Iguazzu Falls, releasing the reblochon, and losing our picnic to a coatie.

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Whether it was the effect of the reblochon or some other reason, our pilot needed two goes at landing in Iguazzu and then we found out that our luggage had remained in Buenos Aires. We were reunited with our lovely rucksacks only a couple of hours later which was a real blessing. We were already looking slightly out of place in a tropical airport wearing our hiking boots (too heavy to pack so we always wear then when travelling) and trousers while everyone else was in flipflops and shorts, and we were considering with dismay and a certain amount of hilarity what we would wear to visit the Iguazzu Falls in the jungle the following day if our luggage failed to arrive.

Our hostel in Puerto Iguazzu has achieved the unenviable status of “worst place to stay so far by miles” by being damp, a bit grotty and with the worst plumbing we have encountered in three glorious months of plumbing inspections. I won’t go into details but surely its not unreasonable to hope ...... (Editor's Note: this text was censored due to Pete's concern for the sensibilities of our readers).

BUT THANKFULLY we hadn’t gone to Puerto Iguazzu just to inspect the plumbing....we had the great Iguazzu Falls to visit. On our first day we stayed on the Argentinian side, walking miles and miles in the wonderful national park that surrounds the most amazing waterfalls. I don’t think anyone could sensibly describe Iguazzu Falls in such a way as to convey to someone else the sheer extent and power of the falls. Photos are completely hopeless, although we were very chuffed at our artistic efforts with the rainbow that is permanently there, due to the sunshine and the water vapour.

The falls are mostly all on the Argentinian side of the River Iguazzu, which seems hard on the Brazilians as the national border runs down the centre of the main channel of the river, rather than the centre of the falls. Argentina make the most of this, with miles of walkways under, over and (almost) through the falls and they have the most enormous Argentinian flag on their side of the largest fall (the devil’s throat). You cannot see the bottom of this fall from anywhere no matter how hard you try as the water hits the bottom with such a force that the spray reaches almost back up to the top. Where it stops being spray it turns into water vapour and the resulting clouds then rise into the air, where the air cools and the water comes out again as rain. Such an amazing sight to see clouds forming and disgorging within a few minutes. And VERY wet! We brazened it out and looked like drowned rats at the end but it was so hot that we felt quite refreshed with it all and we dried off pretty quickly. There are maybe 50 falls that make up the Iguazzu Falls so we had a wonderful day trying to explore each one.

For anyone who had been worrying about how our reblochon was faring, you will be pleased to hear that it survived a night in the hostel-with-terrible-plumbing and its smell merged very well with other musty odours of unknown origin in the hostel fridge. It was released from captivity during a wonderful picnic lunch overlooking Iguazzu falls and combined with Italian ham (also bought in the market in Mendoza) and a local avocado to make a tip-top picnic!

The following day we crossed over to Brazil and visited the falls from the other side. Although you can’t get so close to the falls from Brazil, the views across are amazing and just as good as the Argentinian side but in a different way. And just to keep their end up the Brazilians have built a walkway right across to almost the centre of the big fall (at the national boundary) which allowed us to get soaking again hooray! We had some ham left over from our amazing picnic the day before and had also snaffled a couple pastries from breakfast. Imagine our horror to see a coatie making off with a plastic bag that it had snatched from the bench beside Pete. “Oh no, please let it not be the ham” we both cried and thankfully it was the pastries. May that coatie now be suffering with diabetes and obesity.....

We also went to an amazing bird park which was established in order to foster birds saved from trafficking. Sarah and Rich had been there when they were on their travels so we were treading in their footsteps. Beautiful jungle plants and trees were just as wonderful as the birds.

Next stop Buenos Aires for 5 days before we return home. We have tickets to see Boca Juniors play on Easter Sunday and can’t wait! Oh, and just maybe a bit of tango......

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Comments

[P]

Go visit Mrs Peron
You could also fill those long hot days by going to see the fabulous cemetery where Eva Perpon is buried. You know, the one which Rich and Sar descirbed as 'some boring old graveyard with someone famous in it', or words to that effect. (Lordie, is that going to be a marriage of 2 Philistines or WHAT?) There's also a rather good Ice Cream Parlour, as I recall, at 1 o'clock standing at the front gates of the old graveyard. See you soon! Pxxx