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Published: February 28th 2008
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Setting off bright and early the next day, we drove out to the Brazilian side of the falls, where we saw a couple of guys engaged in a street fight (bricks and heads don´t mix very well), wandered around an excellent bird sanctuary and indulged in a helicopter flight over the falls. Feeling something like a military operation, the helicopter headed up river before rounding the bend and offering unsurpassed views of the falls in all their glory, circling several times for maximum sight seeing before rocking on back to base. In the afternoon we took the park bus (very good transport system) to go and walk up to the falls. Swelteringly hot and very humid, the walk was otherwise highly enjoyable, culminating in a series of walkways which take you out to the middle of the immense series of cascades, getting everyone thoroughly drenched in the process from all the spray. Back to camp in the evening, we enjoyed a barbeque (for a change) and several beers followed up with caipirinhas led to a late and mildly inebriated evening before collapsing into a sweltering tent or yet another night of little to no sleep.
The next morning we rocked
on over the border (yawn!) to explore the Argentinian side of the falls, offering very different viewpoints and perspectives. Starting the day with a nondescript ATV trip through the jungle (although a poisonous snake did cross our path), we made our way down to the river for a boat ride up to the falls. Powering against the rapids, the boat was packing some serious horsepower to be able to make any progress, and as we bumped and bounced over the ever more turbulent waters the smiles proceeded to get even wider. Finally, we paused for a brief minute to allow everyone to hide all valuables in the dry bags provided, before rocking on into the spray from the falls, absolutely drenching everyone in the process. Several more passes were made to ensure everyone had an even soaking before heading back to shore to drip dry on land. Naturally we had one slightly confused member of our group who didnt realise that you got wet on this trip (despite having been told on numerous occasions beforehand) so spent the rest of the afternoon moaning to himself.
Onwards from the boats, we continued upwards along the paths past hordes of tourists
to various viewing platforms, each offering even more spectacular views than its predecessor. These culminated with a train ride up the line through the park to the Paseo Garganta del Diabolo, a 1km walkway branching out over the river, at the end of which the spectacular Devil´s Throat is located. A culmination of 43 separate falls, the Devil´s Throat is truly a natural masterpiece, utterly incomprehensible until you see it up close and personal. Viewed from above, little below can be seen due to the immense amount of spray kicked out from the falls (this can vary from 30m to 150m above the water level depending on the force of the water body), and no-one would get close to getting underneath the falls without getting absolutely pummelled to a pulp. Just standing next to the top of the falls was one of those wonderful occasions where you feel absolutely dwarfed by nature, and feel so pitifully insignificant in its might and majesty, and is an experience that I will never forget. Eventually being dragged away by the others, we headed back to the slow moving water of the river bank for a tranquil boat trip down through some quiet wooded
waterways before rejoining the train and heading on back over the border back to camp.
An excellent day was sadly marred late at night by the discovery that my trusty Zen, my MP3 that has been through so much with me, was rather rudely stolen from our campsite while it was charging, along with another girl´s Ipod and random items of clothing, just a reminder that constant vigilance never goes amiss. This was made even more annoying by the fact that I had just decided to extend my trip round to include Colombia (well it would be rude not to, wouldn´t it?) and would be music free for the rest of the duration, and my mood was not aided by yet again another night of little sleep. Thankfully, the urge to start breaking things abated reasonably fast and was replaced with a slightly more zen-like calm as we headed up the coast through an interesting selection of truck stops and not a lot else, broken up with some nondescript campsites. One of these was right next to the beach and ended up with most of the truck getting more than a bit tipsy on caipirinhas (anyone who has ever
had the joy of them out here will understand just how potent they can be!), one guy retching all night long (a sound that was somewhere between a wild boar being skewered and Chewbacca being raped by Darth Vader) and resulted in a somewhat sullen and very hungover silence on the truck for our drive into Paraty, our last stop before Rio.
Paraty had long been talked about by our tour guide Jo, being the meeting point for 18-odd overland trucks from Tucan, Budget, Oasis, Kumuka, Overland, Dragoman and probably a number of others, before everyone rocks on into Rio for the Carnival. In clement weather is a fantastically beautiful combination of wooded hills giving way to pristine beaches seeping into an impossibly turquoise ocean dotted with a plethora of sparsely populated islands. Sadly we are in Brasil´s rainy season and the weather was distinctly less than fair upon our arrival, with a near wall of water continuing to hammer down from the sky as we erected our tents before wandering on into town to explore. The town utilises high tide to clean its streets, which are all v-shaped to let the water build and then drain, but no
seawater was needed to fill these troughs at this time as the rain had beaten it to it. Several hours later, puddles had become knee deep and footwear, even flip flops, became utterly pointless, along with waterproof clothing, while some tents began to look more like islands. After a fantastic spag bol (go cook team - great morale booster) and much random wet/muddy shenanigans (mud wrestling, mudslide races and many other activities soon became the norm), we were introduced to Mark, our tour leader to be for the next leg of the trip, who talked the entire Tucan contingent through the plan for Carnival. Following this, everyone began to get well and truly merry on the vats of caipirinhas on tap, showing the indomiable British spirit so often needed at Glastonbury and the like.
Expecting more of the same the next day, we were very pleasantly surprised to wake up to...sunshine, a very welcome turnout seeing as we were due to head out on a boat trip around the bay for a leisurely afternoon. Many of the group had already cancelled this following the downpour the previous day, so those of us who remained were rewarded with a fantastic
vessel..and a bunch of Budget travellers (younger, more enthusiastic/wilder bunch that made us look middle aged and boring!) on which to enjoy the day´s outing. Stopping at the first bay, we all dived off the boat into the saltiest water I have ever experienced, removing the need to do anything to stay afloat in its mirror-smooth glory. Half an hour later, the bell sounded to re-board and head to the next stop, where it was more of the same, washed down with some rum and beer, before enjoying a very tasty fish lunch and enjoying a particularly talented diver doing backflips into the waters a good 10ft below. As the day progressed, the weather began to worsen, threatening rain once more, so we headed back to shore to enjoy an afternoon of loitering around the campsite. Back into town for an evening meal, we ended up at a delightful local restaurant for some top notch crab cakes (spicy!) and a tasty steak (well it must have been a week), before wandering the streets and ending up in a antequated old boy bar that would be at home in Barbados for a game of pool and a drink or two. Meandering
back to the campsite, we stayed up fraternising ith the other trucks into the early hours before calling it a night ready for the Carnival carnage that would be confronting us for the next few days.
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