South America in widescreen

WHEN we reached the elegant Hotel Tropical das Cataratas early one Saturday afternoon last fall, its charming pink facade was shrouded in a thick, soupy fog. More sensible travelers might have settled into the leather sofas in front of the Belvedere Room fireplace and waited out the weather with a tumbler of Scotch. I have to admit that was tempting.

But my two friends and I were on a very tight schedule; we had a long weekend, less than 80 hours, in South America. We couldn’t let bad weather stop us.

We scrambled across the road to the edge of a cliff high above the Rio Iguacu, squinted into the misty curtain and prepared to be dazzled, like the first European explorers in 1541, by the majesty of Iguacu Falls.

The full-throated sound of rushing water was unmistakable and tantalizing. Yet we couldn’t see a thing. Nothing.

So we did the only thing we could do: We began to laugh at our bad luck. We took turns posing for photographs in front of the curtain of mist, our camera flashes ricocheting back at us, capturing the irony of this invisible wonder of the world.

Then, slowly, the mist began to break. Clumps of clouds rolled past, offering glimpses of small waterfalls. As we began hiking along the cliff’s edge, we saw ever-larger spans of the cascading water. It appeared as if the lush jungle plateau had suddenly sprung dozens of leaks: Water raced over and around mossy islands and leafy trees, leaping into the air before plunging deep into the gorge. Some of the chutes were gushing spigots just a few feet across; others spanned hundreds of feet.

I found myself wondering: Just how big was this thing?

A good case of wanderlust

TO get here, we had traveled 8,000 miles in just under 48 hours -- in taxis, buses and three planes.

But it wasn’t as though we had planned this for months. The three of us -- all fathers of teenagers -- had mapped out the journey less than two weeks earlier, over wine and steak at a La Canada Flintridge restaurant.

This wasn’t our first trip together. A year earlier, we had journeyed to Peru and, in only four days, roamed the ancient streets of Cuzco, explored the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu and sipped pisco sours on the terrace of Lima’s spectacularly situated Huaca Pucllana restaurant, overlooking the excavation of a 1,500-year-old pyramid.

And a few months after the Iguacu Falls trip, we would be on the road again -- this time to Jordan, where in 3 1/2 days we explored the 2,000-year-old Nabatean settlement of Petra, waded into the Dead Sea at sunset, took in the promised land from Mt. Nebo and scrambled around the striking ruins of the Greco-Roman city of Jerash.

Our guidelines for these trips were pretty simple: The destination had to be exotic, and it had to include a visit to something none of us had seen before. It also had to be a place that our spouses didn’t mind our visiting without them (Paris and London were out), and it had to be done quickly, so we were back before anyone knew we were gone.

My traveling companions were Richard Goetz and Steve Stathatos, lawyers and fellow La Canada Flintridge dads. Each of us has seen some of the world for business as well as pleasure, and we have serious cases of wanderlust. But it was the idea of traveling thousands of miles for what was essentially a long weekend that held a magical appeal.

The marvel of cellphones and BlackBerrys meant we were never far from the office, and we used spare moments to conduct business, sometimes with colleagues who never suspected we were a continent away. (And not just business: As we were driving through a sandstorm on our trip to Jordan a few months later, Rich interrupted the silence to announce that he had just used his BlackBerry to buy a sweater from L.L. Bean.)

These soccer dad escapes weren’t “vacations” in the traditional sense, because we didn’t kick back and relax in hopes of recharging our batteries. Rather, they were delicious journeys of discovery, taken at breakneck speed and stolen from busy work and home lives. In a way, too, they were proof that even middle-aged guys with sore knees and stiff backs can be as nimble as 20-year-old backpackers. (Well, almost as nimble, at least for short stretches.)

First stop: Buenos Aires

OUR journey to Iguacu Falls (or Iguazu, as it’s known on the Argentina side) was planned for maximum adventure in minimum time.

Although we were somewhat price-conscious, we also knew we weren’t going to be there long, so when faced with the choice of spending a little extra money to save time, we did it. We chose luxury hotels on the rationale that we’d be spending two nights on airplanes. We booked separate rooms for maximum comfort. We arranged for drivers to whisk us around. And the unwritten rule of our road was carry-on baggage only; we couldn’t afford to waste precious minutes waiting for checked luggage or porters. (The final tab, including airfare, was about $2,500 apiece.)

We left LAX on a Thursday, changed planes in Washington, D.C., and landed in Buenos Aires on a Friday morning, ready to roll. After checking into the elegant Alvear Palace Hotel in the tony Recoleta barrio, or neighborhood, we headed out with a car and driver for a quick tour of the city. (Like other things in the city, that was surprisingly affordable -- about $10 per hour, which we divided three ways.)

We walked around the Plaza de Mayo and posed for photographs in front of the Casa Rosada (Pink House) and the famous balcony where Juan and Eva Peron -- and, of course, Madonna in the movie “Evita” -- addressed thousands of Argentines in the 1940s and early ‘50s.

We paused for lunch at El Desnivel, recommended by a friend who lives in Buenos Aires, and adored the delightfully busy, unpretentious restaurant. Surrounded by tables of locals, we ordered skirt steaks and fries and tested our rudimentary Spanish on a gregarious waiter who pretended to understand. We checked and rechecked the conversion rate, and, to our delight, lunch for three cost about $20.

After lunch, we explored the cobbled streets and antique shops of San Telmo. We didn’t want to leave the charming barrio on such a glorious fall day, so we paused for a beer at a cafe on the nearby Plaza Dorrego.

After a short nap, we joined friends for dinner at El Mirasol, a restaurant surrounded by glass windows and decorated by city lights. Over platefuls of parilla (mixed grill) and bottles of full-bodied Argentine red wine, we chatted with Patrick McDonnell, The Times’ Buenos Aires correspondent, who had just come off a two-year tour of duty for the paper in Baghdad.

Show-stopper

THE next morning, we boarded a plane for the two-hour flight north to Iguacu Falls, arriving around noon in a driving rainstorm. When the hotel car didn’t materialize, we grabbed a taxi and headed for the Iguazu Grand Hotel Resort & Casino.

The stunning waterfalls are at the northeastern tip of Argentina, on a tropical thumb of land that pokes into Paraguay and Brazil; the falls themselves are divided between Argentina and Brazil. They are twice as wide as Victoria Falls in Africa and carry more than twice the water of Niagara Falls, in dozens of distinctive cascades in a 2 1/2 -mile arc of free-floating rainbows.

The falls can be seen from the Brazilian and Argentine sides of the border, where each country has a national park.

Our guidebooks recommended we take in the view from both sides, allowing a half-day for the Brazilian side and a full day for the Argentine side. So we arranged for a hotel car and driver to take us across the border to the entrance to Brazil’s Parc Nacional do Iguacu.

We paid our admission fee in the visitors center and climbed onto a double-decker park bus, which stopped at the launching spots for guided hikes, jeep and boat rides. But we waited for the last stop, the Hotel Tropical das Cataratas, which is the best place to begin a self-guided tour of the falls.

As the mist cleared, we strolled about a mile along a narrow paved walkway that hugged the cliffside, pausing periodically to admire the ever-changing view. As we neared the headwaters, the views grew even more dramatic.

Near the end of the trail, we ventured onto a metal catwalk that stretched out over the falls. With the water plummeting beneath us, the deafening Garganta del Diablo (Devil’s Throat) cascading behind us, the waves of wind and water buffeting us, we started to get wet. Very wet, despite our rain slickers. It was a good thing we had remembered to wrap our wallets and money in plastic bags.

At the end of the trail, a catwalk led to a viewing platform beneath part of the falls. We watched as our fellow tourists raced onto the platform, posing for photographs as the water crashed down on them. Amid the din, we looked at one another and shrugged our shoulders. Why not? Trading cameras, we took turns on the platform.

Back at the Hotel Tropical, we sat by the pool, drinking beer and hoping our clothes would dry. Inside, we took a look at the hotel buffet but chose the restaurant, where the food was just so-so. We had after-dinner drinks in the bar, surrounded by mostly American tourists. Exhausted, we called a taxi to take us back to our hotel in Argentina.

On Sunday, a breezy, cloudless day, we headed for Parque Nacional Iguazu on the Argentina side. My shoes had dried overnight, but I noticed that my leather wristwatch band already had started to smell of mildew.

The sun brought out some of the bird and animal life that distinguishes this region. The day before, we had spotted a toucan in a tree, one of 400 species of birds in the two parks, and fed crumbs to the ubiquitous raccoon-like coatis, despite signs discouraging the practice. Now the air was dancing with butterflies and chattering birds, and the falls conjured up rainbow after rainbow.

The Argentine park offered several trails -- the upper circuit, which runs about half a mile along the upper lip of the falls, and the lower circuit, which runs about a mile and gives you the sensation that you’re walking amid them, a sensation made real by periodic blasts of water. (A third trail, which includes a metal walkway right on top of the Garganta del Diablo, was closed, as it frequently is, because of high water.)

We paused at the Sheraton Internacional Iguazu, the only hotel inside the park. It had been full when we made our travel arrangements (the downside of making our plans so late), but we walked in, took an elevator to the roof and were treated to a panoramic view from the deck.

The boat trip up the river to the falls was sold out for the afternoon, so we hiked along the 2 1/2 -mile Macuco Nature Trail, which winds through the forest and ends at a small waterfall that trips into a pool. There, hardy groups of tourists shed their outerwear and splashed around in the waist-deep water. We paused, probably longer than we should have, to watch them. They asked us to take photographs of them with their cameras, and we happily obliged.

That night, we dined at the Iguazu Grand Hotel’s restaurant, which struck us as unnecessarily fancy. After dinner, as we strolled the grounds, we had an unexpected treat. One of Argentina’s most popular music groups, Los Nocheros, was playing a packed free concert in the open-air venue next door, and we listened until well past midnight, relishing our good timing and luck.

One more for the road

ON Monday morning, we headed back to the airport and arrived in Buenos Aires in time for lunch. Feeling the need for one last fix of Argentine beef, we chose Rodizio, a classic waterfront parilla restaurant and settled into a perfect window table where roving waiters served us grilled meats sliced from long skewers.

We again hired a driver, who dropped us off in Palermo Soho for some last-minute shopping in the flea markets and boutiques. We also stopped at a music store to pick up Los Nocheros CDs, and headed for the airport for the overnight flight home.

We were back in Los Angeles before anyone missed us.

scott.kraft@latimes.com

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Splashy entrance

GETTING THERE:

From LAX, direct service (stop, no change of planes) to Buenos Aires is offered on Lan, and connecting service (change of plane) is available on American, Delta, Continental, United and Lan. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $843.

WHERE TO STAY:

Alvear Palace Hotel, 1891 Avenida Alvear, Buenos Aires, Argentina; 011-54-11-4808-2100, www.alvearpalace.com. An elegant hotel in the heart of La Recoleta. Doubles from $385.

Iguazu Grand Hotel Resort & Casino, Puerto Iguazu City, Argentina; 011-54-3757-498050, www.casinoiguazu.com. A sprawling hotel on lush grounds with a large pool. Despite the casino, very family-friendly. Doubles from $320.

WHERE TO EAT:

In Buenos Aires:

El Mirasol, 136 Boedo, Almagro; 011-54-11-4864-5890, www.el-mirasol.com.ar. Thick cuts of fine Argentine beef, including sirloin, rib-eye and tenderloin. Main courses $5-$30.

Rodizio, 838 Alicia Moreau de Justo, 011-54-11-4334-3646. Grilled meats served by roving waiters, and a large salad buffet. Lunch buffet about $15.

El Desnivel, 855 Defensa; 011-54-11-4300-9081. Serves parilla, pasta and salads. Entrees under $10.

At Iguacu Falls:

Hotel Tropical das Cataratas, Rodovia Br 469 KM 28, Parque Nacional do Iguacu, Foz do Iguacu, Parana, Brazil; 011-55-45-2102-7000, www.tropicalhotel.com.br. Continental and Brazilian specialties. Main courses $15-$40.

TO LEARN MORE:

Argentina Tourism Office, (212) 603-0443, www.turismo.gov.ar.

Tourism Office of Brazil, (800) 727-2945, www.braziltourism.org.

-- Scott Kraft