Iguazu to El Soberbio and Los Saltos del Mocona (3 nights)

THANKS TO SOME great research by Lila, the “e-concierge” at the Panoramic Hotel (she’s actually based in an office 1,000 km away in the centre of Buenos Aires!), we didn’t have to get up at 4 am to catch the “Expreso del Selva” bus service to El Soberbio. Instead, we took one of the regular buses from Iguazu to Posadas – Empresa Argentina, M. Horianski and the ubiquitous Flechabus have departures – and changed at Jardin America for a connecting El Cometa service into the heart of the jungle.
M. Horianski and Flechabus both offer comfortable semi-cama services while Empresa Argentina is a bit more threadbare. The total, seven-hour journey cost us about 70 pesos each. A full timetable for all the local bus companies criss-crossing Missiones can be found here.
El Soberbio is a bit off the tourist track. It’s a pleasant, bustling little place on the banks of the River Uruguay. Like the other towns we passed through on the way from Jardin America, it’s as far from an overgrown “jungle town” as you could imagine. Its neatly-manicured lawns, tree-lined avenues and brightly-painted low-storey buildings are more like something out of Desperate Housewives than Wages of Fear. The whole region of Missiones appears to have had a lot of money invested in it, and an evidently thriving tobacco and mate-growing industry has helped.
El Soberbio is the gateway to the Saltos del Mocona, an extraordinary 3-km long waterfall near the source of the River Uruguay. As a result, several luxury “eco-lodges” have sprung up nearby. We were booked in at one of the less expensive ones, Posada La Bonita, which lay nestled in the hills a bumpy hour’s drive from El Soberbio.
The most expensive part of staying at Posada La Bonita or any of the other lodges is the cost of the 4WD transfers in and out. While the road that follows the route of the River Uruguay from El Soberbio is paved, the roads off it leading up the lodges (and local communities) are back-breaking cart tracks(sometimes impassable after heavy rain).
Posada La Bonita had recommended Sergio for our transfer from the El Soberbio bus station. He charged what appeared to be the standard rate of 180 pesos one-way. But I wouldn’t recommend him for the simple reasons that he lied to me when I asked if there was a bus from El Soberbio on the morning of our departure. He said there wasn’t and that therefore we would require a transfer to the next town, San Vicente, at a cost of 280 pesos. I agreed, only to learn during the course of our stay that there WAS a bus from El Soberbio – at midday – and that anyway the transfer to San Vicente was being offered significantly cheaper – 220 pesos – by Miguel at mocona4x4@yahoo.com.ar (We only found this out after the brilliant Don Miguel had taken us on the excursion to the Saltos del Mocona the next day. I managed to cancel my arrangement with Sergio and do business with Miguel instead)

POSADA LA BONITA

The Posada La Bonita (see right) was something we’d discovered in the pages of Taschen’s coffee table book, Great South American Escapes. We arrived in darkness and were disappointed when the cabin we were led to turned out to bear as much resemblance to the glossy photos in the book as Gerard Depardieu does to Eva Mendes. Then, when we returned to the main house for dinner and discovered there was no room for us to eat out on the verandah, it dawned on us that owner Franco Martini(part time international playboy) had obviously overbooked. It wasn’t quite the tranquil, peaceful experience promised in Great South American Escapes.
By the light of the next morning it became clear just how rubbish our leaning, wooden cabin – number 4, and plainly the emergency overspill option – was compared with the others in all their handsome, stone-fronted splendour. We expressed our disappointment (again) at breakfast, but Gladys and Waldemar – the brother and sister who run the place – had already taken steps to rectify things. They’d already cleaned out cabin number 3 – following the early morning departure of its occupants – and suggested we could move in there, or to one of their hilltop cabins a 5 km walk away. We chose the first option. This was much more like it. The rest of our stay was a dream, and when I suggested a discount for the first night, they happily knocked US$50 off our bill. (NOTE: Despite the credit card signs on their website, they accept only cash, which means some forward planning is required if you are to beat the daily limit imposed by your ATM and still have enough to cover your accommodation and meals at the lodge.)
But the undoubted highlight of Posada La Bonita – apart from stumbling across a magnificent, three-foot-long coral snake on the way to breakfast after a sudden rainstorm one morning - was sitting outside our cabin after dinner with a bottle of duty-free single malt and staring up at a sky bejeweled with thousands – thousands – of stars….

SALTOS DEL MOCONA

The excursion to Saltos del Mocona was an incredible experience. Don Miguel charges 130 pesos each for the excursion which lasts a full afternoon and involves two hours on a speedboat and an hour “walking” across the top of the falls for a view from above. But again, it’s the cost of the transfer from your hotel to the embarkation point which bumps up the cost. Sergio charged us 300 pesos for the return transfer. I suspect Don Miguel would have charged less.
What made the trip so memorable was that the falls, though not as epic as Iguazu, are in a natural, completely unspoiled environment – and they really do stretch for three km along the Argentine side of the river. The boat trip to them takes you past miles of pristine jungle on the Brazilian side. We saw parrots and turtles. When you get there – there were eight of us tourists on board – Don Miguel’s expert boat-handling takes you right to the foot of the 10-metre drop. Again, prepare to get wet.
Afterwards, Don Miguel moored the boat to some rocks and his son-in-law led us down a trail – past inquisitive coati – to a point in the river where you are above the falls. A series of posts with some limp rope strung between them is the “path” through the water to the lip of the falls. Though not deep, it is extremely slippery underfoot, and the “path” provides no help at all. It is something which would have been closed down by the health and safety inspectors in Britain a long time ago. It took me about half an hour to get halfway across, by which time I was fed up of falling arse over heels and decided to return before I broke an ankle(or worse).