See what I did there? People always say they want a room with a view, but I turned it around and said, “A view with some room” because Ushuaia is in the middle of nowhere.

Get it?

Oh, my god. I’m laughing so hard my sides hurt. I can’t catch my breath.

Just give me a moment to recover.

OK. I’m fine now. Let’s proceed.

You can’t get much further south than Ushuaia. It’s where the towering Andes mountains end their 4500 mile crawl down the western coast of South America and finally disappear into the ocean. Go a mile out of town in any direction and you’re in the middle of nowhere.

As we flew in over the Andes, most of the land was covered with snow and all the water was completely frozen over.

The snow level comes almost down to Ushuaia’s Main Street. Yesterday was beautiful, but it’s snowing again today. Quite a contrast to the 95 degrees we had two days ago at Iguazu Falls.

Down by the harbor where all the fishing boats and tourist boats tie up.

Ushuaia stubbornly clings to a narrow corridor of relatively flat land between the Andes and the ocean.

Ushuaia, Argentina is farther south than any other city in the world. It sits on the northern shore of Tierra Del Fuego’s Beagle Channel. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to come here — just to say I’d been to the one of the earth’s extremes.

As you can see on the map below, Ushuaia sits far south of any other point in the world. Far south of Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. And far south of anywhere in New Zealand. It reaches out almost to the finger of land that is Antarctica’s most northerly point. That’s why it is the jumping off point for tourists headed for the seventh continent.

What, you might wonder, inspires more than 70,000 hardy souls to call Ushuaia home? And what would inspire us to visit in the dead of winter? Wait until you see the photos (coming in a later post).

Iguazu Falls is the largest waterfall system in the world. They’re far higher than Niagara Falls, far wider than Victoria Falls, far more awesome than…well…any other waterfall anywhere on the planet. Its roar can be heard miles away and the cloud of mist it creates hangs over the river and rises far above the surrounding plateau.

You can’t help but laugh at the war of words waged over the falls between proud Brazilians and Argentinians. Turns out the Argentinians are very aware of the fact that Iguazu Falls are physically located on their side of the border. But as the hotel’s Brazilian front desk clerk explained to us this morning, citizens of his country have a pretty clever response to the Argentinians’ claim.

“They own the falls, but we own the views.”

In other words, the cataracts may sit on the Argentinian side of the border, but if you actually want to see the falls, you must cross over to the Brazilian side for the best vantage points.

Do yourself a favor and watch the video above. Oh, my god. The roar of the falls is incredible and the volume of water rushing over the edge of the falls is unimaginable.

As you can see on the map above,  Iguazu International Airport is just a few miles from our hotel in the Iguazu National Park. If you could drive there in a straight line, that is. Clayton Kershaw could probably rear back and fire a fastball across the gaping gorge without breaking a sweat. Unfortunately, geography and politics have built additional barriers out here in the rainforest paradise.

Instead, the trip requires a twenty-six mile drive, takes fifty-some minutes, one bridge, two different drivers, and two different cars.  

One driver picks picks you up at the airport in a car with Argentinian license plates and drives you a dozen miles north to the border where he parks the car and transfers your luggage into a different car with Brazilian license plates. Another driver climbs behind the wheel and that car then takes you across the bridge between the two countries and drives you another dozen miles south to Iguazu Falls.

And that’s where Clayton Kershaw could easily toss another fastball back to Argentina’s Iguazu International Airport.

The international border between Argentina and Brazil runs right down the middle of the Parana River and, therefore, crosses directly under this bridge. Both halves of the bridge were becoming rundown, dirty, and covered with graffiti. In a bit of Brazilian oneupsmanship, all the local tour guides put together a covert team, stocked up with plenty of paint and rollers, and spruced up their side of the bridge in dark of night.

In this photo, you see Argentina on the west, Brazil on the east, and Paraguay smack dab in the middle. Of course, that border is still a couple more miles upriver, but that brings me to a question for which I really don’t have an answer:Is there any other place in the world where you can see three countries while standing in one location.

I’m going to guess that the answer is yes, but I really don’t know.

A few minutes after checking into the Belmond Hotel das Cataratas, we went for a sunset walk on a gentle tree-lined path that winds the length of the Iguazu Falls.

Moments after we started, we stumbled upon this exotic animal. It’s a Coatimundri (commonly called Coaties and pronounced “Qwaties” by the locals). Jamie described this lone creature as “looking like a cross between a raccoon and an ant eater.”

He was a bit hesitant. After shyly approaching two other hikers he slipped down over the edge of the precipice, and into the dark green overgrowth, never to be seen again.

So our assumption was that he was representative of his breed and that they were meek little creatures, afraid of man, and very hesitant to interact with us. Then we went for a visit to Argentinian National Park directly across the river on the Argentinian side.

Let me say right here and now that the shy Brazilian species cannot possibly be related to the aggressive Argentinian species. These little monsters hunt in packs and will steal any food that is not nailed down. If confronted by some unsuspecting human who actually remembers purchasing the food at the convenience market down the road and still has the receipts to prove it, these packs of coatis will rise up in anger and point out discrepancies in the human’s clearly forged receipts, and demand that that greedy human take his big meaty mitts off those muffins or he will come to the same bloody end as so many tourists before him.

No matter how many signs they put up in the park, no matter how many times park Rangers saved visitors from maurading mobs of coatimundis, they always seem to revert to saying, “Aaaaaaw. They’re so cute. I’m going to pet this one.”

And this is he result.

Monkeys & Coaties.
They can bite you,
Scratch, and steal things.
For your safety
and theirs don’t
offer food

It is, we’re sure you’ll agree, a dandy safety sign. One designed to keep all visitors alert and on guard at all times. However, if we had been making the sign, we may have added a section about using the monkeys and coaties using their razor sharp teeth and claws to slash you open and then squealing with glee as they watch the EMTs cart you away for emergency medical care at a third rate jungle emergency room.

Other than that, the sign seems to be an excellent waning system designed to keep all visitors safe as safe can be.

Same reason the tapir crossed the road.

And the same reason the monkey crossed the road.

And the same reason the pointy-headed python crosses the road.

The Belmond Hotel das Cataratas, once owned by fashion icon Louis Vuitton, has an ornate billiards room befitting its heritage.

I grew up with a pool table in our den and spent my twenty first summer playing pool every night down at the local bowling alley. Back in those days I was, at least in my mind, a clear challenger to Minnesota Fats’ world domination of the sport.

Despite the fact that I haven’t played more than a game or two as the decades have passed, I assumed those skills would rapidly return after I chalked up my cue stick and that I would still be able to sink every ball — bank shots, masse shots, you name it. I thought that you never forgot how to ride the bike.

Hah!

Jamie and I played one game that went on and on and on. Neither of us could put a ball in a pocket no matter how simple the shot. After an hour we had as many balls on the table as we started with.

She finally outlasted me and won the game. Or put us out of our misery. Take your choice.

After 30 hours of travel — including flights from Dallas to Houston, Houston to Buenos Aires, a 45-minute taxi ride across town from Buenos Aires’ international airport to its domestic airport, and finally another flight from Buenos Aires to Iguazu Falls — we finally arrived at the beautiful Belmond Hotel das Cataratas just a few minutes before the sun dropped below the horizon.

The hotel is reminiscent of Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite. They’re both old and stately and the only hotels in the middle of vast national parks. But the Hotel das Cataratas sits right on the edge (and I mean right at the edge) of a precipice overlooking the amazing Iguazu Falls.

Leonardo and Richard, the two young Brazilian front desk agents, were great. Leonardo did the requisite pitch to get us to upgrade to a room with a view of the waterfalls, then said in a quiet aside, “We have you booked in a room with a partial view of the falls, so the upgrade really isn’t necessary.”

Here’s the view. Not bad, huh?

But it gets better. Just wait until you see tomorrow’s photos.

As Jamie demonstrates here, not all selfies work out as intended.