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Published: November 11th 2007
One of the great disadvantages of the various TV travel documentaries on channels such as Discovery and National Geographic is that there aren't too many surprise venues left in the world these days. As an example, while we loved our visit to Machu Picchu, it wasn't a total surprise, as I guess we had viewed that location many times previously on telly. But I'm pleased to report a pleasant surprise on our first viewing of the Iguazu Falls. Not only was the scope and magnitude of them greater than we had anticipated, but no TV channel can quite reproduce the thundering noise and the feeling of the spray as you come close up to this magnificent sight. So on that basis alone, this venue probably got our vote as the most exciting sight, and it was a nice way to finish our long, and at times tiring, trip to South America.
We were very lucky with the weather on two counts. It had been raining heavily just before our visit, we had two magnificent days of cloudless skies, no wind and mid-thirties temperatures during our stay, and it again poured with rain the day we left. So not only did
we get to enjoy wearing summer clothes again after all our time up in the heights of the Andes, but the river levels were high, which meant the falls were really pushing heavy volumes of water while we were there.
There are two ways to see the falls. You can come in from the Brazil side, from where we are told you get the best overall perspective of the Falls, but given the hassles with visas, plus our experience with Uruguay, we did not consider that option. Given that most of the Falls reside within Argentina, we decided to go that route, and were glad we did. The Falls themselves are quite isolated, basically situated in the middle of the Iguazu National Park, which is a sub-tropical jungle region. The closest township is Puerto Iguazu, some 20kms away, and this is really just a town to service the Falls, much as Aguas Calientes is to Machu Picchu, and closer to home, Siem Reap is to Angkor Wat. However, I must say we felt that PI was a lot more tourist friendly than AG.
As for the Falls themselves, we set off early morning on a great clear day.
During the day, we trekked around the whole area byn a combination of train, jeep, boat and walking, and this gave us a pretty good perspective of the Falls from all sides and angles. I´m not even going to try to get into a description of the Falls, as my literary talents don´t stretch that far, so I´m afraid you will either have to make do with the attached pics or come and see for yourselves. Two special highlights for us were the boat ride into the base of several of the falls - we had visualised going into the spray area and getting a little moist, but instead they took us straight underneath a couple of the smaller ones and we got absolutelt drenched. Fortunately, with temperature at that stage in the high 30´s, there were not too many complaints! On the way back, we just happened to notive a toucan, with its very characteristic orange beak, hassling a few smaller birds. We watched in fascination for about 5 minutes and tried to get close up pics, but it wouldn´t stay still for us. Still it was great to see, and replaced the disappointment of 4 years ago in
Costa Rica, where we expected to see toucans but didn´t.
The night before seeing the Falls, we took a ´moonlight cruise´ along the Iguazu and Parana Rivers. The former separates Argentina from Brazil, while the latter separates it from Paraguay, so the junction of these two rivers is like the Asian Golden Triangle, where a river junction separates Thailand, Myanmar and Laos. The cruise was great, and we actually berthed briefly in Paraguay (I suspect not legally) to watch a ritual dance performed by a group of young Paraguay Indian kids.
So that´s about it for the trip, folks! All in all I think we did pretty well, getting the chance to visit each of the ´big four´ of Galapagos, Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca and Iguazu Falls in perfect weather and without any major mishap (I guess the biggest drama was losing my camera and having my computer die on me). Furthermore, we had no real dramas with health, any of our dozen or so flights, and for good measure, we are still talking to each other! So what were the favourites¿ I think in terms of specific attractions, probably Iguazu and Colca Canyon, because each brought a
little of the unexpected for us. And in terms of places to stay, we particularly enjoyed our times in Arequipa in Peru, and Cuenca and Otavalu in Ecuador.
Finally, many thanks to the many of you who took the time to drop us a line while we were travelling. We had thought more people would have used the general Comments section to post their thoughts, but in reality, far more used the personalised Message to send us a private note. I guess our friends are just shy! But seriously, it was great to get the notes from home when you are travelling for as long as we were, even if it was just to tell me what a dickhead I was for losing the camera. Joan and I look forward to catching up with as many of you as we can before the end of the year, and boring you with our travel stories. Until our further overseas travelssometime next year, hasta luego.
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Lorna Coochiroff
non-member comment
Have you guys missed me! I was thinking I hadn't heard anything for a while so went into your blog and found 3 new items. For some reason I didn't get a notification like I'd gotten every other time so hadn't been keeping up with the trip. Now the big news you had to say was that you'd finished your trip. When do you get home? I won't comment on the final leg of the journey as I hope to catch up with you both in person soon but it certainly sounds magical. Tell me when to start cooking Neil. Lorna