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Published: December 5th 2010
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After arriving in Foz De Iguacu at 8am Monday we were at a loss what to do as it was a little early to check into the hostel and we wanted to enquire about how to get to a place called Bonito that had been recommended to us. A tour agency had just the sign outside so we went in and after about an hour had booked a tour for the Argentinean side of the falls for the next day and said we would meet one of the employees later to arrange other things. Feeling pretty wounded from the overnight bus, Sam especially so as he cant sleep on buses we had a short rest at the hostel then got a bus to the Brazilian side of the Iguacu falls. From the visitor centre a bus takes you nearer to the falls where you then walk along a well-kept descending path with lots of vantage points over both sides of the falls but then ending up walking over a raised platform to just under the Brazilian side of the falls. The views were breathtaking and seeing what a great expanse the falls were just made us more excited about the tour
the next day. We were also aware of the many spider and creepy crawlies around and the pesky raccoons.
The next day we set off in a mini bus with a group of other tourists and our guide to first go through the border formalities, which we all just passed over our passports and remained in the car whilst our gudie filled in all the forms! We then headed to a place on the Argentinean side where you can see Brazil and Paraguay where the Parana and the Iguacu rivers meet. We then continued to the national park which encompasses a huge area of paths and trials to all aspects of the falls. We took the train first to the Argentinean raised walkways that travel over gushing rivers to the top of the shared Brazilian/Argentinean falls that we had witnessed from the bottom the day before. We then walked the upper and lower circuits which take in the falls that can only be seen on the Argentinean side. When you reached the end of each trial you ended up on a platform just metres away from the great force of the falling water and it never ceased to amaze
us how spectacular it was. Standing on these platforms was also greatly refreshing as it had turned out to be a hot and sunny day. Not only was the scenery amazing but the many colours of butterfly that would come and land on you along the way!
After hearing many things about the cheap electricals that could be had in Ciudad Del Este, the Paraguayan town on the other side of the border to Foz, we decided that we needed to go as we decided we would jointly buy a notebook so to make writing the blog and keeping in touch with people easier. The journey in itself was pretty crazy. We hot a bus from near our hostel around 11am to get stuck in traffic crossing over the border for 1 hour, the distance was such that we could have walked it but we weren’t to know! We got off the bus just over the border in a very busy street with markets either side of the 3 lanes of traffic. The ‘shopping malls’ were positioned behind this but these malls were more like the old Manchester Arndale market i.e. Pretty grimey! As you can imagine everyone was
on the hard sell and after going to a few places we escaped to the rather more glamorous Mona Lisa mall which had European prices but some very nice toilets. Plus a cool old guy that we were loving who was playing the grand piano on the 3rd floor. We made a purchase after a little haggling but everything seemed above board, just about, then made our way to the border and got a bus back feeling rather tired. What a crazy place, loads of shops selling the same things and not actually that many people there walking around despite the amount of traffic and people crossing over from the Brazilian side, it must be gridlock on a Saturday afternoon!
Before another overnight bus from Foz to Campo Grande we went to the Itaipu dam, which is on the River Parana on the border between Paraguay and Brazil. It provides 95%of Paraguay’s electricity and 25% of Brazil’s so as you can imagine it was immense. After a short film in Portugese with Spanish subtitles we set out on a bus tour around the massive site. Although we had a police escort throughout we were allowed to take photos of
Debils Mouth
From the viewing platform anything we wanted and there were some great views of the two cities from the top of the dam.
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