Tears of Water

Stayed (3) nights in Puerto Iguazu Argentina (Hotel Saint George - great location right across from the bus terminal), a nice safe town that serves as a place for visitors going to Iguazu (Argentina side) and Iguacu (Brazilian side) falls. The one interesting part of this wee town is the fact that they have a viewing area that over looks Paraguay and Brazil allowing you to see all three countries at one time. This is also the point where the rivers Rio Iguazu and Alto Parana meet.

Although not nearly the size of the Argentinean side, we visited the Brazilian side first, which provided great pananormic views and was the more spectacular of the two. The process of going from Argentina to Brazil was very easy. There is no sign of Brazilian Immigration, the only thing remotely close to it was the sanitation area which required us to get out of the bus (local) wipe our feet and get back on - go figure we stepped on the same sidewalk getting back into the bus as we did getting out, making the wiping of the feet excercise completely irrelevant! After going to Brazil the first time and not having to go through Brazilian immigration, we thought that our $90 that we had forked out for our Brazilian visa was all for not. However, on our way to the airport a few days later, on the same bus with the same bus driver, the bus driver insisted that we go through Brazilian Immigration. The only thing we could figure out was that there were only (4) of us on the bus this time, all with backpacks, versus a full bus on the first trip over - whatever works!

The Iguacu falls are everything they are advertised to be and we had a nice sunny warm day. Not to be out done by the falls is the Parque das Aves Bird Zoo. We spent a good 1 ½ hours here viewing all the toucans, parrots and other note worthy birds. The highlight is definetly the parrot cage where you hang out with about 50 parrots - friendly creatures who try their damness to play with you. We both took turns playing tug-a-war with this one parrot, however the others did not appreciate it and started dive bombing us. The Toucan was by far the friendliness of the birds, always trying to get closer and closer to your camera and then switching poses after each shot. Fortunately we had the falls and the bird zoo to ourselves so we could afford to goof around.

Our visit to the Argentinean side provided us with some excitement as the quiet National Park was alive with the sounds of the Argentinean soccer announcers yelling GOOOOOOL as they opened the scoring against Germany. We gave serious thought to putting off viewing the Iguazu falls on this day due to the thought that the falls may just stop following for the 90+ minutes that the game was on - no joke everything else comes to a standstill. Our visit was short lived as a result of a few hours sitting around waiting for the thunder, lightning and rain to pass which never did happen. Unbeknownst to ourselves and the Argentinean fans, the thunder and lightning was Mother Nature´s way of warning us that something was a brewing. We along with the park staff huddled undercover to watch the shootout which ended in complete silence (Argentina was eliminated)......worried about what may follow we hopped on the bus and headed back!!!

TIP FOR THOSE STAYING ON THE ARGENTINEAN SIDE AND GOING TO THE BRAZIL FALLS - when you take the bus from Argentina once you cross the border get off at the 2nd bus stop and then cross the street and catch bus #120. This will save you having to go all the way into the city as well as a good (1) hour of time. Coming back from the falls, do the same thing and get off at the same bus stop, cross the street and catch the Iguazu and Iguacu bus.

Off to Rio where whip lash is no doubt going to be a problem!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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