Falling for Iguacu

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Matt Writes -

After an exuberant time enjoying the festivities of Rio carnival, we managed to blag a cheap last minute package deal that flew us (and put us up in a rather nice hotel thank you very much) south to the border town of Foz do Iguaçu, this instead of a 40 hour bus ride.

Iguassu Falls or Foz do Iguaçu (Brazillian) or Cataratas del Iguazú (Spanish) is a collection of 275 waterfalls that straddle the Brazillian/Argenine border. Four times the width of Niagra falls, it is only rivaled in size by Victoria Falls in South Africa. Infact, so large is the mass of water that constantly falls, we could see a steady mist rising from it and feeding a cloud above as we made our final landing approach on the plane.

We caught a local bus that dropped us off in the National park where we dutifuly paid our "foreigner" priced entrance fee, and walked around a badly lit but informative exhibition. Then it was onto the open top bus to take us closer to the falls unique in the world, with five kinds of forests and biosystems all in the same location.

Iguazu translates from the Guarani or Tupi indigenous tongue to "big water" although its size is belittled by its beauty. Wooden catwalks lead us along side a horizion full of cascades bursting through the forest. Our friend Pete popped the question to his lady Lindsey here a few days earlier and we could see why. (She said yes by the way!)

"Big G" however didn't think that there was sufficient water around for two travellers who'd endured a drenching on the Inka trail, and a stranding in Boliva from floods and thus promptly turned on the heavenly taps to add a nice spot of rain.

The amount of visitors disrupted the silence needed to appreciate the wildlife, who were sensibly hiding or perhaps making craft goods to sell in the information centre's gift shop. However we did encounter various lizards, lots of mischevious coati, and a tarrantula looking spider that was out for an afternoon stroll (very convenient considering Pete had mentioned seeing the very same thing in a similar location). I wondered if there was a possibility that the animals were working shifts but Emma dismissed this - their unions simply would not allow it.

A final catwalk took us out over some falls and closer to the base of the Devil's Throat for a great view, but also a great dowsing (not that that made much difference what with the rain). The volume of water made a deafening roar and produced a wind of spray that literally took your breath away.

Now that "Big G" had got bored of raining on us, we decided to walk back the way we came to enjoy the view once more this time with blue skies. More fun with more lizards (who seem to enjoy sunbathing) and a whole heap more coatis play fighting in the undergrowth and doing a great job at looking cute.

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Photos

Cloudy landings
Iguazu river meanders peacfully along until its meets a nearly 2 mile gaping hole creating this mist/cloud, visible from our plane as we landed

Jungle Falls
Looking over to Argentina, falls fell on on falls...so much falling.

A little bit of blue...
At last the rain stopped!

Not so insy
Was it clock work or just finishing his day shift? Whatever Pete and I saw this little fella in about the same place at about a similar time 3 days apart.

Coati
Ain't they cute?