Iguazu (Iguassu) Falls are a must-see if you’re near the Argentine-Brazilian border; 82 metres of foaming water cascading down a sheer cliff face, adding up to one of the most stunning waterfalls in the world. They’re also easy to reach from Buenos Aires, with a 90-minute flight. It is sometimes said ‘from the Brazilian side you see the falls, and from the Argentinian side you live them’; certainly Argentina can lay claim to more of them, with about 80% of Iguazu lying on the Argentine side. Approaching the thundering falls in a boat is one of the most exhilarating travel experiences imaginable. The Iguazu National Park is also well worth exploring and home to a staggering variety of different fauna and flora, including jaguars, tapirs, ocelots, and anteaters. A particularly evocative experience is a full moon walk, which depart for five consecutive nights per month and take in Garganta del Diablo, or Devil’s Throat, a particularly dramatic chasm down which half of the falls plummet.
The Ibera Marshes are a little-visited wetland in the northeast teeming with birds and animals. The second largest wetlands in the world after the Pantanal in Brazil, the Ibera Wetlands are formed from an intricate network of lagoons, lakes, creeks and swamps where you can see alligators, caiman, otters, deer, capybara and over 350 species of bird. Stay at Rincon del Socorro and you can combine both Iguazu and Ibera.
Extending away from Argentina like a branch into Brazil and Paraguay, Misiones is often experienced by travellers through the window of a bus en route to Iguazu, but this province has a notable water feature of its own worth visiting. Though far less dramatic than Iguazu, the Saltos del Moconá is quite lovely, a cascading shelf of water which only reaches 15 metres high but winds along for 3 kilometres.
