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Published: February 18th 2010
Panoramic View
Iguacu Falls BrazilA wonderfully luxurious air-conditioned coach took me from Paraty to Sao Paulo. The bus had large, comfortable reclining seats and was a very agreeable way to watch the glorious coastal scenery rush by. The coach meandered along the coast passing wealthy resort towns set beside golden sandy beaches. Before long the coach turned in land and wound up over a mountain range which is where the weather changed dramatically.
The scorching blue skies of Paraty felt like a long time ago when rain began to fall as the coach approached Sao Paulo. I approached the city at dusk - the concrete jungle fading in the late afternoon light as the endless cityscape loomed larger. The traffic ground to a halt enroute to the bus station as the torrential rain caused transport chaos. Further ahead the river had overflowed and flooded across the road resulting in a 4 hour delay.
Sao Paulo is one of the world’s most populous cities with more than 20 million people living in the Greater Sao Paulo area. The city is a teeming metropolis of epic proportions and that feeling hit me as soon as I arrived. I really like big cities - there is
a certain energy and vibrancy about them because of their eclectic mix of people, cultures, and religions. This creates an awesome melting pot providing some of the best architecture, restaurants and bars in the country.
Most travellers skip Sao Paulo. There are no real big sights to see as such and many just transit through without leaving the main bus station. I think this is a massive error because Sao Paulo allows one to get under the skin of a grittier and more realistic Brazil which guarantees a more enriched experience of this country. Many people will only visit Rio de Janeiro which, although amazing fun, is very large beach resort. Sao Paulo is a working city and the commercial heart of the country. Therefore the people and their attitudes are very different.
I was very fortunate with my time in Sao Paulo. I have been travelling with another English guy who has family friends in Sao Paulo - their centrally located apartment was at our disposal. The apartment was located in an up market neighbourhood called Jardins and was just around the corner from some of the best nightlife in the city. We caught the efficient metro
service over to the apartment and settled in. Only having enough time to pop round the corner for an obligatory feijoarda dinner before turning in for the night. The only time I think we went to sleep at a reasonable time whilst in Sao Paulo.
As mentioned before there is not much to really see of significance in Sao Paulo but it does have a rather pleasant old central area which I explored the following day. Its crowning centrepiece is a wonderfully modern cathedral that took most of last century to build. It has large stone turrets with an iron-clad dome and is surrounded by a large variety of buildings. The buildings around this central area vary in style and design enormously from art deco structures, grand colonial buildings, and modern glassy monoliths to ugly concrete eyesores.
To get a better view of the city I made my way up a tower called Banespa - an old bank building that has a definite art deco style both inside and out. The main foyer is grand and decorative with a large crystal chandelier hanging from the centre of the ceiling. The building is still a bank and houses office
Concrete Jungle
View from Banespa space for Santander. The view platform is reached via a couple of elevators and is an incredible sight. Most city views have a high rise centre and sprawl which fans out in all directions and eventually flattens. Sao Paulo is an epic concrete jungle that rolls on endlessly in all directions. There are literally hundreds of office blocks which are all cobbled together with no real planning. It's an organised mess of masonry that results in quite a colourful setting against a crisp blue sky. It is here that I got a feeling for the sheer enormity of the city.
The weather here has been incredible actually. Every day starts crisp and clear with a warm sun and low humidity - very near perfect weather. As the day wears on clouds begin to gather and by late afternoon - literally like clockwork every day between 5pm to 6pm it would rain torrentially for about an hour. Each day was exactly the same and was good because it encouraged a late afternoon siesta before hitting the town.
Sao Paulo is a wealthy city and is the economic heart of the country. The people here are much different from Rio
because of this. Lives here do not revolve around the beach but education and careers. Nowhere in the world do people own more helicopters per capita than here - even more so than cities such as New York. That gives you an idea of its wealth and of the ambition of its inhabitants. Everyone here I have met are studying for Biology courses or doing research for cancer drugs or econometrics or other such complex subjects and are passionate about what they want to achieve.
I met many of these people whilst going out - which is the main activity that any tourist comes to Sao Paulo for. I had read and was told by many people that although there is not much to see in Sao Paulo the nightlife is top notch. Whilst in the city I, with Yusef, sampled many of the swanky bars and pubs and was surprised at how friendly everyone was - they all love gringos and are willing to talk for hours on end about a multitude of subjects.
Unlike the UK, nights out here begin late with most clubs not really getting going until 2 am and then going on until
6 to 7 am. We had some memorable nights out here though and met some very articulate and educated people as well as a fair few token crazy one's too. These nights played havoc with my body clock though and it was particularly though to wake up for a flight after our last night out in Sao Paulo.
Flying proved to be the best option to get to Foz de Iguaçu - the flight ticket costing only slightly more than the 15 hour bus journey would have done but taking 13.5 hours less in terms of time. The flight was comfortable but the landing bumpy as I surveyed rivers snaking through rainforest as far as the eye can see. Foz de Iguaçu is home to the Iguaçu Falls - a set of thundering waterfalls which are located between the borders of Brazil and Argentina. It is also home to the worlds largest dam (in terms of average output anyway) the Itaipu dam which is located on the border of Brazil and Paraguay.
I found my way from the Airport Terminal and onto a packed local bus which was heading towards the central area. After the cool clear days
in Sao Paulo the thick, heavy humidity of Foz de Iguaçu was stifling. It was a very cloudy day and the humidity was apparently much worse than normal - a large rain storm was approaching and everyone appeared to be waiting for it to clear the air. Especially the sweaty man whose armpit I was pressed against.
I found my hostel which was (typically) located at the top of a steep hill and I was thus reduced to a soaking sweaty mess by the time I arrived. They had beds available but unfortunately the first night I had to be content with an un-air-conditioned dorm room. That particular night was possibly the most uncomfortable of the trip so far as I woke up what felt like every half an hour soaking wet with sweat despite having a fan trained onto my face. I peeled myself off my sticky sheets in the morning after a dreadful night and thankfully moved to the air conditioned dorm for the rest of the stay. The smell of 8 men sweating all night long not a pleasant smell to wake up to.
And still, it hadn't rained. The clouds were hanging heavy in
the air and so the humidity was still very suffocating. Therefore, not wanting to see Iguaçu Falls with overcast skies I opted to first go to the Itaipu Dam. It is located about 20km out of town so I caught the sweaty local bus again and embarked on the panoramic tour. The dam is located in a Binational Park area which is jointly administered by Brazil and Paraguay. The dam provides 90% of Paraguay’s power and around 22% of Brazil's so is therefore an extremely important project for them both.
Before embarking on the tour I sat through a video presentation. This video consisted of 25 minutes of propaganda and only 5 minutes of interesting information. The dam has been quite a divisive issue between environmental campaigners who question its green credentials. The disruption to the surrounding ecosystem both in the water and on land has been significant. Some say that the damage it has caused far outweighs the benefits of the hydroelectric power it creates. On the flip side the dam does save the equivalent of millions of barrels of oil per day because of the energy it generates. And so the debate rumbles on.
Disregarding the
politics of the dam it is an incredibly impressive structure. I opted to take a tour of the dam which involved a bus journey through the complex and over the top of the dam. The dam is the largest in the world - by average energy output anyway. The Three Gorges Dam in China is actually larger in terms of energy output but the rain in this part of the world during the winter gives them greater overall output.
The tour was very interesting though and first stopped at one of the highlights of the visit - the spillway. When it has been raining heavily the reservoir created reaches a very high level. The spill way is basically a giant slide that regulates the level of the reservoir by allowing water to gush through the dam. The result is an incredible sight as thousands of cubic litres of water gush through the spillway doors at an amazing rate. When I was there it was letting water through at around 16,000 cubic litres a second - its capacity is around 60,000.
The sound and power of the gushing water is a fantastic sight to behold. The water gushes down
the spillway at a fantastic speed before plummeting into the river below. The water violently throws up a powerful spray that shoots its mist over onlookers who are situated quite a distance from the foot of the spillway. The point of contact is concealed behind the constant mist cloud. The tour guide told us that the spillway disgorges 40 times more water than Iguaçu Falls. The spillway is segmented into 14 large openings. In each opening a 300 ton door holds back the water.
We moved on from here past the turbines at the foot of the 65-storey high dam. Each of the turbines measure 10 metres in diametre and generate 700 MW. There are 20 of them in total creating an awesome amount of power. We continued past them and up onto the dam itself. The road runs across the top of the dam giving panoramic views of the reservoir created by the Parana River as well as the spillway and turbine tunnels on the other side. The dam measures over 25,000 feet but the bus only travels over some of it. The best part of the tour was where the bus drives over the spillway giving riders
the chance to look down the spillway as the water bursts down the slope into the river below. From this vantage point the power feels even more incredible. The bus loops back around and down before finishing the tour.
The plan was then to go to the Brazilian side of Iguaçu Falls but the dark clouds and cracking thunder that loomed over Itaipu quickly changed my mind. The falls are best experienced in the day time where the sunlight apparently brings out the waters colours spectacularly. It rained for the rest of the day - hard hammering torrential rain, lightening and thunder that were actually a joy to watch. The downpour was excellent as it cleared the heavy humidity that had been the source of many uncomfortable nights. The storm had been building for quite some time and is was great to just watch nature violently diffuse itself.
That evening I decided to go to a Churriskino - a Brazilian barbeque. These all-you-can-eat meat feasts are gut-bustingly delicious. The salad bar is fresh and varied and the meat is divine. Waiters come round offering a wonderful array of meat that they carve straight off the skewer. The meat
Panoramic View
Brazil Side - The power is just incredible is tender and incredibly sumptuous making it very difficult to actually stop eating! The meat consisted of a variety of different cuts of beef, pork, lamb and even included chicken hearts which were surprisingly tasty! The best of all was the amazing melt-in-you-mouth garlic beef which was cooked to perfection. After eating what felt like most of a cow - and only costing £6 - I waddled home very satisfied.
The next day was beautiful. The sky was cloudless and bright blue and the humidity had all but disappeared. I caught a bus to the falls without sweating at all - which is something that I hadn't stopped doing over the past few days. The entrance to the falls on the Brazilian side is very big, new and shiny. The Brazilian flag flutters over a colourful shallow pool of water, welcoming visitors through the turnstiles and onto double decker buses. The bus took me over to the waterfall trail - Trilia de Cataratas which provides multiple views of the falls that become more and more impressive the further one walks.
The falls are a mighty sight indeed when I took them in from the initial viewpoint. The first
thing that becomes apparent before they come into view is the low rumbling sound of a many torrents of water plummeting off a cliff-side. The views begin with sweeping sights of many waterfalls cascading down forest covered cliffs, gushing through and splitting into various capillaries before thundering down into the Iguaçu River below. The waterfalls continue to impress as the path follows the valley. Throughout the walk rainbows arc in front of the waterfalls as watery mist drizzles onto the path.
The path winds its way closer and closer to the falls and the sound of the thundering power of the water becomes more and more evident as it moves in closer. The path splits towards a route which took me into the centre of the one section of the falls where I was surrounded by crashing waterfalls. The concrete walkway over the water is called The Devils Throat and is truly spectacular. The path is soaking wet with the constant spray from the waterfalls which are situated on all sides apart from one which is where the river snakes away into the distance fed by constant waterfalls on each side.
The sheer aggressive, thunderous power of immense
Coatis
Iguazu Falls Argentina rivers of water plummeting over the edge of a cliff and pounding the shallow river below is an incredible sight as I stood beside the waterfalls edge. The result is that one gets completely soaked. However, the delightful experience of being surrounded by rainbows as foaming water and drizzle lash the path, coupled with the sound of deafening waterfalls make it all very worthwhile.
I made my way back and up to a panoramic viewpoint of the Brazilian side of the falls which was jaw dropping. The fast flowing Iguaçu River quickly disappears into oblivion before crashing down in various cascades and finally plunging into the river below. The crisp blue sky allowed the warm sun to ignite the water and its frothy residue into a multitude of colours as a large rainbow arced over the whole scene surrounded by thick green vegetation. Possibly one of the most incredible natural sights I have ever seen.
The next day I made my way to Argentina to see the other side of the falls. The Argentinean side of the falls is named Iguazu Falls - just so you don't think I'm spelling it wrong! The Iguazu Falls is such a
large area straddling both countries that, apparently, seeing them from both sides is quite a different experience. I wasn't sure how anything could top what I saw from the Brazilian side. How wrong I was.
I caught the bus to Iguazu Falls the next day as the day began disappointingly overcast. Fortunately the sun began to shine through and patches of blue began to pierce the cloud and brighten the scene. The entrance to the Argentinean side lacks the fanfare of the Brazilian and feels much more like a low-key nature park than a theme park. On surveying the map at the entrance of the park I could see how much larger the Argentinean side of Iguazu Falls was though - many different circuits and trails snaking out to various different levels and parts of the falls. The three trails involved walks though thick vegetation and were named the Upper Circuit, Lower Circuit and then a train which takes riders to The Devils Throat.
The initial walk to the trails were great in themselves as thick forest surrounds the path. On each side of the path wild Coatis run around, eating, fighting and playing with each other -
oblivious to the people surrounding them taking pictures. Not quite so cute are the huge spiders, whose large webs span the width of the 1 metre broad path. The spiders hang precariously above the heads of unwitting strollers and are spaced every couple of metres. I would hate to have to job of clearing the lower ones each morning!
On reaching the main path I ambled first up towards the Upper Circuit path. This trail follows the tops of (and over) various waterfalls that are burst through the forest and down into the river below along a large crescent. Standing above the waterfalls watching thousands of gallons plummet over the edge was very thrilling. The sheer number of them spaced across this area made it even more impressive. The path was wonderfully constructed though and ran around and over the top of fast flowing rivers before they crashed over the precipice far below. Along this trail were also many friendly butterflies which kept landing all over me, which was nice.
The Lower Circuit also provided panoramic views of this crescent of large waterfalls, each thrusting water with enormous power over the edge in an epic homage to water
Looking Down
Waterfall on Argentina side of Iguazu Falls and gravity. This path also snakes out within a couple of feet of one of the waterfalls, leaving those who dare to venture to the edge soaking wet. The misty spray is constantly cast over everyone who makes the trip next to the deafening gush of water. On the way back I also came into contact with more Coatis, Toucans, an array of Lizards and, of course, more spiders.
The last trail was the most impressive by far and possibly just pip's the panoramic viewpoint on the Brazilian side of the falls. The Devils Throat is reached by first taking a train. The train disgorges its passengers in front of a trail which runs over the choppy Iguaçu River. Just before the trail is quite an incredible sight. The butterflies on the previous trail were very friendly but, just before this trail started there was an enormous cluster of them in one concentrated area. At first I thought they were colourful leaves blowing in the wind. On closer inspection I could see there were literally hundreds of them fluttering around in a colourful symphony - it was both bizarre and amazing.
Onto the trail however, and the main
attraction. The path stayed over the river, running over various small islands thrusting up stubborn resistance to the rapid strength of the Iguazu River. The waters currents were fast and aggressive as if it was hurriedly making its way to fly over the precipice of the cliff-side. The sun was very strong now and the water glistened as it whistled past only a few feet beneath my feet on the grilled metal walkway.
I almost had to look twice when I caught my first glimpse of the main drop. It actually reminded me of my gasping amazement when I saw the Grand Canyon. It felt very much like that sort of sheer enormity - but with water. The trail runs right next to the main view point and made me feel like I was right in the middle of this crashing, mesmerising and beautiful scene. Before me was a huge valley that curved round and back onto itself. Water thundered over both sides and down towards the river below which was obscured in a shroud of watery mist thrown up by the incredible weight of water being thrown over the edge. Each drop was severe and vertical.
The
Feel the Spray
Underneath the awesome power of the waterfall from the Lower Circuit of Iguazu Falls Argentina most incredible part was at the apex at the very top where the river swirled around before launching itself with deafening, crashing and thunderous might over the edge. Here you could hear, see, feel and even smell the astounding power of water. The view down the valley was immense as line of waterfalls on each side disgorged enormous amounts of water into the valley below. The area was studded with forest, trying to sprout around the various parts of the falls which looked even more impressive in the perfect sky and various rainbows that were sporadically appearing.
The Iguaçu / Iguazu Falls have truly been one of the most incredible, stupendous sights I have seen in my life - awe-inspiring natural beauty of the highest order. I make no apologies for probably sounding over excited about them and massively over using superlatives. Believe me - they are that good, and that impressive a sight.
I've had a great taste of Argentina so far but I have much more time in this country and so I'm looking forward to it even more so now. Brazil has been fantastic though, combining some idyllic relaxed beaches, wonderfully quaint towns and vibrant,
Calm Water
Before it plummets over the edge. colourful cities with great nightlife and warm people. I'll have to forgo my acai fix for a while but I'm already looking forward to it once I return to Rio before I fly home. Before I begin exploring Argentina properly now though I'm taking a detour to Uruguay, which is nestled comfortably between Brazil and Argentina and a mere 12 hours away on the bus.
PS - Scroll down and onto page 2 for more pictures of Iguazu Falls.
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Jennie
non-member comment
Those pictures are amazing Mikey! But 'I peeled myself off my sticky sheets' ? too mych detail perhaps :) Hope you've met some cool people along your way. x