Iguacu Falls

---

14th March ’13 Iguacu Falls

After sleeping in and missing breakfast (it finishes at 9am) we visited the supermarket, got some bananas and sandwiches and caught the local bus down to the Iguacu Falls National Park. It was the usual fight with the turnstile and a full bus. The sign said the bus seated 27 and had room for 65 standing!!!!!!!!!!!!! The buses we have been on in Brazil all have seating which disabled, elderly and pregnant people get ‘prefencial’ the buses here have an additional category – obesio complete with a picture of a big fat person, strange but true. I have never seen a big fat person use these seats and I very much doubt they could get through the turnstile to reach one anyway! I make sure I stand well away from them just in case someone offers me it!!

At the park we bought our entrance tickets and were handed a map and we then got on one of the jolly park buses which took us through the beautiful green rainforest. There were announcements in Portuguese and then English about the various stops and also mentioning the Matis – a kind of possum type animal which we saw wandering about everywhere, you are told not to feed them and keep away from them as if they scratch or bite you, you can get rabies, nice…but they look really cute.

The bus made a couple of stops where you could get out and do extra things like rappelling, jungle walks and the boat trips but none of these were included in the admission and they didn’t tell you how much they cost. I had really wanted to do the boat trip after Mum telling me about it but when we discovered it was £45 each we gave it a miss (that would pay for a couple of nights stay in a hostel!) We got off at the first view of the falls bus stop and followed the path down and round and suddenly there were some of the falls – these huge, thundering, cascading torrents of water, it was quite a sight. I had been thinking they weren’t that much more impressive than the Tissiat Falls in Ethiopia until we continued along the path and then it became apparent they just kept on coming. I have never seen such a huge set of waterfalls, it was spectacular!!

The path wound along and at every turn there were more falls, the spray was everywhere and it’s impossible to describe the power of the water, there were rainbows in the mists and views over to the Argentinian side, all it needed was Tarzan to be swinging by on a vine.

We came to a fork in the path which mentioned elavatores and we could see further off a walkway going out across the water so we headed down. Unbelievably they had built a walkway out across the top of one of the huge waterfalls! It was incredible!! I had bought my raincoat so I put it on but Howard hadn’t but we were not going to miss this opportunity and we walked onto it. To one side there were other waterfalls thundering down into a pool with mist and spray everywhere and to the other the water gushed and pounded over yet another drop. By the time we got off we were both utterly soaked and I couldn’t see out my glasses but it was amazing!!!!!!!!!!!

Back on slightly less wet land we carried on up the path and came to a lift! Yes a lift! (elevatore) To take you back up to the top!!! We had walked a long way down so that was a real bonus, but before we went up there was one last platform to stand on which was right by the waterfall, it was a kind of Niagra Cave of the Winds moment and I was already soaking…….

Well what a great place to visit and apparently the Argentinian side of the falls is even more spectacular, somehow I just can’t see it, the Brazilian side was just so incredible but I guess we will find out in a couple of days’ time.

Back at the hotel I discovered that the red top I bought in Kathmandu was not colour fast, in fact I now have permanently tye dyed underwear to prove it! Not only that but I have matching red arm too!

It actually rained later in the afternoon so we had a game of table tennis to pass the time and took a taxi to Haiku, a Chinese restaurant Howard read about. The food was very uninspiring but once again the sheer quantity was ridiculous. In the taxi on the way back we had a driver who spoke pretty good English who wanted to know what we thought of the Chinese, he then asked if we liked Brazilian meat and was very pleased when we both said a definite YES! We then had a discussion about the fact the new Papa was Argentinian and he wanted to know what he was called in English but whether it was our accents or not I don’t know but he now will tell everyone that the Papa is called the Popeeeee in England! Well it’s a lot better than some of the other names we could have taught him !

---

Photos

Iguacu Falls
First sight

Matis
They're behind you!!