Posts Tagged With: Iguacu

After our wonderful stay in the Pantanal, we were sad to be leaving but looking forward to our next stop….Iguacu Falls. Again, it took a bit of travel to get here, basically retracing our steps to Campo Grande for an overnight stay. Well I say overnight, we arrived at about 7pm went straight to sleep and then woke at 1-30am for our pick up to catch our flight to São Paulo at 4-30am. From there we’d have a two hour layover before our next flight to Foz de Iguacu. It sounded hideous but actually it was all really relaxed and worked out fine. Our next guide, Giovanni picked us up and we arrived at our luxury hotel, The Sanma, at about lunchtime and went straight down to the lovely pool area to make the most of the afternoon sunshine. We had lunch down there and a couple of ‘Original Beers’. It was great to have the afternoon off! We ate in the hotel at night but it was a very average spag bol and there was an unfortunate incident with a mosquito in a glass of wine. Luckily the lady waiter was more understanding than the gents!

Anyway…..what did we get up into in Iguacu Falls? Well first let me tell you a little bit about the falls themselves. My info comes courtesy of Google, as whilst Giovanni was a safe driver and generally nice guy, he did not impart much knowledge for this old geographer! He did, however, correct my understanding of ‘Gauchos’ as he IS a gaucho whereas those cowboys in the Pantanal were Pantaneiro.

So, Iguacu Falls are in fact a network of 275 waterfalls spanning an area of 1.8 miles. They were first discovered by Europeans in 1541 when Conquistador, Álvares Nunez Cabeza de Vaca came across them on a stroll. Luckily, they decided to use the local Guarani name for the falls…not the old Conquistador’s as that wouldn’t have been so snappy. ‘Iguacu’ (or Iguazu on the Argentine side) means ‘big water’. Sounds pretty accurate to me.

In 1984 the falls were made a UNESCO heritage site and in 2011 were voted one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature. The falls are vastly larger than Niagra and although Victoria Falls have a larger single curtain of water, Iguacu are the biggest overall. This famously led Elenor Roosevelt to declare ‘Poor Niagra’ when she visited the falls herself!

So, what do you actually do, see, hear and feel when you visit Iguacu? Well, I will tell you about this in my next post but what I will say is that whereas I’d expected this to be yet another wild frontier where we’d be hacking our own path through the rainforest to reach the falls, this wasn’t quite the case!

Apart from visiting the falls whilst we were here we did enjoy a bit more of a relaxing time, spending time by the pool and visiting the Bird Park next door which was great, lots of the birds we’d seen in the Pantanal but now up close and personal! Especially the toucans, parrots and Macaw!

After our first night in the hotel we also got a bit more adventurous and went out to dinner. The first night we went to a really nice, family Japanese restaurant where we ordered way too much food! The next night we found a new Italian restaurant full of mod cons where I had pizza and Jane had Strogonoff. Sensible portions for the first time and we even had space for a Dulce de Leche waffle with ice cream! I found it quite incredible that we were in this wild place catching Ubers and eating Italian and gyozas!

As we had a few days here we were able to see all sides of the falls. Our first trip with Giovanni was to the Argentinian side. This involved an early pick up and a short drive to the border between Brazil and Argentina. There’s a lot of roadworks going on at the moment because they’re building a new bridge between Brazil and Paraguay which also borders here. To cross the border we first of all had to exit Brazil. We had to go into a border post with our passports where a few mangy dogs lay about. The nice lady stamped our passports and we moved on. We drove a bit further and then had to enter Argentina. Here we stayed in the van whilst Giovanni did the necessary. It’s all quite easy really with the help of a guide. Loads of people gather around the border posts, parked mopeds, shady dealers…goodness knows what was going on.

Iguacu Falls gets over 1 million visitors per year and the infrastructure built on both sides of the border to support this is impressive. However, compared to other ‘Most Visited Tourist Attractions’ this number remains small and nowhere near the top 50 worldwide. Even ‘Poor Niagra’ gets 22.5million visitors and that’s No 5 on the list. Top of the list by the way is the Las Vegas Strip with 39.6 million visitors annually.

Soon we were entering the park and our first stop was the Garganta do Diablo or Devils Throat. We had to get on a little train which took us closer to the falls. The park was very, very crowded and after the train we then walked about 1km across a metal walkway which wound its way over the flat but bulging river. When you arrive at the falls there are various viewpoints above the mists and falls of the Diablo. It’s very loud and in places you get very wet! We’d brought our ponchos all the way from the UK but hadn’t packed them today. Idiots! Cameras etc were all getting wet but it was great fun.

The second part of the visit here is another metal walkway which goes right along the cliff top of the falls for about 2km. Here you walk across bridges right next to where the individual falls go over the cliffs. The volume of water is incredible. Jane and I both loved our visit but agreed that it was very difficult to capture it on camera. Still, on the walk back she started taking photos of the beautiful butterflies whilst I chatted to Giovanni about Peaky Blinders and Sopranos!

We were due to visit the Brazilian side of the falls on Saturday but there was a marathon taking place (in this heat? It’s been 37 degrees! ) and Giovanni got stuck in heavy traffic as he’d predicted would happen. So we postponed our visit to today (Monday) before we fly on to Buenos Aires.

The Brazilian side is a lot more relaxed and being Monday less busy. The walk starts at the Pink Hotel (Belmond Iguacu Falls). We didn’t even try to use their loo today! Here there is a single walkway that goes for about a mile gradually going down into the gorge and getting closer to the falls. The views from here are awesome as you get to see the full panorama in front of you. The water is a beautiful jade green colour in parts. At the ‘bottom’ the metal walkway stretches right out over the water to a viewpoint head on into the Devils Throat. Again, you get very wet walking to it but it’s a jaw dropping sight. We caught the ‘not very scenic lift’ back up and Giovanni was waiting there to take us to our final part of the day.

We got dropped a little further back along the river and taken in a series of extended golf carts down to the gorge floor where we were to catch our boat! We got a locker and left everything in it, boarding the boat in our swimming gear! No cameras, no nothing for this thrill ride.

We boarded the rib with about 20 other suckers and off we went, slowly at first. But then as we approached the falls and the river got more exciting, we sped up and twisted and turned into the rapids. Along the way we passed small beaches, wonderful forests, a mass of yellow butterflies and huge fallen rocks. This was all very nice but the highlight of the trip is when you really speed up and he charges the boat at part of the waterfalls themselves. Under the falling water you go, sideways, then head on! The noise and feel of the water is, I confess, a bit scary. You get absolutely soaked and I could hardly look because I was in fear of losing my contact lenses!! Meanwhile, the girl from London next to me is screaming ‘Look at it, Look at it, Look at it’. I wasn’t quite sure what she meant but assumed she was looking up at the water coming down! Crazy lady! Crazy ride!

Soon it was over (I’m not sure if I was sorry or relieved) and we headed back to base. Obviously, we took no pictures of all this but we did purchase the video evidence on a widget. On this Jane looks like she’s having a whale of a time, whilst I just look rather harassed. My favourite bit is when Jane was sitting twisted in her seat and I tell her to turn round and sit straight! Health and Safety! Health and Safety!

We declared the Brazilian side the winners and headed back to the hotel still dripping wet! Then we finished our packing, went back through the borders with Giovanni and caught our evening flight to Buenos Aires. Roll on the next few days and last stage of this amazing trip.