Disneyland o Iguazu?

This weekend I went to Iguazu with a bunch of other students or more so there just happened to be a lot of students going at the same time. As we arrived at Retiro for our 8 oclock bus we encountered the muchedumbre or mass of people that were trying to travel for semana santa. I heard that people would be traveling, but never thought that Retiro would be filled, body to body by people. Our bus was late and the best part was that I heard a bus wouuld be leaving by our company at 8 pm from boletero 37, so told everyone we should head that way. At that point we were at boletero 45ish or something. It took probably like 25 minutes or more to push our way through the crowd of people, I was almost pushed over by the people near me and was STRUGGLING to carry my duffel bag and my backpack that I had for the front. I dont think it was necesarry to take a shower before this, because by the end of the whole event (after we waited and finally found out the bus was arriving and after we got on) I was drenched in sweat. My whole tshirt was wet and I just felt disgusting.

After the whole adventure and after 20 hours in bus we arrived at Puerto Iguazu! Yay! If I thought Retiro was hot, whew was I wrong. Iguazu was humid and hot. The only thing I wanted to do was jump in the hostels pool. Which I did, but after we went grocery shopping for the night. The hostel looked like a resort, it had a huge pool and outdoor bar with music, everything. Later I found out the one thing missing was that the community kitched sucked balls, there was nothing in it and I was supposed to be cooking for about 10 to 12 people...ahh I dont even want to go into that dinner. The pasta turned out to salty because there was no sea salt and I put in too much regular salt in the water...ahh...lets just not talk about it. I need to redeem my cooking later in life and invite everyone that tasted that pasta to my house. Besides that the hostel was great.

On Friday we set off for la parque de Iguazu! I started off the day hiking the sendero de Macuco, which was nice. But the whole entire trail was covered with HUGE spiders in these gigantic webs above our heads. I had to duck a couple of times. This scared me a little bit..and took away from my enjoyment in the trail. Oh well, after we started on the caminos or walks of the waterfalls. Every area was packed with people and tourists. This was probably due to the weekend we chose to visit, but also probably normal for the most part.

I was ok with the amount of people, but slowly realized that I could not really appreicate and take in the beauty of the waterfalls with the shouts, conversations, trash, and distractions of the crowd. I have felt that nature should be enjoyed in silence or at least I enjoy being in nature and taking in the beautiful silence that it inspires. At this park, there was no silence. (Maybe only on the sendero de Macuco). By the end when we tried to go to Gargantas del Diablo, there was a line we had to wait for. Which by the way, all the trains that took you places had lines that you had to wait for at least 30 minutes or more (no thank you, we walked everywhere). Well, I was already suffering a lot from the heat and humiditiy and to add onto this the wait for las gargantas was pretty hard on me. I think I started getting the symptoms for heat stroke about this time and once I arrived at the Devils Throat I had such a bad headache and felt so shitty that I could not really take in the beauty of the place. I have to admit that they were incredible and really amazing, every single waterfall had a rainbow to accompany it, but the people, the heat and the lines just destroyed a little bit of their natural beauty. Thus, by the end of the day I was not the happiest camper.

I know Iguazu is stupendous and breathtaking, because it was. But the fact that it reminded me of Disneyland and not a national park disappointed me a little bit. I think that Patagonia and the Glaciar Perito Moreno have a leg up (is that the phrase?) on Iguazu, just purely for the fact that they do not remind me of the magical kingdom and I could really enjoy the natural beauty that was the glacier, by myself and in silence.