Instead of taking the the bus we decided to hire a driver, so we were picked at 7:30am in front of our apartment by Patricia and reached the falls just before 8am. I had bought tickets online (during our visit, $45K pesos per person) so we were able to join the short queue and use my phone to scan into the park. Our plan was to get tickets for the train to Devil’s Throat first before it got too crowded and because it’s the most sun-exposed hike. Train transport is included in the price of the park entrance ticket and we got the first available train at 8:30am. It’s a slow ride but much better than walking!
From the train stop the trail to the Diablo overlook is about 1.4 miles round trip, most of it over water on a flat raised platform. People tend to be clumped at the beginning, then spread out after 200 meters or so. You could see the mist in the distance before arriving at the overlook where crowds of people lined up for a view of the top of the falls while trying not to get completely soaked!
We hustled back to the train station and managed to catch the 9:30am train to the Cataratas station, the jumping off point for the upper and lower circuits. We started with the top circuit, a 1.5 mile one-way path with viewing balconies for the following falls: Salto Dos Hermanas, Salto Chico, Salto Bossetti, Salto Eva, Salto Adán, Salto Bernabé Méndez, Salto Mbiguá and Salto San Martín. This route takes you to the tops of most of the falls that you get to see on the lower circuit and provides some amazing views.
We reapplied our sunblock, had a snack, then made our way to the start of the lower circuit, a 1.8 mile path with viewpoints for Salto Dos Hermanas, Salto Chico, Salto Bossetti, Salto Álvar Nuñez and Salto Lanusse. I highly recommend doing both the upper and lower trails as the viewpoints are very different and combined they give you a more complete feel for the sheer amount of water flow.
There were a decent number of people on the trail, so getting photos could involve waiting for people to take selfies. From time to time we did get opportunities to ourselves which was nice.
Both the upper and lower circuits had shady spots to hang out and we brought umbrellas (which I used) for sustained sunny areas. Once we finished the circuits we had a 15 minute walk back to the main entrance and I gave our driver a 30 minute heads up to come get us. Altogether we were in the park for 4 hours. By the time we left the temperature was near 90 degrees (and humid) so we were glad we got to see everything we wanted to in the morning and in reasonably shaded conditions!