Day 207 - Puerto Iguazu to Foz de Iguacu

  Foz de Iguacu, Brazil
Thursday, March 27, 2008

I hesitate to use such a lazy adjective, but today was simply AWESOME.

Neither of us slept that well last night because the sun woke us up and really lit up our small bedroom, so we pretty much had to get up early.

This wasn't a bad thing because we needed to catch the 9:10am bus to the park in order to make our 10am booking for a tour which we'd signed up for yesterday while waiting for the tourist train.

The highlight of the tour was going to be power-boating down the rapids before going UNDERNEATH some of the falls! It sounded really cool, even if it wasn't cheap.

When we visited the park yesterday we requested to have our tickets stamped, which meant that we could get in today for half price which is a great idea, for both tourists and the park.

We waited a few minutes at the meeting place before being asked to climb into the back of a massive 4x4 truck, from which we would be enjoying a 20 minute "safari trip" through the sub-tropical rainforest.



To be honest this sucked, the road was so flat that I think we could have done it on plastic tricycles and the commentary appeared to be in 16th Century Russian, even though she swore it was English.

Mental note: really must improve my English ;)

It was pretty obvious that they had to drive you from the park to the water, so they'd decided to market this 'drive' through some trees as a safari adventure!

Riiiiiiight....



We did stop to look at an "edible palm tree" (which was absolutely fascinati....zzzzzz).

 

We then saw some monkeys climbing around above us in the tree tops.

Monkeys rule ;)



I practically jumped off the truck when we reached our destination, whataloadofold....

The advantage of being one of the first down the steps to the river was that Katie & I were able to grab our life jackets, a couple of waterproof bags for our possessions and then secure prime seats right at the front right side of the speedboat. Good work!

 

We were ready for our 20 minute speedboat ride over rapids and ultimately under the falls (well, into the mist anyway!), where we'd been warned that we would get absolutely soaked.

I'd totally forgotten to wear my swim shorts this morning, which the rest of our tour should be grateful for because they're pretty hideous!

However, I did remember to bring my ear plugs, which I'd bought after getting that 2 month ear infection after the white water rafting in Thailand. World of pain.

Katie was better prepared than her husband, so had her bikini underneath her shorts & t-shirt, the clever girl.

After the distinctly underwhelming 4x4 ride I was prepared to be a bit disappointed by the speedboat, but the boat trip ROCKED!

This thing could officially shift, give it some tut, boot it, whichever Suffolk turn of phrase you wish to apply!

 

Within seconds we were hitting full speed over the whirling rapids and I kept expecting us to turn sharply to one side seconds before we reached them...

 

...only to find that we just carried on right over the top of the rapids!



This boat could pull some unbelievable corners, where we must have been leaning at 45 degrees to the water, hanging on for our lives but loving it all the same, it was a real buzz!



We cruised by some of the falls which we'd not seen yesterday and posed for a photo in front of them... 



...before entering the main 'devil's throat' section of the falls (yesterday we were right at the back of this photo)...



...to which we can get a bit closer thanks to Mr Zoom Lens...



...and then we pulled very close to one of the waterfalls before turning sharply around, getting a first faceful of spray...



...before turning back towards where we started at full speed.

A few seconds later we pulled a "uwey" (how the hell do you spell that, the slang for a U turn?) at a quite ridiculous speed and then turned into the area where we'd had our photo taken a few minutes before.

The view from there to the falls was amazing.



By now I was totally confused, which falls would we be going underneath, the main falls at the throat, or the ones in front of us? 

As if by magic we suddenly headed straight for the thundering falls in front of us and as we got closer we all got absolutely soaked!

We kept expecting the boat to turn around, but we kept going!

Deeper and deeper under the falls, as we got wetter, and wetter, and wetter!

Thank God for my ear plugs, which took a bit of a battering but kept 90% of the water out, with an assist from my floppy hat that I bought in the Galapagos Islands! 


Together they stopped me having another nightmare with my ears, so thanks dudes, good job!

During the worst part of the soaking I looked over to Katie who was absolutely LOVING it! She was shrieking her head off but clearly wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else in the world at that moment...

It was one of those "stop it, I like it" moments, which you really shouldn't like, but you end up loving!

Sensibly I'd managed to stow the camera away by this point, which was a good job as it would have got absolutely ruined if it wasn't in the waterproof bag.

Finally we turned away from the thundering falls and headed towards dry land.



Moments later we were brought ashore, where we climbed up the steps, trying not to fall over, looking like drowned rats!

Katie spotted signs for the free boat ride over to an island, so we queued for that and spent the next 15 minutes trying to dry out in the sunshine.

This was the boat which took us over to the island.



I know how you lot LOVE hearing about the weather (almost as much as the food, right?), so I really should give you a quick update.

As a famous film once memorably claimed, it was hot, DAMN HOT. In fact, when we got back to town later we saw that the temperature was 39 degrees C!

I spent 9 months living in Texas, which was incredibly hot, but I have NEVER experienced 39 degrees C before, it felt like we were melting.

It dried our clothes out a treat though! ;)

Once we were dry we followed the signs up the hill towards a set of trails which give some other perspectives over these amazing falls.



We climbed a load of steps up to reach the first of three trails which lead out to different viewpoints, each of which was very cool in their own way.



 

We couldn't resist posing for a few piccies in front of them.



 

We saw a lovely rainbow down in the mist where we'd been soaked earlier!

 

This was one of the local birds, get your book out Mum & Dad!

 

This was quite cool, you could see some of the falls through the natural stone arch.

 

As if by magic...

 

This was also a great view back towards the throat.

The falls on the left are on the Brazilian (Brasilian!) side, the falls at the back & right are on the Argie side.

 

This photo shows the river which we took the speedboat from, with the main falls directly behind us and to the right.

 

After a good old walk round we caught the free boat back across the water and started the "inferior circuit", which I think refers to the fact that it's a low level trail, rather than it being worse than any others!

The "superior circuit" takes you right along the tops of the waterfall, but we wanted to do this one first.

 

This trail led us to some fantastic views, you wonder where the hell all this water comes from!



 

The closer we got, the louder they became, really thundering down beside us.

 

Sometimes they looked like a fantasy island.



The trails were super-organised, with sturdy boardwalks and even wheelchair access which was very impressive considering that was the first wheelchair friendly facility that either of us could remember seeing since arriving in South America!

It was cool to look down on some of the speedboats, remembering how much we'd enjoyed thundering over the rapids earlier!

 

The trail gave some lovely views back to the devil's throat...

 

...and you could see other speedboats approaching just as we had earlier.

 

There were also some nice spots for a few photos of us!

 

At one point we had a fantastic view of the speedboats going underneath the same falls that we did earlier, you can really see why we got so soaked!

 

This was a much higher perspective of the view we had earlier from the boat.

 

I like this one with the boat approaching.

 

There were falls everywhere! It was so much WIDER and more varied that we'd expected.



We completed the "inferior" trail in an hour less than the 'hour and a half' suggested by all the guidebooks (are you supposed to walk on your hands or something?) and grabbed some cheap lunch because we really didn't have much money left on our last day in Argentina.

I did have a nice cold beer though, which was suh-weeeeet....

Just as we were finishing our lunch outside a cafe, we were invaded by a family of weird anteater-crossed-with-racoon type creatures, which jumped onto tables and devoured pretty much anything they could get their grubby little paws on!

They really scared the hell out a few people, I can tell you that, they were ravenous! 



After lunch we set off on the "superior" trail, which took us up and along the very tops of the falls from which we'd got our soaking earlier.



It was a really fantastic trail, stopping a few times to allow you to gaze over the waterfalls, seeing them change from peaceful lagoons into huge white thundering bridal veils of water.

It was absolutely beautiful up here. 

 

There was even some pretty wildlife to admire if you got bored of all the water!

 

This was taken from a small bridge which crossed a very quiet and peaceful pool of water...

 

...before the trail led you left, around to where this peaceful pool fell over the cliff!



As we got closer to the larger falls the views changed and you could really see how GREEN this part of the country is.

 

It seemed like every few steps there was a thunderous channel of water to admire...

 

...ok, make that a number of thunderous channels!



Again we whizzed round the trail and were back at the start in no time, where we decided to walk back to the visitors centre which was only 10 minutes or so away.

The whole way back both of us were eulogising about how much we loved the park, it was really excellent, one of the very best experiences that we've had on our trip so far.

A lot of places we've seen on our travels have met our high expectations, which has been fantastic, but the Iguacu Falls have absolutely shattered our high expectations, kicked them into touch, knocked them into orbit!

It is definitely one of the best places that either of us have ever visited.

You need to visit. Trust me.

Once back on the bus we decided to get off at the bus station and walk 20 mins to a spot from where you can see Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, neatly divided by 2 rivers.

Maybe that doesn't sound very interesting, but it was a really cool little place.

..or rather a really HOT little place, which left us gasping, more from the heat than the views this time!

 

We're obviously on the Argentinian side, to our left is Panama and to our right is Brazil!

 

Each country had it's own flag colours on a triangular marker...

 

...here's the Panamanian one...

 

...and finally the Brazilian one!



At this point we had the princely sum of 4.5 pesos left to our name, so we walked back to a supermarket to get a 2 litre bottle of water and then popped next door to get a single scoop of melon ice cream with the remaining 1.5 pesos!

Once back at our hostel, we retrieved our gear from the lockers and investigated getting a taxi over the border, as we knew it was pretty close.

We hoped that we could pay with US$, rather than getting a few extra pesos out of the bank (where we would pay more on bank fees than we needed to withdraw!).

Yet again the guy in our hostel was a great help, giving good advice and calling us a taxi while we got ourselves together.

I grabbed a couple of minutes on the internet, where I groaned when I read about the baggage disasters at the opening of the brand new Heathrow Terminal 5!

I was disappointed to read that the problems meant they'd pushed back the integration of the intercontinental BA flights into Terminal 5, I was really looking forward to seeing it when we landed, but the baggage cock-ups meant that we'd be landing in one of the old terminals instead :(

Our taxi driver turned out to be a real sweetheart, just a lovely guy, so we attempted to engage him in our last Spanish conversation and did pretty well I think! At least he didn't die laughing or drive off the bridge in protest...

We passed Argentinian customs without getting out of the car (Drive-thru Customs, that's the future!), but we had to get out of the car to pass Brazilian customs. I know, OUTRAGEOUS ;)

The whole process took us a matter of seconds rather than the usual 30 mins - 3 hours, so we were soon speeding off (and I mean that literally!) towards the Brazilian town of Foz de Iguacu, our first stop in Brazil!

Bless our driver, he'd worked out the best way to our hotel while we were doing our thing in immigration, so he went straight there with no fannying about and he seemed delighted with his US$20 fare.

It was a good job he drove off quickly because I'm pretty sure Katie wanted to put him in her backpack and carry him around with her, like Julian from the Inca trail! ;)

The hotel was very pleasant (Katie felt justified booking us a nice place here because our last hostel was so cheap!) and our room was noticeably bigger and more comfy than anywhere we've stayed for a while. 

Katie was also extremely happy to be able to have a good shower with nice towels and then lay on a good bed with nice sheets etc. You know what girls are like...

After refreshing ourselves we headed out to get some local cash and then some beers & crisps to enjoy back in the room, where we considered our options for dinner. 

We were talked through a number of recommendations by the helpful guy at the front desk, who even organised some discounts for us, before we decided that we weren´t hungry enough to justify a big fancy all-you-can-eat place and instead ended up in a very basic but still all-you-can-eat pizza place!

It was less than a third of the price of the place he'd recommended, and it was fine. Cheap,  cheerful and not untasty...

We then came back to the hotel, where Katie is upstairs in the room, very excited to have found some American Idol on the telly, while I update the blog and generally try to avoid watching American Idol on the telly ;)

Ok, sorry for the rather long entry today (as the Bishop said to the Nun), I'll try and get some of the fantastic photos from the last few days up on the blog asap!

Goodbye Argentina and Spanish-speaking South America, and hello Brasil and Portugeuese!


Lots of love,


Al & Katie xx