Blogs from Paraná, Brazil, South America - page 4

We recently read a review of the Serra Verde Express train journey, written by an Australian guy who has travelled extensively and done some interesting things, like kayaking across Sydney Harbour and horse riding in the Australian outback. He said that his sensational ride on the Serra Verde Express in Paraná, Brazil, was “up there” with all the rest of his travel experiences. This kind of recommendation cannot be ignored, so we decided to ride this train. Would it live up to such high expectations? It did! Our Serra Verde experience this week was certainly up there with all of our other travel highlights and the Atlantic Rainforest is up there with other outstanding scenery that we have been fortunate to see, like the Grand Canyon and the Amazon. This train journey, through the Atlantic Rainforest, ... read more

The day started out cloudy and it even drizzled a little in the Brazil national park. The entrance to this national park was more well developed and structured. The park itself however was much smaller. Most of the waterfalls are located in the Argentinian side. This meant that the view from Brazil was spectacular. We weren't given a lot of time to walk through the trail (in my opinion anyway) but I still managed to enjoy the view immensely. Towards the end, just as we were leaving, the clouds parted and blue skies could be seen. The sun peaked through and I prayed for a rainbow. And not 5 seconds later, a rainbow appeared over the water falls. I have never been this excited or elated in my life. It was so beautiful. In the afternoon, ... read more

We awoke at 7 am and planned to visit the falls at the opening time of 9 am. It was to rain this day, but they said it would start after noon. Well, the opposite happened. Bernadete made a wonderful breakfast for us and then drove us to the bus stop. It took about 20 minutes to get to the falls by bus. It had begun to rain very hard, but what can you do? You are there to see the falls and must march on no matter what! We thought about waiting to see if the rain would stop, but decided to put on our ponchos and head out on the trails. The first sight of the falls was amazing! There are no words to describe it and the photos do not do any justice. ... read more

2 février 2015 - Jour 108 Nous voici arrivés à Puerto Iguazu, à la frontière avec le Brésil, porte d'entrée pour aller visiter les chutes d'eau d'Iguazu, partagées entre les 2 pays. L'idéal est de visiter les chutes des 2 côtés car elles n'offrent pas les mêmes panoramas: du côté brésilien on bénéficie d'une vue d'ensemble de tout le site avec des points de vue plus panoramiques tandis que du côté argentin on peut s'approcher très près des chutes, en les surplombant. Comme nous allons ensuite continuer notre route au Brésil, nous commencerons donc par le côté argentin. Avant de quitter le terminal de bus, nous achetons tous les billets nécessaires pour ces 2 prochains jours puis nous nous rendons à pied à notre hôtel pour déposer les bagages. Il est 8h du matin, le climat ... read more

Despite the arduous overnight bus to get there (a collapsed bridge meant we had to catch 4 buses over 20 hours), it was with great excitement and anticipation that we arrived in Iguaçu Falls. Having heard from many people that it was one of their highlights in the world, we were eager to get a glimpse of the enormous falls that straddle the border of Brasil, Argentina and Paraguay. Before we left Australia, we’d researched a lot and having read up on Brasil decided it might be easier to chose a (relatively) small part of it to focus on in the month we allocated. For that reason and because we would have been on the road for a long time, we booked an organised tour with Tucan Travel. The “Falls to Rio” tour was 10 days ... read more