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Published: February 22nd 2007
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We took a mini-bus tour that picked us up from our hostel and together with a German couple took us to the Argentinean side of the Iguazu Falls via the point where we saw the three borders point between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, where Iguassu Rivers joins Parana River. By taking a pre-organised tour we saved ourselves a lot of waiting at the passport controls at the Brazilian and Argentinean sides in both directions as well as changing buses from one side and the other and transferring between the borders, but it was cheaper than taking a taxi.
Once we arrived in the National Park, we took an organised tour that first took us in an open-air truck through the sub-tropical jungle (where amongst many of other creatures panthers, pumas, monkeys and snakes reside!) to the river. We were given special waterproof bags, in which to place our valuables and we were warned "YOU WILL GET WET!!!" before getting into the inflatable dingy. So, all I wore was my bikini swimming suit.
I was very excited when getting into the inflatable boat. I was finally going to get really to the waterfalls! But what I did not know
was that I was going on the ride of my life! The boat took us as close as it could to the Devil's gorge, but not too close, for safety reasons. On the way, I found I had to wear my sunglasses, as the wind was so strong that I would not be able to keep my eyes open without them. After allowing us to take some photos, we were told to pack our cameras as we were going to get wet! It was so exhilarating. The boat went under one of the smaller waterfalls. Many screamed. We were all happy! I guess. But little did we know that afterwards, we all would get even wetter. The boat made three right turns under a much bigger waterfall. Talal and I were on the front left side of the boat and we got wet the most. I was so happy and found the experience truly thrilling. I loved it more than the rollercoaster rides in the Theme park by Mt. Fuji's 5th station in Japan! In fact, for me that was the best ride ever! I wish I could do this again and again and again!... But we had to keep
on going and explore the Falls by walking along the treks in the Argentine National Park. Our guide was waiting for us when the boat returned.
Talal and the guide walked ahead followed by the German couple who were very much involved with themselves and then Vic and I, the paparazzi - I was usually at the back trying to capture on camera almost every sight of this wonderful experience. (Most of the 1GB of the memory card is dedicated to the Falls!)
After lunch, we took a small train to go to the catwalk leading to the Devil's Gorge. On the way, we were amazed by the thousands of yellow butterflies we saw. Unfortunately, I couldn't take a photo. Whist, I'm still on the butterflies theme, we saw an 88 butterfly that landed and stayed on the finger of our quite for a few minutes. Quite interesting, it's not like he was feeding the butterfly with anything to attract it to land let alone to stay on his finger for such a long time?!
As we were walking along the so-called Balcones, we'd see on our right hand side, the river peacefully running and on our
left hand side the waters crashing down fiercely. That day the weather was better and we had more sunshine than the previous day, which was great as we saw many rainbows. One little boy protested "This is not a rainbow!" arguing "It is not in the sky!". Vic just about managed to hold it together without uttering something to the daft boy.
As we followed the walkway above the river, we saw a small alligator almost under the bridge.
Once, we reached the famous Devil's Gorge, my jaw dropped at the most breathtaking sight of my life! I have never seen anything so amazing in my life, anything so powerful, so stunning and as breathtaking as these billons of gallons of water and the noise they made. No words can truly describe what I saw and experienced. I stared at the masses of water falling down at amazingly fast speed that it made me feel dizzy and yet, I did not want to peel my eyes off the sight. My eyes were clued to the Falls.
At that time, I thought that was the best part of my trip. Now at the time of writing these notes,
which is after the completion of my trip, I still consider my experience at the Argentine Iguazu Falls as the peak of my trip in South America, and probably my travels the world and in my life. I just love that place! I felt like on the top of the world of happiness there!
In the evening, we went to a restaurant that I did not like the look of the previous night because a British couple and an Aussie guy wanted to go there. I changed my mind about the restaurant as soon as I realised it’s a Rodizio and saw waiters walking around the tables with large pieces of meat from which they’d cut a slither and place it on your plate. The food was tasty. That concluded our trip in Brazil and was our last Brazilian meal.
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