The Iguazu Falls were absolutely incredible, and the wildlife viewing opportunities were spectacular as well. Bit the Brazilian and Argentinian side of the falls are crawling with coatis, which resemble but aren't related to (I don't think) raccoons, just with longer noses and thinner tails. They are all over the place, capitalizing on the fact that humans A)love anything that looks cute and cuddly, and B) we as a species tend to border on the slobbish in terms of throwing items away, thus creating a coati smorgasboard around visitor centers and other attractions in the park. Both parks strongly discourage visitors to touch, feed, or otherwise molest the coatis since they are wild animals (although they are extremely habituated to humans and will walk right up to you) and can bite and/or transmit diseases. These rules, unfortunately, seem to be widely disregarded. People were feeding the coatis (by hand!), petting the coatis, and small children were chasing them around trying to cop a feel while their parents videotaped the whole thing (way to set an example, MOm and Dad). Even if you try to avoid interacting with them (other than the odd photo), they will seek you out. I was sitting on a bench in the shade (high heat and humidity does not bode well for a fair blonde of Western European heritage), and from the forest right behind me, a family of coatis started spilling out. The bench was built into a wall, so I was instantly swarmed with coatis. Since I didn't want to risk surprising them and perhaps getting bitten, I sat still and pulled out my camera and filmed the whole thing. I have to admit, it was pretty cool, but I do not advocate intentionally trying to go afer a coati like a lot of the people in the parks were doing. DCstudent and I actually encountered what appeared to be a sick coati (tail down and acting very suspicious) in the middle of the trail. I told DCstudent to give it some room as we went around it and as we approached, it neither acted curious or tried to run away; it just hunkered down where is was, a tell-tale sign of a sick animal. So, please, PLEASE, if you go to the parks, LEAVE THE ANMALS ALONE!

Iguazu has a lot to offer nature lovers. It's a beautiful area with lots of parks and nature attractions (the Parque des Aves was also really neat and highly recommended). Of the two sides of the park for Iguazu Falls, I'd have to say that the Brazilian side was my favorite. Yes, it was more "touristy", but the prices were more reasonable for items like food and water, and it seemed a lot cleaner than the Argentinian side. Granted, we were in the Brazilian park right when it opened before a lot of people arrived, but there seemed to be a lot less litter and more "green" practices (labeled recycling containers, use of zero-emission vehicles) on the Brazilian side, which is a big plus in my book!

After our ecological adventures, it was time to say good-bye to Iguazu. We headed to the small international airport not far from the city. We were booked for a 2:30 flight but when we checked our baggage around noon (the prescribed time on our reservations), we were told we were too early for our flight's check-in time, but they had room on an earlier flight and would we like to take it? We jumped at the chance to spend more time in Buenos Aires (our flight's destination and our next stop on the trip), and switched flights. We were told that our new flight left at 1:40 from Gate 3 (FYI, only three gates in the entire airport) and that there would be two passport checks (yes, even though this was a domestic flight). We went upstairs to head through security, but were told about ten minutes after everyone had "lined up" (read: a hodge-podge mass of people; you'd thinks adults would be capable of something more more orderly than a gigantic mass, but there you go) only to be told that our flight was delayed forty minutes (meanwhile the flight departure board had us as on time). Flash forward another forty minutes and we once again herded en masse to go through security, which was a two- or three-step process. You walk up to a desk with two attendants and go to the one on the right first. He checks your ticket and takes what appears to be a cursory look at your passport and then (perhaps) passed it to the guy on the right who looks at the passport with much more scrutiny before handing your passport back to you and allowing you to go through the detectors. We were able to watch this process multiple times through groups of other tourists and so when our moment arrived, the first guy handed our passports back to us. We then moved to the left and offered them to the other attendant, but he waved us through to the detectors. We then took a seat in the lounge and waited for our plane to turn up. Meanwhile, another airline employee was going through the lounge and checking EVERYONE's passport AGAN. The whole process was completely confusing and inefficient. About a half-hour, forty-five minutes later, we were finally on our flight. This was around 2:30, so for those of you keeping score at home, our "early" flight wound up leaving about the same time as our original flight was scheduled.