we were ready for it to be over.