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Published: December 13th 2007
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Ahhhh, Iguazu falls. It says something in the Lonely Planet about some people believing that waterfalls create ions that induce happiness... don´t know about that but I was pretty excited about seeing them before we got there.
We caught the overnight bus down from Campo Grande to Foz do Iguazu, arriving at the ungodly hour of 5 something AM which was pretty average and not at all to form for us (we had been expecting to arrive at about 9AM, our buses never arrive early!). After yet another bus station bathroom wash we sorted out how to get out to the falls which involved more bus and station time; but whatever right? blah blah blah...
So we arrived at the Brazil side of the falls pretty much spot on opening time and sorted out somewhere to dump our packs which we had taken with us, the intention being to head straight over he border to Argentina when finished. Right, so onto the bus (yep, another bloody bus, from the main entrance) and out to the falls. The first view is a bit of a teaser coz it´s pretty impressive but not when compared to what they have in store
for the end of the 1200m walk... Garganta del Diablo, The Devils Throat being the principle waterfall of the falls. An eighty metre drop with tons of water a minute flowing over. The park has built a walkway out over one of the falls and close to the edge of the throat itself. It´s pretty impressive is about all I can say. There is a lot of water coming over the edge, it´s loud, wet and pretty wild. The Brazilian side, however, only gives the over view of the falls so aside from telling you there was lots of water falling over the edge of several cliffs, and putting up some photos there isn´t to much else to tell.
So we crossed the border into Puerto Iguazu on the Argentinian side. Now, after all of the miserable borders we´ve crossed, this one was a dream. Easily the most civilised border we have crossed; it was a drive through! We decided to take the soft option and caught a taxi from the Brazilian side all the way to the hostel in Argentina. We got out on the Brazilian side, to complete immigration blah blah, with the Taxi driver who made
sure we were all good. Then got back in the Taxi and drove over the bridge to the Argentine side and just sat in a line of cars, in the taxi. She pulled up to a booth, handed over our passports and her ID, the guy stamped them, we then pulled up to some immigration officials, he asked us where we were from, and when he heard NZ, just waved us through disinterestedly! Sweet as eh! Anyway, off to the hostel and some chilling out before I tried the Steak...
That night I had the best steak I´ve had since leaving home, beer with chilled glasses (the best way to serve it in my opinion) and a proper sleep. Argentina ROCKS!
So the Argentine side of the falls. Got the bus out to the falls with no drama. Just to be different to the Brazilians, they have a little train from the ticket office out to the two different falls stops. We decided that we would start at the furthest area and work our way back so we went out to the Devils throat walk first. This side of the falls is definitely the better of the two.
That would be us tomorrow from the Argentinan side...
Just to put things into perspective, that boat seated about 30 people... and this was the smaller of the two falls they took us under. The almost two KM walkway goes out over the river at the top of the falls and brings you right to the edge of the Devils Throat drop... incredible, the noise and the sheer volume of water you can see so up close is amazing. Yet another one of those places I won´t be able to describe, and the photos won´t do it justice either, but you get the idea right? We came back on the train to the start of the upper and lower falls walks and went out to see the rest of the falls. Again, more photos of more water falling over cliffs, but with the sheer volume and size of the falls, the near perfect weather and the prospect of the boat ride coming up it was all pretty cool.
The boat ride. By the time we got round to doing it the heat was incredible, and even Marika was "perspiring" so the thought of getting under the falls was most welcome. All life-jacketed up and into the boat, there was pretty much no waiting around. We went up the river to get a good view of the bottom of the Devils Throat (not as
close as I thought we would get, but a minor disappointment) and then he spun us around and directly into one of the other falls! Pretty cool, a couple more passes sideways through this fall and off around the corner where we had come from. I thought that might be it bar a couple of quick turns and a couple of jollies but of course it wasn´t. They then pick out one of the shorter but wider falls, one with A LOT of water coming over and drove us straight into it! Pretty freaky, the power of the water was incredible and we weren´t even under the main part of the fall itself. He then let the current take us back out of the fall and went around and back in again even further! More of the same, but more water everywhere, including beating down on our heads. Then back to shore, considerably wetter but nicely cooled off. We only had a limited time on this side so after the boat we made for the exit, we had to head back to the hostel and our waiting night bus to Buenos Aires.
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