The Motorcycle Ride Across to the Iguazú Falls
Update 17 (February 2023)
Las Cataratas del Iguazú, Argentina
There were over 1,500kms between me and Las Cataratas del Iguazú. It was a slog getting there. It took four days and it was hot, most days exceeded 40 degrees Celsius.
Being a motorcyclist in South America keeps you on your toes. If you have the typical local motorbike it is something like a 150cc, often doing 30-50kmh, with at least two people or sometimes the whole family onboard and they ride it like a bicycle, staying up along the edge of the highway.
Riding a large adventure bike doesn’t work like that. For one, you are typically doing the speed limit, together with the width and weight, it is a bad idea to ride along the edge of the road. So you typically ride in the middle of your lane and adjust your lane position, depending on the surface conditions of the lane and oncoming vehicles.
The trouble is, some car drivers can’t adjust their behaviour to you taking control of your lane position and going fast. Firstly, I think there is an automatic assumption that if they see a motorbike, they must pass it because it must be going slowly. When they overtake they don’t seem to acknowledge you are using all of your lane. So inevitably many drive halfway in your lane and skim past, often just in time before the approaching car or truck collides with us all.
After a while I stopped being polite and now just blasted my horn when they get too close. Of course, the best solution is just stay away from busy highways.
It was a frustrating few days. Anyway, lets move on.
There were quite a lot of saw mills and timber plantations, including eucalyptus. I assume these are drying kilns. One town had about a dozen timber furniture and joinery roadside stalls, selling everything from chairs, to chopping boards, to flower pot stands, to front doors.
Outside Posadas there was a large housing development. I was curious about the home water supply system.
My room in Puerto Iguazu at Posada del Angu worked out well. Wonderful host, close to town and well run. Only three rooms. I had two nights there and visited the falls on the full day.
The bus depot was just around the corner and I got the bus for the 30 minutes ride out to Área Cataratas Parque Nacional Iguazú.
There is a fun train ride to get you to the falls, or you can walk the 900 metres. The train did take us to the upper level station, but the falls access was closed due to major damage from a flood in 2022. So we watched a video at the train station and came back…..
We did have this birdy and a mate to entertain us too. Even the lady from Peru, that I was chatting to on the train, commented on how he or she seemed to be looking right at me, out of 50 people in the carriage.
This is a long distance shot of the falls on the Brazil side. I could have crossed into Brazil for the day but decided not to.
Argentina side. It was a bit tricky getting the exposure right at times.
Monkey food maybe? I did see some monkeys entertaining the tourists around the “food court”. They were staying in the trees at the time but were obviously used to humans.
There are about 100 wild Jaguars in the area also.
The upper track followed these falls around.
South American Coaties or Nasua Nasua.
I spent about 3 hours in the park wandering the trails. I certainly wasn’t alone but it was pretty cool and worth the effort getting there.
Antofagasta San Salvador de Jujuy, Argentina
Update 16 (early February 2023)
Las Cataratas del Iguazú to Paraguay
Update 18 (February 2023)