Iguazu Falls

Puerto Iguazu and Foz du Iguacu (16-19 Feb)

Iguazu lies on the northeastern border between Argentina and Brazil. We met our 2 new travel companions Adam and Duncan at 6am at the Aeroparque domestic airport. The flight takes only just over an hour and we stepped out into a hot and humid tropical forest.

Wikipedia provides the following:

"Cataratas do Iguaçu are waterfalls of the Iguazu River located on the border of the Brazilian state of Paraná and the Argentine province of Misiones. The falls divide the river into the upper and lower Iguazu.

The waterfall system consists of 275 falls along 2.7 kilometers (1.67 miles) of the Iguazu River"

Our hostel was called the Hostel Inn, a chain of hostels renowned for partying. We made silent thanks the heavens that there was a large swimming pool!

Poolside at the Hostel Inn

With no time to waste we checked in and booked a cab to visit the Brazilian side of the falls. Passports at the ready, we crossed over with ease and entered the national park of Foz du Iguaçu. We were dropped off at the start of network of paths that take you to various viewpoints.

Crossing into Brazil and Foz du Iguacu

The area is inhabited by small raccoon-like animals called Coati which love to get food from tourists (sometimes even aggressively). The views of the falls are panoramic and spectacular. We made our way over to a platform where you stand right right over a section of the Iguazu river and view the falls in front of you! Jostling for position with the hundreds of tourists we managed to get some great snaps in.

Our initial view of the falls

Raccoon-like Coati chased tourists around trying to get at their food!

The platform extending over the falls

Big spiders!

After some ice creams we were picked up and returned to our hostel where the pool provided welcome relief from the 36 deg heat and 92% humidity.

The night proceeded onto some drinking which ended up with Adam and myself doing Capoeira demonstrations and Riverdance recruiting a few of the Irish to perform a drunken rendition of Riverdance.

Riverdance, Adam and Duncan enjoying some refreshing Quilmes by the pool

Drinking games with daquiris

Mmmmmmmmmmmm..... beeeeer!

Alcohol turned us into Capoeristas!

Click to view the video

The Irish giving Riverdance a go

Dancing babies were part of the entertainment

We met an Irish chap who was also called Adam so we decide to code ourselves Adam1,Adam2 and Adam3 to avoid future confusion!

From left to right: Adam, Adam and.... Adam

Too much damn alcohol!

I woke up slightly stiff and sore, regretting all the unnecessary exercise from the night before. We now had to explore the Argentine side of the falls. We booked onto a jungle tour and boat ride combination. The jungle tour on the truck was fairly monotonous with our uninterested guide saying he pretty much guaranteed we WOULD NOT see any wildlife while we were on the truck due to the noise... thanks dude...

The boat trip was an altogether different experience. Donning lifejackets and putting all our gear in waterproof bags we got onto a rubber duck inflatable boat with 2 monster 250 horsepower outboard motors. We literally flew upstream towards the falls!

Puerto Macuco - boat launching site

We heading right in there!

We moved around viewing a couple of sections of the falls before being told to get ready to get wet. The next moment we had been sat directly under a waterfall! I had brought my waterproof camera casing along so managed to get some random and misdirected shots! The water was very refreshing but pumelled us pretty hard!

Sitting right under the waterfall!

We got slightly wet

After several soakings we were dropped off where we moved onto the Garganta do Diablo (Devil’s Throat) which is the main and most impressive section of the falls. The Argentine side was luckily far less congested than Brazil so we managed to get to the good views without shoving through crowds. A short train ride and hike over the top of the falls brought us to this amazing viewpoint. Water vapour and steam everywhere showed off bizarre rainbows.

Water heading down the Devil's Throat

Having completed another long day of walking we headed back to the hostel and reflected on the day. I have already seen Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and can safely say that I was far more impressed by Iguazu! Back at the hostel we had a large Asado (barbeque dinner) prepared and were treated to a tango show and lesson (which I participated in of course ;-))

Tango show

Tango lesson in shorts and flip flops

Riverdance and Fiona fom Ireland

The next day Adam and Duncan left us to go party it up in Salvador for Carnavale... I was seething with jealousy! Riverdance and I were off to Argentine Wine Country... Mendoza... not a bad alternative!