Travel
Visitors to Iguazú Falls often overlook the wild Misiones region surrounding it — but one lodge working with the area’s Indigenous Guarani people is hoping to change that.
BySarah Marshall
Published January 25, 2024
This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK).
Thumping with a million mini heartbeats, the jungle never sleeps. Insects hum, monkeys squeal and birds trill to create a rapturous symphony. But in the humid equatorial rainforests, almost everyone needs a rest by midday.
Drifting silently along the terracotta waters of the Yacu-I River, I allow the current to carry me downstream. It’s one of hundreds of rivers, streams and creeks eventually making their way to the mighty Iguazú Falls, just over 60 miles away from where I’m kayaking. In 2022, almost three million people visited the falls — a UNESCO World Heritage site that straddles a border with Brazil at the northeastern tip of Argentina and is divided between both countries. Many tourists fly in as part of a broader South America circuit and stay here for only a few days, missing out on the beauty of the Misiones province that lies beyond it on the Argentinian side.
Brazil’s unfathomably vast forests cover almost 60% of the country, but in Misiones — an area roughly the size of Belgium — only around 6% of the original Atlantic rainforest that once covered the region remains. Awasi, which operates a 14-villa lodge on the edge of Iguazú National Park, believes one of the best ways to protect that precious pocket of biodiversity is by showing people what’s there. When the lodge opened in 2017, it made an agreement with a local farmer to purchase the Yacu-I Reserve, a plot of pristine subtropical forest with river access.
My guides and I had left the lodge early that morning to drive for 90 minutes along Route 101, a dirt track of fiery red soil overhanging with the boughs of rosewood trees, once the dominant species before the timber-hungry Spanish conquistadors arrived from the 1540s onwards. While I kayaked, my companions Chito Victor Dos Santos and Nona Silveira De Asis had prepared an asado barbecue of sizzling meats with mbeju — a type of pancake made with cassava flour, stuffed with cheese.
Knowing how to navigate the jungle is critical for survival. Nobody understands this forest better than the Indigenous Guarani, who have moved across vast areas spanning Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Argentina for hundreds of years. They were one of the first tribes to be contacted by Europeans when they arrived in these lands and around 11,000 still live in Misiones, with four communities neighbouring the Awasi lodge.
By special agreement, I’m invited into one of the villages and taken on a tour by local guide Karaí José. Pulling up on a motorbike, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, he looks like any other Argentine, but a passion for his culture runs deeper than any of the roots supporting this ancient forest.
Seeking shade from the sun, several children play outside mudbrick houses, while their parents tend to plantations of corn, sweet potatoes and cassava. Plants are still used for medicine in Guarani communities and traps set to catch animals for food. “But we never touch rosewood and we don’t hunt certain animals during the mating season,” insists Karaí, demonstrating a respect for sustainability that’s always been part of the Guarani’s DNA. According to a legend, the forest goblin Pombero will terrorise anyone chopping down trees they don’t need.
Sharing stories with younger generations is the key to preserving Guarani culture. The best-known tale describes the origins of Iguazú Falls, created when two lovers from rival tribes incurred the wrath of a demonic river goddess and were transformed into a mighty cascade called the Devil’s Throat and a nearby tree.
Awasi guide Josefina Stocca recounts this legend the following morning when she takes me to the national park at 8am, before any crowds arrive. Vultures glide on thermals and swifts somersault through coils of mist tumbling from the curtain of cataracts like a maiden’s silky locks. Overhead, a rainbow forms, bridging the water and forest. The Guarani interpret this phenomenon as the power of love conquering all evil. In a moment, it disappears. But it’s a reminder of the natural connections that make Iguazú thrive.
How to do it:
A nine-day Argentina trip costs from £5,299 per person based on two sharing, including three nights’ all-inclusive at Awasi Iguazú and flights.
This story was created with support from Latin Routes and Awasi.
Published in the Jan/Feb 2024 issue of National Geographic Traveller (UK).
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