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Published: February 26th 2011
We arrived to Puerto Iguazu (The Argentinian side of the falls) quite late in the evening after leaving the ranch. Puerto Iguazu means door so I guess it means door to the falls. I had an early night being buggered from the ranch!
We headed to the Iguazu NP first thing in the morning. Iguazu falls means ´big water´ in Guarani. The story goes that there was a beautiful Indian woman who fell in love with a warrior from the national park and he fell in love with her too but she was already planned to marry one of the gods of the forest. She and her warrior lover escaped in a canoe but the god was so enraged that he created the waterfalls and apparently she ended up on bottom of the riverbed while the god turned her lover into a tree on the side of one of the cliffs - this way they could never be together again! The scientific story has something to do with the compressed sandstone forming the bottom part of the falls and basalt rock forming the upper part - but if you know me well enough you would already know which story I
like the best!
I wish that the power and strength of this great wonder of the word was explainable by words or photos but it´s simply not! Mark, our tour guide told us that 4 million litres of water is dropped by by the falls every second. To be honest I was a bit skeptical of this until we got to the Bazilian side the following day. The first day we spent on the Argentinian side which was quite a proactive day. We booked in for everything but I must say my highlight was the jetboat ride. It was AWESOME!
We took the Safari trucks down to the river, Nicole and I jumped on the truck in front of our tour group as there were a few spare seats, which in the end turned out to be a very good thing! We saw lots of spiders and papaya plants etc etc on the drive blah blah blah.......... So we get down to this boat with the about 20-30 or so middle aged german tourists and we sit in our seats with our little plastic packs they give you for your belongings so they don´t get wet. Then all
of a sudden we look around and all of the Germans are getting there gear off, stripping down to bikinis and budgee smugglers! It was hilarious! We weren´t initally planning on wearing our swimmers so we just had the tops on but after seeing this (and one lady even put on a shower cap - can you imagine) we started to think ´holy shit....we are going to get soaked´. So we took of our tops, shoved on our raincoats, stripped down to our undies, I had my swimmer pants in my bag so I did the Harry Houdini above the knickers then one leg out and presto type trick! But in the end... very worthwhile!
Coming up to the falls was amazing - I couldn´t believe how stunning and amazing and powerful they are! We did a quick zip around on the boat from one side to the other and then on the second time back the driver is like ´ok, now put your cameras in your bags and do them up like this´and then straight in, underneath or very close to the falls. We were screaming and laughing and holding hands for dear life all at the same
time. It was awsome fun! But we were absolutely SOAKED! So worth it though!
The rest of the day was spent wandering around the park. We walked out along the jetty to Diablos point of the falls which was also very imperssive. It´s where they begin and marks the border between Argentina and Brazil.
That evening we were back on the bus (of course) for Foz Iguazu, the town closest to the falls on the Brazilian side. I must say you can see the differences between Brazil and Argentina from the minute you cross the border. Much more military and police coverage, the bathrooms are much cleaner, the streets and gardens well looked after, builders on building sites wearing helmets, everything in Brazil so far is quite comparable in price to what you pay in Oz, a smidge cheaper. It´s a bit of a strange thing to think about really!
Anyways.... the next morning we headed to the helicopter pad. Nicole got on board for a ride over the falls on the helicopter, it looked amazing and she got some great pics but I opted against and took the bird park option - lame I know -
but I´ve been on a helicopter and I have been to the falls but I have never been to a Brazilian bird park, and I am so glad I did. I got some great snaps of tucans and flamingos. There were Anacondas and boaconstrictors and butterflies and eagles and huge giant sized parrots (I´m sure their not called parrots but thats what they look like). It was fun.
Afterwards we headed to the Brazilian side of the falls, Cataratas I believe they call it! And guess who we bumped into, two of our local RPA physios Pascall and Carmen, crazy eh! We are meeting up with them again in Rio hopefully!
2/3 of the falls are on the Argentinian side so basically from the brazilian side you can really get a grasp on the size of these things. I thought the day before was huge and powerful but it was almost nothing compared to taking a look at it from a Brazilian perspective, literally! MY GOD! They stretch for about 3km, and there is fall upon fall upon fall cascading down over hundreds of metres! WOW! I have some great pics - and Jacqui you´ll be glad to
know I am loading them onto a USB using one of the guys laptops tonight so hopefully next time I log on I have some proof of these adventures! Anyways enough on Iguazu - I must go and get ready for our night out in Caratiba but I can tell you about Caratiba next time.
Ciao for now!
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Betty Thompson
non-member comment
The best yet!
This is just fantastic!! thanx 4 sharing:-)