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Published: January 22nd 2009
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Iguazu Falls, from Brazil and Argentina
Left Bonito at 7:00 a.m.; on a long drive to the hostel at iguacu falls, usually this is a two day drive, with bush camping but they decided that if we did one day, then we could have a day in Paraguay…one more stamp on the passport!!
So we will have two really long, hot days of driving.
Drive started out really hot, then after lunch we drove into a torrential downpour, must have rained 10 inches in an hour.
This part of Brazil is really pretty; small towns, neatly kept, big cultivated fields of some potato-like crop and corn.
Two lane, uneven roads with lots of trucks on the road, but not a whole lot of other traffic.
Camped on the grass at a gas station; lots of mosquitoes and a train roaring by at 5 a.m., but we were up by 6 and on the road by 7 a.m.
Arrived late the second night at our hostel in the rain. Dennis and I upgraded to a private room with air conditioning, and so we spent three very pleasant nights. Everyone else camped, and it rained off
and on for 3 days; but the hostel had a bar and a pool; a sort of breakfast was included, and there was free bus service to the main road, where you could catch a bus into town, or to McDonalds!!
We took one day to travel to the falls from the Brazilian side, then the next day we took the bus to Paraguay over the Parana river.
Paraguay on this border is kind of like Beijing run by South Americans. Everything China makes is for sale here in little shops, all selling the same things, all willing to haggle. Paraguay is known for cheap electronics and cameras, but frankly I didn’t see any bargains, just a lot of street vendors.
Three countries, Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay come together near Iguazu Falls. WikiTravel has an excellent article, which I cannot begin to duplicate… http://wikitravel.org/en/Iguazu_Falls
Competing with other sites around the world for designation as one of the seven modern natural wonders of the world, it is clearly a spectacular tourist attraction. Best seen from the Argentine side it is nonetheless spectacular from the Brazil side as well, although the day we were there it was cloudy,
Hostel camping in Brazil
Rained off and on the whole time we were here hazy and raining. A couple of days later we were on the Argentine side of the falls; the weather was clear and it was quite spectacular.
The Brazilians have built some nice walking trails along the river to view the falls, but the Argentines have built elaborate steel pathways which cross the river right out to the edge of the falls so you can look straight down as the water falls away beneath your feet. One cannot help but wonder how many tourists will drown when one of these platforms collapses off the edge of the eroding cliff!! Fortunately, it was not my day for a catastrope, just great sightseeing!!
So…its on to Argentina and another hostel. Again it was raining
hard when we arrived. So Dennis and I elected to upgrade to a private room with air conditioning. Camping has its place, but so does air conditioning and a bed with a private bath. This room had cable tv and a refrigerator too; very nice, but it was a fair walk from the rest of the group’s camp site. I think some of them are gonna want to upgrade the next time we camp!! I think we
Falls from Brazil
Just a smalll section of the falls, from the Brazil side paid about $25 US per person for the upgrade, as this is the high tourist season.
The Argentine side of the falls is surrounded by an Argentine National Park created for this purpose. They do a better job of managing tourists at the falls, and they have hordes of tourists to manage. Snack bars, tourist shops and restrooms are clean and well maintained throughout the park. Numerous signs exhort you to keep the park clean, don’t feed the animals, and watch out for the coatis (a Brazilian raccoon)…they bite!!
One section of the park has boats to ferry tourists out to an island in the center of the river; another area has a narrow guage train for tourists to ride to the steel walkway extending out over a section of the falls. When we were there, the walkways, train, boats and so forth were all jammed with people on holiday eager to explore this natural wonder. The weather was clear and hot, with sporadic light rain all day.
The next morning we struck our tents (or in the case of Dennis and I, we took a shower, turned off CNN and walked to the truck), had a
Brazilian viewing platform
from the end of this walkway you can look straight down and watch the water fall away over the falls quick breakfast, and headed for Buenos Aires, where we will spend 5 nights.
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