Iguazu Falls

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So it´s 7:30am, Friday 2nd October (Day 26) and we´re at the bus station at Paraty waiting for a bus to take us back to Sao Paulo. The bus departs at 8:30am and we arrive in Sao Paulo for 3pm. Once there we were hoping to able to jump straight on the bus to the Iguazu Falls but unfortunately the next one wasn´t until 6:30pm.
During the wait we tried a Bob´s Burger which is basically like a McDonalds, however it was the most disgusting burger we´d ever eaten and also one of the most expensive!
The bus journey was 16 hours long and we wanted to make sure we got some sleep which so far we hadn´t been able to do very well. We stopped a lot on the way and once was at about 3am…Rick got out and we were basically in a dodgy small back alley behind someones house. There was an old woman with a cart selling food. Random.

Next morning, 7am, Saturday 3rd October…wake up from a not so peaceful sleep. Spend the next 3-4 hours drifting in and out of consciousness.

Once we arrive at the bus station we are too tired to mess around with buses so jump in a taxi straight to the Falls. Dump our rucksacks in lockers and away we go.
As we´re walking up to the entrance you see people walking away drenched!!

The first sights of the falls are breathtaking…there´s so much you can do there. Hikes / boat trips out to the waterfall etc. The boat trips looked awesome.

You´ll be able to see from the photos that we both got pretty soaked! (also - topshop waterproof jackets are RUBBISH…may have looked good but didn´t keep me in the slightest bit dry!)

We were going to travel across to the Argentina side of the falls in the afternoon so we got to see it from both angles but in the end we decided against it. The Brazilian side was good because we were able to get close up. The Argentine side was along the top. We decided to save the entrance fee and instead we relaxed at the restaurant/bar which sat over the waterfall and sank a few beers in the sun…nice. 😱

On the walk through the national park, we saw loads of South American Coati, a few lizards and beautiful brightly coloured butterflies. There are many endangered species in the park including jaguars and Yacare Caiman (crocodile thing), but luckily we didn´t meet any of them.

Once out of the falls we got a taxi to Argentina…our taxi driver was this nice lady who spoke English called Mari. Crossing the border was really easy. The only question they asked was to Lizzy when they looked at her passport they wanted to know her mother´s maiden name…not sure why. They didn´t look through our luggage or anything.

We were only in a small town which remains quite relaxed despite being right next to one of biggest tourist attractions in the country.

We were only staying for one night before we left for Cordoba.

In the evening we went out to a restaurant which claimed they did the ´best steak´ so Rick wanted to test it out. The man was true to his word and we ordered the sirloin steak and we were given about 12 oz each! We also tried their black pudding which was slightly different to what we were used to put still very nice. On top of that we shared chips, fried eggs for the steak, 2 bottles of wine and a desert each and it came to 30 GBP…I think we´re going to like Argentina!

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Comments

[Eileen]

the Falls
as you say the falls are amazing, u both did look a little wet, that steak meal must have been very welcome, just been looking at pics of your mum and dad biking in Thetford forrest, they should have done the go ape. I can't wait to see where you go next, i feel as if we are all with you, so real. Take care

[Jane]

Love reading your blog, safe trip to Buenos aires, have fun, lots of love from mum, dad, stevie and all the critters xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx