Las Cataratas de Iguazu (Iguazu Falls) and Other Adventures

Hello everyone! Sorry for the delay in blog posts but two sets of midterms plus makeup midterms took over my life and left me with unsatisfying results.  HOWEVER I rested in between those and my upcoming finals with an amazing trip to Iguazu Falls which is a national park full of huge, gorgeous waterfalls on the border of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay.  We took a bus with a group that organized everything for us(it was much easier than doing it ourselves) and was soo fun!  We met many people from all over the world who are studying here because it was a trip specifically for students and it was an experience I'll never forget!  On the way there we stopped in the province of Misiones to see the Jesuit ruins where they tried to convert the Guarani natives.  The middle picture includes Stephanie and Garrett two German students who study at UCES with us.  The ride was long but we slept through the night and got to know the people on the bus with us so it really wasn't that bad.












After arriving, we moved our stuff into the hotel rooms and headed for the pool to relax.  Later we had dinner at the hotel (it was included as well as breakfast) and talked until bedtime to get ready for the next day at the national park.

Unfortunately the entrance to the park was not included, but it was worth every penny!  First we took a boat that went directly under the waterfalls so we got a nice shower to cool us down.  We were definitely rockin the bright orange life jackets hahaa.  After that we went to a little beach area to take pictures of the falls and talk for a bit.

After our break we hiked up a hill to get a closer look at the gorgeous spectacle and got to take a few more pictures.

The views were beautiful, but we still had more to see....after lunch we continued up the hill to see Iguazu from above and the falls were incredible.

I never had any idea how huge Iguazu Falls was!  It may even be larger than Niagra Falls, but I've never been so I'm not sure.  There were so many butterflies (and bugs!) at the falls it was wonderful to see all the wildlife and different nature here.  But it was still not the end of our day....We continued on and took a tram to the other side of the falls to see La Garganta del Diablo (the Devil's Throat) which is a huge fall and all you can see from above is the foam (not sure if that's the right word) of all the water coming down.

The day was long and hot but I enjoyed every minute!  We came back to the hotel and that night we spent some time with the new friends we made on the trip...

The next day we were free to do whatever we wanted and Jessica and I decided to take a tour through the forest, zipline and rapel down a waterfall! It was scary at first but I'm sure we'll never regret it!

Before our waterfall adventure we took a few little trips to a town called Tigre which is about an hour away on the train(like BART).  There's a river, a theme park, a casino, and a farmer's market and it's a great way to spend the day outside...

You can't tell, but the plaque says Los Estados Unidos (United States) and all of us are from the U.S.

They actually still have phone booths in Buenos Aires!  Amazing since they're basically non existent in the U.S. 

We also had a very fun Halloween, Jessica, Dani, Andrea and I were all tourists and Jessica's friends who are studying in Brazil were clowns...

As of now we're in the middle of finals and haven't experienced any spectacular adventures lately with all the studying going on....I'll be sure to keep everyone updated on any trips we go on and what we're doing out here in the big BA!