Mercure Grand Internacional Foz Foz de Iguacu

... the full tour. I did nearly **** myself, I'm trying to put a video up but it's taking ages with the slow connection. The maniac guy they had driving the speedboat drove us under the waterfalls. Several times. On the drive up I was thinking how incredible it looked but when I realised he was carrying on right into the falls I had a minor panic attack. However I'm still here and have the video so I'll forgive him ...

... everything looked the same. Ironically though, there is no border control, so Brazilians can just take the bus to Paraguay, do their "groceries", and don’t even bother to get off the bus when coming back. When crossing to Argentina though, passport control is required, like we found out when visiting the Argentinean side of the falls. The latter only strengthened the impression gained on the Brazilian side and is 100% worth visiting.

... to say it was a great relief and quite a sense of achievement to step off the plane in Iguazu.
Luckily our hostel here has beautiful outdoor garden areas with abundant hammocks - combine with a cold beer, and we find the cure for airport stress.

From the bus station here it is a short trip to the Iguazu national park, where there is some pretty impressive tourist infrastructure around the falls themselves ...

... we could only hear it roar and thunder from the Brazilian side, as it was shrouded by the 150 meter spray mist it throws up. It would have to wait until we got to the Argentinean side - a short wait, as the next morning our third South American country was entered with no difficulty (the world loves a New Zealand passport!).

Feeling suitably cocky with our mornings effort (something that included a number of buses, a border crossing and locating and walking to ...

... hostels for 3 weeks now mostly with luke-warm "hot" showers and non-heated rooms I decide a stay in a nice hotel is needed to recuperate my senses. You know with deals, so I ask Lula -- the groups guide -- if the hotel might extend their assumed group discount rate to me. I rewarded with a single room for only R$75 (instead of R$120) that includes I later discover one of the ...

... s Throat, the biggest water fall. There was a big mixture of spray and mist but the view was still incredible. Then we spent an hour or so walked to different falls ans seeing the falls from different views.
After linch, we went on a boat down the river. We went up the rapids and towards the 3 musketeers waterfalls. The boat went into 1 of them and we got a little bit wet. Then we went towards one of the larger waterfalls and ...

... t realize I’d regret my flip-flops even more than Steve regretted no underwear!

Equally as impressive, but less dramatic, was the butterfly and hummingbird enclosure. There were tiny birds and giant butterflies throwing everything out of proportion and very beautiful to see. We skipped the Macaw enclosure as we had such a fantastic show from the wild ones in Bonito we didn’t want to ruin the memory, but we did get to hold one on the way out ...

... visitors hanging over the 70 meter cliff, getting a face full of mist and spray from the most famous section of the falls.

By the time we finished at Garganta Del Diablo the park was closing. We heard visitors can have their tickets stamped to receive half price admission for a second consecutive day so we will be back in the morning to tour the upper circuit and do some more hiking in the surrounding trails before we catch our bus back to Buenos Aires.

... wandered around Puerto Igazu until he found the bank. Money finally in hand, we got back to the hostel and gave him a big tip. Then we had a siesta for a bit until dinner. Since all the friends we had made had left, and since it was our anniversary, we decided to have dinner by ourselves, outside by the pool where it was quiet. We toasted the last two years, and the upcoming ones, with a bottle of the Terrazas malbec. It was a great day.

... hat that I bought in the Galapagos Islands. Together they stopped me having another nightmare with my ears, so thanks guys. During the worst part of the ...