Iguazú Falls: Circuito Superior

This morning, I went back to Argentina’s Iguazú National Park to walk along Circuito Superior. I had to go back to the park. If you go two days in a row and keep your ticket from the first day, you get in on the second day for half price. How could I turn that down?

Yesterday, I walked the length of two of the three trails within the park, Circuito Inferior and Garganta del Diablo. I completed the set this morning with Circuito Superior.

Before I get into that, when I looked at my weather app before heading out today, it told me it was currently raining heavily and, except for one hour that would have a little some sun, it would rain with varying intensity all day. Immediately after looking at that report of the current weather and prediction for the day, I looked outside. It was beautifully sunny.

I checked to make sure that I was using the current location function of the app, rather than having specified another city I’d been in or was going to. (I’ve been caught that way before.) I was indeed using the current location function, and it said I was in Puerto Iguazú. (As I explained in the entry I posted on my arrival in Puerto Iguazú, my hotel is in a jungle, not in the town. It’s about a five- or ten-minute drive from the centre of town. But I guess the town boundaries extend some ways into the jungle.)

As you’ll notice from the pictures below, not only was it sunny when I set out, but there was only one brief time this morning when it was almost fully overcast. For the rest of the time, it was either sunny, partly cloudy, or partly sunny for the whole morning, without a drop of rain. Maybe that’s because I took an umbrella.

Circuito Superior

Circuito Superior (English: Upper Circuit) is a little longer than Circuito Inferior (English: Lower Circuit), but not much. Unlike Circuito Inferior, which heads down some stairs to a path somewhat below the top of the plateau over which Iguazú Falls tumbles, but not to the lower river level, Circuito Superior runs entirely along the upper plateau. It is mostly level and entirely wheelchair accessible.

Almost all of the Circuito Superior path is on the same sort of pedestrian bridge with a metal-grate floor as was the case for much of Circuito Inferior. And again, the bridge remained above the ground. But this time, the bridge went over several channels of the Iguazú River still on the plateau.

Some of these channels are far enough away from the main falls that I thought they might be different rivers that joined with the Iguazú after tumbling into the gorge. However, I looked at a map. There are no other rivers there. The rock formations break up the flow of the mighty Iguazú River* into a series of spread-out channels, each of which creates its own falls, big or small depending on the size of the channel.

(*”Iguazú” originates from two words in indigenous languages that mean “big water.”)

A bridge over river channels is similar to the bridge I walked along to get to Garganta del Diablo yesterday. However, the Circuito Superior trail passes through much more lush jungle than the Garganta del Diablo trail. Plus, Circuito Superior goes by several falls, whereas the Garganta del Diablo trail pretty much just goes to a single waterfall. True, it gets closer to that waterfall, and the waterfall is more dramatic than the ones Circuito Superior takes in, but there is only one.

The channels that Circuito Superior passes over are, in my opinion, for the most part, more scenic than the ones along the Garganta del Diablo trail, as scenic as those indeed were. The jungle edged up to the Circuito Superior channels more intensely. The waterways were generally also narrower and more peaceful, with lots of rocks popping out of the flow to add character.

In one case, I couldn’t see the waterfall that Circuito Superior led me by. The trail took me on both sides of the falls, but the viewing point on both sides was a bit back from the precipice and immediately beside the water. So, I saw water flowing along the river across the plateau, and then it disappeared after it reached the edge. I didn’t see the fall itself.

There were one or two waterfalls that were similar, but the vantage point was positioned such that I could see a fringe of the falls, but not its full extent.

However, most of the falls that Circuito Superior passed by, or that were a little ways off from the vista points, were approached in a way that the waterfalls were visible in all their glory.

Yesterday, I expressed concern that Circuito Inferior might suffer self-esteem issues because of its name, what with a Circuito Superior being right there in the same park. Circuito Inferior was truly spectacular, it should be proud, but—nobody show Circuito Inferior this, please; I don’t want to do further damage to its self-confidence—in my admittedly thoroughly subjective opinion, Circuito Superior is a trifle more spectacular, despite thinking yesterday that couldn’t be possible.

After taking in the grandeur and beauty of Circuito Superior, I left Iguazu National Park and put a bow on my morning. Do you have any idea it is to tie a bow on a morning? It keeps slipping off due to the ephemeral and ethereal nature of mornings.

I took a lot of pictures on my walk along Circuito Superior. I selected less than half of them for inclusion here, but I still couldn’t fit all of them above. So, please enjoy the gallery of another half-dozen below. I mean, you don’t have to enjoy them if you don’t want to, but they’re there if you do.

Aside

An Aggressively Mischievous and Hungry Non-Human Mammal Friend

In yesterday morning’s post, I showed you some pictures of non-human animal friends I met along the way during my walks in the park. One was a mammal that I didn’t know the name of at the time.

A picture of one of that species, along with a monkey, was featured on signs throughout the park warning people, in Spanish and English, to not feed them because they can be dangerous. (I didn’t see any monkeys.)

The sign also featured a picture of someone’s hand with a couple of deep gashes, presumably made by either that species or monkeys. Monkey is a species I knew, so I remembered it. But the species I saw yesterday in real life and on the sign was not one I had ever heard of, and I forgot its name almost immediately.

When I was on the Gran Aventura yesterday afternoon, one of the English-speaking customers (not me) asked the guide, “What are those animals that look like raccoons?” (They do look vaguely like raccoons. They have ringed tails, but they are predominantly brown, not black, have a more prominent snout, and don’t quite have the white colouration around their eyes.)

Because I saw another one today (or maybe the same one as yesterday, but in a different location) and because there’s a story to tell about it, I had the good sense to take a picture of the next warning sign I saw so I’d remember the name of the species.

They’re coatis, singular coati. (The dictionary that comes with my Mac agreed with the woman who asked the question on the Gran Aventura. It says they’re a “raccoon-like animal found mainly in Central and South America, with a long flexible snout and a ringed tail. Also called coatimundi.”)

I told you there’s a story to tell about the one I saw today. Let’s get to it.

When I arrived at one of the viewing platforms along Circuito Superior, a coati was nosing about on the platform. Some people were looking at it. They kept a respectable, but not great, distance from it. I joined them in watching the coati snuffle around.

After a little while, two women pushing what looked like baby carriages came toward the platform. (I came to realize later when seeing the child associated with one of them that “stroller” would probably be a better term than “baby carriage,” but it didn’t have the openness of a stroller. I didn’t see the other child, so I don’t know if it would be appropriate to call the other one a baby carriage or a stroller.)

When the women arrived, the coati moved faster than it had up to that point while I was there and made a beeline for one of the baby carriages/strollers. Once there, it took hold of the side of the baby carriage/stroller, raised itself on its hind legs and started aggressively grabbing repeatedly inside.

The few other people on the platform at the time and I became, to put it mildly, concerned. I thought there was a baby in the carriage, I think others did too.

People started shouting and clapping their hands loudly to try to shoo it away.

After one forceful lunge, the coati managed to grab a slice of bread and left the scene of the crime with the bread. It was only after the coati left that I noticed the child associated with the carriage/stroller easily standing on her own two legs sheepishly behind her mother.

End of story.