Day 307: Güirá Oga, Puerto Iguazú
After reviewing the numerous, amazing pictures we took at Iguazú Falls yesterday, we decided we didn’t need to return to the park for a second day (even if admission would be half priced). It’s still a good idea to give yourself at least 2 days to see Iguazú, since you really want to see the falls on a sunny day if possible (more butterflies and rainbows!) – we just lucked out and got perfect weather on Day 1!
We spent the morning hiding in our cozy, air-conditioned cabin, using their Wifi and relaxing. In the afternoon, we started to get a little stir-crazy, so we borrowed their bicycles again and headed all the way through town toward a little wildlife refuge center called Güirá Oga. It was a long, hot and hilly ride, but we made it just in time for their final tour of the day at 4:30PM. Unfortunately, the tour was in Spanish (English is available sometimes, but not today apparently) – Lindsay was able to pick out a few tidbits here and there, but her vocabulary isn’t big enough to understand the stories the guide was telling about the rescued animals. We just followed along at the back of the group and looked at the birds, monkeys and other mammals.
We bike across Puerto Iguazu to the Güirá Oga Wildlife Refuge and take a guide tour
Igor checking out the blue and scarlet macaws
A Toco Toucan and a Red-Breasted Toucan
Igor dances along the boardwalk as a Capuchin Monkey watches jealously from his enclosure
An incubator full of freshly hatched chicks, and a pair of falcons
An Ocelot paces madly in its enclosure, and an otter swims back and forth in its little pool. Poor guys really want to go back to the wild
As we were finishing the tour, dark thunder clouds rolled in and threatened to dump a torrent of rain on us. We jumped on the bikes and peddled as hard as we could back to town. Luckily, the shade from the clouds and the refreshing breeze made the biking much easier and we made it to a grocery store just as thick droplets were starting to fall. We took our time shopping – picking up everything we needed to cook burgers back at the cabin – and found that the storm had passed by the time we came out of the store. When we got down to cooking later that night, we realized we had shopped with our stomachs a little bit – the burgers were HUGE and we each had a baked potato on the side! We fell asleep with massive food comas that night.
Igor is in charge of cooking tonight, and makes us MASSIVE burgers