Traveling solo doesn't mean traveling alone

I arrived in Iguazú at around 9:30/10 am Monday morning.

Iguazú Falls are in yet another new province, Misiones. Here's Misiones in red. Do you remember where I live? It's a loooong way from home. (Hint: I'm near a peninsula on the coast)

Iguazú is located near the borders of Paraguay and Brazil.

I was really excited to be off on this little adventure by myself because there really is something special about traveling alone. Traveling alone is a lot of fun because you get to do what you want when you want. It's equal parts personal and exciting! I haven't traveled alone for quite a while, and when I say travel, I mean like for a few days not like get on a plane alone. I was thinking about it actually, and I don't think I've really had an actual solo adventure since I was in Spain and went to Bilboa. I must be wrong...but I don't think so. Almost four years later, I felt so much more equipped to handle myself. It takes some getting used to being alone and eating out and doing things on your own without worrying about what other people are thinking about you (even though they really aren't). This time, albeit a little nervous, I was ready!

Day 1

After "landing," I snagged a taxi to get to my hostel. Online it said the hostel was super close to the bus station, but I was in no mood to wander around town with all my stuff. The taxi driver, trying to make conversation in this touristy part of the country, asked me where I was visiting from. I love to surprise people with my answer to this question by rattling off a city in Argentina (Puerto Madryn - because it's technically true) instead of somewhere abroad. Unfortunately, he misheard me and thought I said I was from Madrid. I did not have the energy to correct him but then felt the pressure of having to perform and use a Spanish accent when speaking with him. I don't know why I do this to myself. The pressure to perform became even more immense when we couldn't find my hostel, and he ended up driving back and forth on the same road two or three times before deciding to just drop me at the approximate location. The approximate location happened to be the correct location.

The hostel was literally a large house converted into a hostel. I knew this going into it but did not consider how that may impact what the outside would look like (a literal house).

Can you spy the cat butt?

I love the ambiguity of meeting people in hostels in a different country because you literally have no idea what language they speak. I was greeted by who I learned was the daughter of the family who kind of runs the ship. She asked me if I spoke Spanish, which I confirmed. Hearing me say this, some other guests passed me, and one of the girls looked at my shirt (it was my Iowa shirt) and said, "Soy de Minnesota," while pointing at my shirt. It was super cute and a little silly because I don't think I've met anyone in Argentina who knows what Iowa is let alone who has been there.

I sat down at the table with the daughter and her father while she checked me in. We chatted a little bit about how long I've been here. She asked me if I drank mate. I confirmed. Her dad then passed me the mate, and I was welcomed into the family.

After checking in, I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and got ready to head to the falls! Before hopping on the bus, I went to the cafe across the street from the bus station with the hopes of grabbing some coffee. As a vegan, I have very low expectations whenever I travel and tend to assume I won't have options until proven otherwise. I was very happy to find a baby vegan section!

Vegetal literally means vegetable, so origen vegetal basically means plant-based or vegetable-based. They actually call non-dairy milk like soy, almond, coconut, etc. leche vegetal. Not to totally call Sol out, but once she told me that she didn't have vegetable milk, and I couldn't help but giggle.

I bought two little baby cookies with chocolate, which definitely did not sustain me and kind of melted, but it is what it is.

I also ran into the pharmacy to buy some bug spray because mosquitos are everywhere in this part of Argentina, and I did not go prepared.

To get to the park, I had to take a ~30-40 min bus from the bus station. While I had originally planned on going to the Brazil side first, it was closed on Mondays, so I headed to Argentina's side. (Note - Iguazú is kind of like Niagara falls in that you can see it from two different sides in two different countries!)

If you paid in cash, the ticket to enter the park was about $20 USD.

Here's a map of the park:

I started with the Sendero Verde (the green trail) to get to what was basically the center of the park.

Once there, I started with the Upper Circuit (blue on the map). I decided to do this one first because it honestly seemed the least cool since you would see the tops of waterfalls.

Before my journey, I saw my first bit of wildlife!

The upper circuit, as I expected was a little lackluster (comparatively speaking). It was super cool, but you couldn't really get a grasp of how big the waterfalls were or what you were really looking at since you could only see the tops.

Pretty pictures, yes, but they really don't give you the whole view.

I made some more friends along the way! Please ignore the expletive lol. The little guys kept showing up and scaring me. Coatíes in Spanish, these little friends reminded me a little of squirrels in that they seem to have gotten really comfortable and used to having humans around all the time.

After walking the upper circuit (which supposedly should've taken like 2 hours but only took me about 40 minutes), I was a little disappointed and worried that I was going to zip through the park and not actually see any waterfalls. I made my way to the lower trail, hoping that things would get a little better.

Spoiler - they did.

I was in awe of how much green there was, especially coming from the south where most trees have lost there leaves. It was also incredible how many waterfalls there were. It wasn't just like one big waterfall but a compilation of soooo many smaller ones!

After my walk around the lower circuit, I took the little train they have to go to La Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat). This wasn't an actual train but a small train just to move people around since this waterfall was a ways away (orange on the map). I had no preconception of what this was other than a cool waterfall, so I was pretty excited.

The train brought us to the entrance to the walkway to the Garganta del Diablo. Basically everyone on the train was there to go to the same place, so it was just the mass of people walking quickly and aggressively along the walkway. I may have missed the memo, but people were truly walking as if their life depended on getting to the waterfalls first.

The speed walking was kind of disappointing because we were walking past pretty views of the river while it was quiet and calm, but I figured I could just snag some pictures afterwards.

You could tell we were getting close to the falls because you could hear the water. As we got closer, I thought about the fact that I hate heights but was choosing to stand on top of a cliff right next to incredibly powerful waterfalls and started regretting my choices until I saw the view.

Getting closer... This was one of those views where you feel like you must get picture asap because there's no way it's going to get better.

But it got so much better:

This is the view if you looked down the left off the platform. It was like a hall of waterfalls.

This is the main attraction:

Looking back at these pictures, it's unsurprising, but I can't help but think about how disappointing they are because they really do not do this justice. The waterfalls were so powerful. They were so loud, you had to yell over them. The sun was pretty warm that day, but the mist from the falls kept it cool on the platform. It was also pretty breezy, so the mist would sometimes blow right in your face. It was really hard to fathom how so much water could exist so forcefully at the same time. I loved the juxtaposition of the water in the river in the background that had no idea that it was about to fall 230+ ft down.

I was lucky that there weren't too too many people hustling and trying to take pictures, so I was able to find an empty spot to watch the water for a while.

I really cannot describe how freaking sweaty I was at this point of the day. The humidity was killing me.

As I made my way back, the sun was starting to set, which made for some nice pictures that I was able to take without a bunch of people pushing past me.

Once I got back to the Garganta entrance, I asked a woman who worked at the park how long it was to walk to the center of the park, since there was a trail. Being the United Statesian that I am, I had to embarrassingly ask her how many minutes it may take because when she gave me a number in kilometers, I just simply couldn't do the math. She estimated roughly 20-30 minutes, which seemed reasonable for a short little adventure, so I walked!

The trail wasn't really a trail so much as a path that cars and trucks from the park use to get to the Garganta that ran beside the train tracks. The walk also didn't seem like the most popular option considering I only past one other person. Since I was a solo female, I was hyper-aware of the fact that this man was the only other person on the trail with me, but he didn't even make eye contact with me as we passed each other, so that was that.

The walk was really peaceful! It was very quiet. I couldn't hear much of anything besides the birds and water flowing beside me.

By the time I made it back to the center, it was 5pm. I knew the park closed at 6, but I thought it would be cool to walk through one of the circuits quickly one last time since the sun was somewhere new. They had already closed the lower circuit but said I could go through the upper circuit if I went quickly.

Not to toot my own horn, but this decision was the best. There was practically no one on the trail anymore, and it wasn't nearly as hot and sunny as it had been in the early afternoon. I got some cool, unobstructed views of the falls!

If you look closely, you'll see three toucans in the tree!

After this short little adventure, I made my way back to the park's exit, accidentally getting stuck in the middle of a tour group from Costa Rica and then wandering through the park entrance wondering if the park somehow closed with the last stragglers still in it.

Like there was no one there!

I took the bus back to the bus station and walked back to my hostel dreaming of a shower. When I got back to the room, my four roommates were there. I had been placed in a room full of others from the U.S. These four all new each other. They were in a doctor shadowing program in Córdoba but were on a mini trip to the north. We got to chatting, and they invited me to eat dinner with them, which I, of course, accepted. This is going to sound silly, but I felt old with them. Three of the four of them were still in/just graduated college. The fourth was in medical school. What can I say - grad school really ages ya.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant down the street for burgers because how else would you spend the Fourth of July in tropical northern Argentina. The burgers were kind of ridiculous looking. I got a lentil burger.

Their plans afterwards were to go to a bar. I was honored to be invited but cringed, dreaming of sleeping in an actual bed. Then, they told me it was only open until midnight, and this particular bar had 30 minute sessions, so I agreed. It was an adventure. As an aside, I actually ended up getting to bed earlier than I have for quite some time.

The bar they planned to go to was the IceBar where everything is made of ice. Initially, I thought, "Wow, this must be super fancy and expensive." Jokes on me, while the latter was true, this bar was more touristy than actually going to the waterfalls.

We walked to the taxi stop to make our way to the bar, and, without even a discussion, one of the girls just walked up to a driver and said "IceBar." In English. God I wanted to die because I could've at least done it in Spanish, but also like just casually spitting out English to random taxi drivers is not the move.

Once the two drivers finally figured out what "IceBar" actually meant - I had decided not to involve myself, we hopped into two taxis and were on our way. To be completely honest, I was prepared to die at the hands of this taxi driver who was totally aware he was driving two young women from an English speaking country around in a foreign place. I tried to make a little conversation with him in Spanish, so that he would at least feel guilty when he murdered us. The roads he was driving us down were dark and curvy, and I had no way of knowing we were going in the right direction.

But then, we arrived. Alive. Even better, he gave me his card, so I could call him when we needed to get back to town.

So the IceBar was cringy, touristy, and expensive. Worth it? Yes. But also very silly. They gave us coats and gloves to wear, which kind of freaked me out because I saw no evidence of them being washed, and then we entered the actual bar area where we had 30 minutes to walk around on the sticky floor and drink as much as we wanted while posing on things made of ice.

Here are my new little friends putting their gear on!

Like I said, everything was made of ice...

even the cups. You may be thinking, "Wow, drink as much as you can doesn't seem safe." This was the size of the drinks, mixed drinks I might add. I've truly never seen a pour of alcohol as small as this before. The bartender did the smaaaaallest little flick of his wrist with the actual liquor. I about died knowing I just paid for the most expensive, cumulative shot of cheap liquor in my entire life. But it was for the experience I suppose.

I talk as if I'm too cool for the little thirty minute experience, but it was really super cute and silly. It was fun doing something this silly with my new friends! The cringe and the small drinks and weird jackets were all part of the fun adventure.

After our 30 minutes were up, we were ushered out of the bar area and were let free. I was still hyper-aware that I felt old lol but grateful they let me come with them. At this point in the night, it was time to head back to the hostel. My little friends did have not much of a plan, and there weren't taxis just hanging out waiting for tourists.

This is when I became their new best friend. I texted the number the taxi driver gave me, which was actually his son's. He told me to let his son know to let him know that we needed a ride. The son didn't answer the message very quickly, so get ready for this. You're not ready, but I'll tell you anyway. I called, yes, called the taxi driver's son, who, needless to say, was a little confused and definitely at home with his kids in the background, and I told him that his dad gave me his number and that we need two taxis at the IceBar.

We got two taxis sent to the IceBar. I was their new best friend. I will now be giving out autographs as the cool hostel girl who's living in Argentina and managed to get two taxis sent to a super touristy bar.

That is how I ended my first day in Iguazú.

Day 2

Day 2 I slept in juuuuuust a little since I had been told that the Brazil side doesn't take quite as long as the Argentina side of the falls. I woke up, got ready, ate breakfast, and chatted a little with the daughter who works at the hostel. She told me that the next bus for brazil didn't leave until noon, so I had about an hour and a half to kill. I decided to walk to a look out where you can see Paraguay and Brazil!

This is what Google maps said the walk was. It ended up being like 20 minutes, so either I freaking SPEEDWALKED, or this was slightly inaccurate.

It was a chill walk down the road.

Here we are! Tres fronteras = three borders (Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil)

Paraguay is on the left here, and Brazil is on the right.

After this little stop, I took a taxi to the bus terminal because I honestly didn't feel like walking, and I was already hot. I bought a little snack and some coffee and sat one last time with my new little U.S. friends.

Then, I bought my bus ticket! While waiting to get on the bus, I recognized a guy from my hostel who I could tell spoke English, so I started chatting with him. Turns out he, Henry, was living in Texas (San Antonio or Austin - I don't remember) working on a start-up to help my higher ed more accessible. Turns out, Henry was also the guy who I passed on my way from the Garganta the day before. He said he didn't even realize he had passed someone on the walk - male privilege for ya lol.

The two of us chatted as we made our way through the immigration line where we met another foreigner, Julia. She's from France. I started chatting with her as we made our way back to the bus. Then, the three of us had to awkwardly get back off the bus while most everyone stayed on to go through customs.

After customs, we got back on the bus and finally made it to the park! We were in Brazil!

At the park, we bought our tickets and decided the three of us should stick together, so we made our way to the bus to drive us to the falls.

Once we made it to the falls, we got off and were convinced that no lookout would be better than the first (as most tourists are), so we snapped quite a few pictures.

The Brazil side is all about panoramic views. Turns out, the views kept getting better and better. It was suuuuuper cool to see what I had seen the day before from far away. I really felt like the Brazil side better captured how big the falls are.

There were soooo many little waterfalls! I wanted to try and acknowledge and admire each and every one of them, but there were so many!

The best part of the day was walking there (the platform in this next picture)...into the falls almost! This was a closer look at another view of La Garganta del Diablo!

It was absolutely wild walking on the path onto the water! The sun was super bright, and the mist was blowing right in your face.

It was so loud you had to yell over the water!

It was so stinking cool. What Julia said when we were here stuck with me. She said that whenever she is somewhere this amazing, she thinks to herself, "What did I do/what decisions did I make to get here?"

It was definitely a place with the power of nature surrounding you where you just stop and reflect on who you are and what you are doing there.

Afterwards, we made our way to the top to get a different view. I bought some food because at that point I was starving, per usual.

Just look how powerful this is!

After taking a short break for food and saying bye to the waterfalls, we made our way back to the park entrance, so we wouldn't miss the bus. There, Julia and I said bye to our friend Henry who had to go to the airport and bought some coffee at the cafe before looking for the bus. Luckily, Julia was on her game because the bus, naturally, left at an arbitrary time that I probably would've missed had I been alone. On the bus, we panicked while trying to fill out the declaration thing that we both forgot to fill out to get back into Argentina. When that wasn't loading, we gave up and started giggling at how ridiculous and patriotic the U.S. passports are. How you ever looked at yours? There's literally a huge bald eagle on the second page. Mount Rushmore is in it. There's a page with a buffalo (?) and a Native American totem pole (?), so many things that I'd never noticed.

Thankfully, we were both able to make it back into the country with no issues. Once we got back to the bus station, I was a bit hungry, and Julia had some time to kill before her flight, so I suggested we get some ice cream.

She agreed.

We sat and ate our ice cream and chatted for about an hour before she had to leave. We chatted about cultural differences like walkable communities and boys and school then parted ways.

I headed back to the hostel desperate for a shower and dinner. The place I wanted to go with several vegan burger options was closed, so I walked to the Mexican restaurant because Mexican restaurants are actually a safe haven for vegans. Surprisingly, this restaurant was incredibly vegan friendly! When the server came over, I told her that I didn't eat meat or cheese or egg or milk, and she looked at me and said, "So, you're vegan." Well, that made life easy. I ordered the burrito combo, which got me chips and burritos.

When they brought these out to me, I immediately knew that the white sauce was definitely not vegan, so I said no big deal I just won't eat it. A minute later, a woman came over to me and said that she brought me an extra salsa because the white one actually isn't vegan. I was so impressed.

I ate these salsas very happily because they were actually a bit spicy! My burritos were good, too!

As I was finishing up, three older men sat down at the table next to me. One of them came over to me and asked what I ordered. I told him that I ordered a vegan burrito combo. After he ordered, he proudly yelled to me across his table that he ordered the same thing to give it a try heehee.

I made my way back to the hostel to relax for the rest of the night. I chatted a little with my new roommate, Kevin, who is from Englad and backpacking through Latin America. We exchanged Instagrams, so we can catch up if I'm still around when he visits the whales here in Puerto Madryn.

Day 3

Don't worry, I'm almost done. Day 3 was pretty chill. I slept in with no intention of doing anything but heading to the airport. I woke up, ate breakfast, and hung out at the hostel. This morning it smelled like absolute s**t in my hostel room. Like it literally was like an animal crapped right outside the window, so I was desperate to get out. I sat outside to eat breakfast and still smelled the awful smell and was sooo beyond ready to head to the bus station at around 11:40.

Bye, hostel! I had the bottom bunk on the right!

I bought a bus ticket to the airport to save some money, but the bus wasn't coming for another 30 min, so the workers told me I could sit and hangout in the waiting room type thing. It was literally just a room with chairs.

I kid you not when I sat down in this room, it still smelled like animal poop. I was so miserable at this point and just so ready to be done and home and out of the smell and humidity.

And then I looked at the bottoms of my shoes. The night before, I had stepped in what I am assuming is dog poop.

Oops.

I immediately changed my shoes after that.

While waiting, I saw they had instant coffee, so I asked if I could have some. The coffee thermos thing ended up being empty, which I, personally, took as a sign that coffee was not in my future. However, the customer service was quite impressive and one of the workers insisted that another make me coffee, so the guy made me some coffee even taking the time to mix the grounds to make some foam. We chatted while he did that. My favorite pastime is proving to all the Spanish-speakers I meet here that I can manejarme in Spanish.

The bus to the airport took about an hour because it stopped at the park first, but we eventually made it.

My flight took me to Buenos Aires. There, I had some time to kill, so I walked out of the security area to grab some Starbucks and some Burger King, a very United Statesian meal. :) At this point in the day (about 5/6), I was just desperate for some real food. I can concur that the fries at Burger King here were about 10 times better than those in the U.S. The sandwich wasn't bad either!

I flew into the small, Puerto Madryn airport at around 9pm and took a taxi home. I was so happy to be home!!

I was so happy to be home but also so happy with my adventure. I went to Corrientes and Chaco and Iguazú! My solo journey had turned into a journey full of new friends who led me into some fun adventures. And that is why I love traveling on my own. Had I been with someone it's pretty unlikely I would've stayed and reached out to hangout with new people! The mini adventures when traveling alone make it soooo worthwhile!