The falls of Iguaçu


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Published: November 28th 2010
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Interim entry with picture gallery

After Rio we visited a small island where cars are banned and treated ourselves to a short holiday. We stayed in a nice little modern hotel with good amenities, walked some and had ice cream, watched the tourists come and go by the various ferries and enjoyed good food.
And then we visited Iguaçu, the great Waterfalls situated on the border between Brazil and Argentina, A truly magnificent experience! First we saw the falls from the Brazilian side and the following day from the Argentinean side. The Brazilian side offers a view from down river, the falls come to you, in other words. When walking along the river edge on very well designed hiking trails after a short bus ride, the visitor at first is presented by an impression of the size of the falls, and coming closer more and more detail and might of the incredible mass of water going over the edge takes your breath away. On the Argentinean side, entry price is much steeper and the walk to the place where the falls can be seen much longer. Also impressive and enormously overwhelming, but not in the same way as on the Brazilian side. Maybe it was the walking and the price difference that made it a bit of a disappointment.
While driving from one place to the other, we saw quiet a few places with very, very old cars, not for scrap but for SALE! We’ve seen plenty of car wrecks, recent models mainly, at provincial border posts where casualties-of-the-road are collected, seemingly until they rust away. But the oldies as afore-mentioned are there for collectors and there are plenty of old timers with a new lease of life on the roads here.
Also, in a place where we hoped to find lunch we saw a somewhat unusual way (for us) of off-loading a car from a ship. I myself have some rather vivid memories of driving onto a ferry over 2 m of water and half a meter higher than I was (Wadi Halfa, Sudan), over steel planks that bent like rubber under the weight of my Land Rover. And then there is the mate sucking, the endless green fields in Uruguay and the dusty business of preparing the soil for seed in Bolivia. And when camping there are so many beautiful scenes and places, it’s too much to mention , let alone to show. But here are some of the highlights. Enjoy!




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4th December 2010

cars
Hmm, a place without cars. Sounds good, I still have to get used to Pretoria traffic again. With regards to the difference between old and new, they don't make 'em like they used to haha. and I suppose any method that doesn't sink the vehicle is an effective way of getting it off the fairy. What would they do with trcuks I wonder?

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