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Published: February 28th 2009
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Iguacu
The view from Brazil Peak season in Uruguay meant we couldn’t find anywhere to stay at Punta del Diablo. This was supposed to be our next stop on the way up to Brazil. So a quick rethink and we’d bought tickets for the 18 hour bus journey along the coast and over the border to Florianopolis. We couldn’t complain too much. It had been a month since our last major bus journey, but in reality it really was a drag. The only bonus was that the bus driver did all of the immigration stuff for all of the bus during the middle of the night, so at least we got some broken sleep.
Florianopolis is a city that straddles either side of a bridge connecting the mainland to Ilha de Santa Catarina. However, it seems that everyone just refers to the island itself as Florianopolis or “Floripa” for those in the know. The island is pretty big, about 40km from north to south and we were staying at Santinho, in the north east. The pousada we stayed at was great. Aleani, who ran it, was probably only 25, but couldn’t do enough for us. It was a 5 minute walk to a nice beach,
had a little pool and cable TV so Lynne could get a dose of Grey’s Anatomy and other American tat. It was a nice couple of chilled out days with long walks on the beach in the late afternoon.
Unfortunately she was fully booked, so after a couple of nights we moved to the middle of the island and a place called Centro do Lagoa. This is a lot busier, but is a 5 minute bus ride to Mole and Joaquina beaches, supposedly two of the best on the island. We only made it to Mole, but it was pretty cool. The crowd seemed to be the young and beautiful people, surfing, chilling out at the beach bars or para-scending off the hills behind the beach. We fitted right in!
We were also planning to experience some of Floripa’s nightlife. The New York Times rated it as the hottest party destination for 2009 and it has clubs like Pacha, so it was definitely worth a look. However, any plans were scuppered after eating some dodgy prawns and being ill for the next two days. It’s the first time I’ve been ill and Lynne had only been ill for
a day South Africa (mussels!), so we’ve been pretty lucky all in all. Lynne reckons I did the man thing and over played how badly I felt, but I swear I felt truly rotten. It wasn’t the best way to end our time in Floripa, but we’d already booked tickets on another overnight bus to Foz do Iguacu, to see the falls.
The devil’s throat
Iguacu (in Brazil) or Iguazu falls (in Argentina) are spectacular. We stayed on the Brazilian side, at a place we’d really recommend called Hostel Natura, so naturally we visited the Brazilian side first.
From this side you get a great overall view of the falls as the trail leads along the river side. Apparently there are over 270 waterfalls. The most spectacular is called the Garganta del Diablo, where you can get up close to the 80m high semi circular basin, covered by the constant mist of water and cooled by the winds the falls create. For those mildly interested in geology, it seems the falls were created by two lava flows. One got so far and cooled. The next one came over the top of it but didn’t get quite as
far, so it is like steps. You can definitely see this in places, where the water falls onto a platform, it flows for a bit and then falls again to the river below. Strangely enough, this spot also seemed to be where tens of condors hung out.
If anything, we thought the Argentine side was better. You don’t get the overview but you get really close to some of the “smaller” falls and the walkways through the jungle setting are good. You can also take a little boat across to an island, where there are a few more walks and a pebble beach to swim from with the falls as a stunning backdrop. Perhaps the best thing though, is to take a power boat into the bottom of two of the falls. The noise of the water so close is deafening and it is just like someone is constantly throwing a full bucket of water over you. There is so much water coming at you, you can’t open your eyes, so you just have to sit there getting drenched and laughing! It was really good.
The only drawback of the Argentine side is that it is so busy.
People had said we needed a full day there, and they were definitely right. Unfortunately we ran out of time to make it their Devil’s Throat viewing platform. Whereas the Brazilian one is at the bottom of the falls, this one is on the top, but never mind.
We had one more night in Foz. Other than the falls, the other sight is Itaipu dam but we never quite made it. It supplies almost 90% of Paraguay’s electricity and supposedly nearly a quarter of Brazil’s, so it must be massive. Instead we planned the rest of the Brazil leg of our trip and plumped for Olinda as our carnival destination. We even managed to get a flight back from Recife to Sao Paulo at an ok price (i.e. less than £200). We’ve been really amazed at the price of flights here. Considering the country is so big, you’d think there would be a big demand for flights and lots of competition. No chance. So instead we were left to count the number of overnight buses we’ll have to take in the next 3 weeks to get to Olinda…6 if we’re lucky. Urrrrgh!!!
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