There's only one thing better than having a great view of the jungle – staying slap bang in the middle of the jungle.
Loi Suites Iguazu Falls Hotel is just a 20 minute drive from UNESCO world heritage site Iguazu Falls, but its Misiones jungle location makes it easy to forget that just five minutes in the car and you’re on a main road. This makes Loi Suites Iguazu the perfect base for visitors who don’t want to stump up the Sheraton’s premium rates (the only hotel on the Argentinian side of Iguazu Falls national park), but still crave a slice of luxury.
This hotel warrants more than a cursory one night stay en route to the falls though: arriving into the huge atrium is almost weep-worthy, knowing that in less than 24 hours I’ll have to check out again. The entrance is a cross between a Thai sanctuary: dim lighting, serene music and dark, polished wooden floors and a Moorish palace: central mosaic pool, ornate cushions, ceramics, pottery and oversize fez lamps.
Reception staff hand us a map with our room key and it’s easy to see why: rooms are reached via a network of identical looking wooden walkways and we take wrong turns on several occasions. Channelling Indiana Jones, there’s just enough wobble in the gangways to evoke ‘jungle adventure’ without reaching Temple of Doom levels of instability.
Three interconnecting pools are the centrepoint of this five-star hotel. For all the pristine white pool furniture, infinity pool and teak decking though, being in the middle of the jungle does have the disadvantage of being a lot more shady. By late afternoon, sun worshippers are forced to contort into odd shapes on the edge of their sunloungers or find sun spots in one of the pools (I try sitting on a concrete island, but there's a palm tree growing out of it, shading me).
After (attempts at) premature ageing, eating and drinking is next down on the list of things I love to do abroad – and even better is when you get to a country like Argentina and an excess of (homemade by the chef every day) empanadas, malbec and dulche de leche is considered cultural rather than gluttonous. After just 24 hours, I realise I'd rather forget the suntan and sit in the shade for a week if it meant I got to meander around the spa, eat more empanadas and drink more fresh juice.
Don’t make the same mistake I did – come for the weekend.
