Iguazú National Park

Argentina created Iguazú National Park in 1934 to protect the greater part of the Iguazú Falls and the subtropical forest around them, and UNESCO listed it in 1984, together with its Brazilian counterpart across the river. The park covers 677 square kilometres of the far north of Misiones province. The name comes from Guaraní words for "big water", and it is not an exaggeration: along a rim some 2.7 km long, the river splits into anything from 150 to 300 separate falls, depending on the season, dropping between 60 and 82 metres over two great steps of basalt.

About half of the river is swallowed by the Devil's Throat, a long, narrow chasm 80 to 90 metres wide into which the water thunders from three sides, throwing up a permanent column of spray. The Argentina–Brazil border runs through it. Roughly four-fifths of the falls lie on the Argentine side, which is why the park is the place to be close to them: raised walkways run above and below the cascades, one crosses the upper river for about a kilometre to stand directly over the Devil's Throat, and boats cross to San Martín Island.

Away from the falls, the park protects a fragment of the Alto Paraná Atlantic forest. Coatis, toucans and great dusky swifts are the animals visitors notice; the forest also shelters rarely seen jaguar, tapir, ocelot, harpy eagle and yacare caiman. Along the riverbanks grow ceibo trees, whose red flower is Argentina's national flower, alongside lapacho and the 40-metre palo rosa. A Guaraní legend tells that a forest god, betrayed when the maiden Naipí fled by canoe with her lover Tarobá, split the river in anger, creating the falls and dooming the pair to fall forever. The first European to describe them was the conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, in the 1540s.

Getting there

Puerto Iguazú, the Argentine gateway town, is about 35 km from the park's central reference point; the Brazilian town of Foz do Iguaçu lies across the river. Cataratas del Iguazú International Airport (IGR) is about 23 km away and has direct flights from Buenos Aires. Inside the park a small forest train carries visitors to the upper and lower trails and to the start of the Devil's Throat walkway.