Foz Do Iguassu - Spectacular Waterfalls
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2004
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Trip End
Nov 01, 2005
Foz Do Iguassu,
Brazil
Wednesday, June 1, 2005
Our bus arrived at 4.30pm! We caught a taxi to our hostel and chilled. It is a nice Hostelling International Hostel out of town and has a swimming pool, a bar and nice wee chalets for couples! We took the cheap buffet they offer which reminded us too much of the Pantanal food!!
Day 216 Friday 03/06/05 Foz Do Iguassu
The hostel runs trips to the Argentinian side of the Iguassu falls for about 6 euro so we booked to do it with them. We left at 8.30am with a very mad driver called Don-Chris and a weird bus with garden benches instead of seats - he liked girls and made an effort only to take single girls away with him
01 Another 3 Countries - Brazil, Paraguay And Arge
. He pulled away from the hostel and then stopped to talk to a pony & donkey in a field - as he drove along the field they ran beside the bus and got a small sweet at the end of the field. His football team had beaten an Argentinian side last night so he draped his team colours at the front of the bus and was as happy as Stewart was when Rangers won the title!!! He honked his horn at everyone he saw and kept humming this annoying little tune! We stopped briefly at Brazil Immigration but we didnīt need to do anything as we were coming back the same day. He then drove over the river and stopped on either side of the yellow border crossing line saying Brazil...Argentina in his halting English. We then gave him our passports and half an hour later we entered Argentina - not even seeing an immigration official! We first went to the viewpoint where you can see Brazil, Paraguay & Argentina together. Then it was time for a drive through Puerto Iguassu and lots of horn honking and shouting as he wound up every person we passed about the football result!!! We then headed out to the National Park. Stewart started with a 15 minute jungle walk before we shared a 1/2 hour truck ride through the jungle. We then boarded inflatable speedboats and had a 6km ride up the river (through grade 3 rapids) and then the falls started coming into sight - an amazing way to come to the falls. The speed boat zoomed around the basins giving us a great view of a large number of the 275 (approx and depending on rainfall) falls - they then took us really close to two of the falls getting us drenched in the process - it was fabulous
02 Youth Hostel Bus
. Some of the locals actually put swimming trunks on and put everything else in plastic bags - we can see why. We then headed over to Isla San Martin where we climbed up and went to two great viewpoints - the falls are amazing - we hope that you can find a picture as we just canīt describe how stunning they are. We crossed back over to the mainland and climbed back up to the top where we took the "green train through the jungle" out to the "Devilīs Throat" area. You walk across a couple of kilometres of boardwalk before getting very close to the edge of the falls - and get a great views of the myriad of falls that make up the Devilīs Throat - phenomenal. We managed to get to it between two large groups - one of them Japanese - very lucky we think! We headed back on the train and completed the upper circuit where you get to the edge of more of the falls. One of the highlights of this park is the amount of really colourful butterflies that are around. After the upper circuit we went back to the bus and headed back across the border - not even stopping at the checkpoints. We went to the bar and had junk food for tea with a couple of beers for Stewart - 600ml Bavaria for less than a euro.Day 217 Saturday 04/06/05 Foz Do Iguassu - Curitiba
Today it was the turn for the Brazil Side of the falls
03 Butterflies
. We caught a free local bus to the main road and then another bus to the National Park. You then get an internal bus up to the Falls area. We walked for about 1.5 km and that walk has various viewpoints along it......and guess what...it was stunning. The best way to describe it is like a jigsaw - yesterday we saw the pieces and today we saw the completed picture. Wow, Wow, WOW. The way the sun was shining meant that there were rainbows everywhere and apart from having the misfortune of being near a Japanese group we had a wonderful couple of hours in the park being amazed by the falls. This place is just so beautiful. We sat down near the top of the falls and watched some playful coatimundis search for food at the fast food outlets - they got some chips from the people next to us - by jumping onto the table and stealing them. Gillian had a nice buffet lunch (too much meat for Stewart for the money). We then headed to a nearby bird park which was actually much better than we had expected - we saw all sorts of weird and wonderful birds (especially some of the parrots) that looked like a kid had painted them with his paint set. We entered an aviary full of macaws at feeding time which was actually quite unnerving. We caught the bus combination back to the hostel - at the change over point some police stopped to talk to us but we couldnīt understand them. We got back to the hostel to find that the free bus immediately prior to the one we had taken had been robbed at gunpoint - 4 people we had met last night in the bar (2 Irish, 1 English & 1 Dutch) had lost almost everything they had - passports, cameras, MP3 players, money, credit cards, etc. The robbers were waiting behind bushes near the bus stop and after getting on the bus proceeded to pull out guns. We were soooo lucky. We tried to talk and help the others as much as we could before heading to the bar and having some more burger/sandwiches/chips (& beer) and watching the start of the Argentina v Ecuador football match - which Ecuador won!!! We took a taxi to the bus station and caught an overnight bus to Curitiba. 
