Wednesday 27 January

Iguacu (also known as Iguazu) Falls

An adventurous day for us old folk, which made it a highlight of our trip so far. Firstly we left the hotel early by bus to cross into Argentina to visit the other side of the falls. 90% of the falls are actually in Argentina and only 10% in Brazil. It took quite a while to get through the Argentinian border crossing! There is a kind of no man’s land between the two border controls, so I don’t know who actually administers it. The Iguazu River is the actual border so the bridge has one half with green and gold (Brazil), and the other half blue and white (Argentina). We imagine each country administers right up to the middle of the bridge!

Firstly we managed to be on the first little train to get to the starting point for the walk to the falls (thanks to our tour director who wanted us to be among the first there to avoid the crowds). We had to walk about a km along a metal board-walk. The river is about 4km wide above the falls, so most of our walk was over water. We could see where a previous board-walk had been washed away in a flood. 

Our destination was the “Devil’s Throat”, a long narrow ravine into which much water poured from all round. Spectacular! We occasionally got water spray, but not much because there was no wind. Apparently you can get quite wet standing there.

Butterflies in abundance ...

... and birds

... and tortoises

... and other critters (Coatis - raccoon-like).

Following this we got the little train only half way back so we could walk the rest of the way to see the wildlife. This is a national park so there is a lot. A photographer had taken our photos so we paid for them and went by bus to the helipad. [This was the first time we actually gave permission for a photograph – we have been photographed leaving the airport, or leaving a hotel, with these blokes then catching up with us later in the day or even the next day(!) to show the photo and wanting us to buy! We did buy one such photo of Stuart.] We paid extra to fly by helicopter over the falls. First time we’ve been in a helicopter. We both sat in the front, with Lesley sitting next to the pilot (we had three of us in the front and four in the back). Photos are not brilliant because of the angles and reflections and other helicopter bits, but it was amazing.

Our hotel, taken from the internet. Our room was in the square end at the left.

Then we all went down to the river downstream of the falls, and zoomed up to the falls in large jet inflatables. They took us under one of the falls, four times, so we got rather wet! Great fun! Lesley used our waterproof camera, getting a few decent shots, and Stuart used the Go Pro look-alike for some videos.

We returned to the hotel very wet, to change and rest. Some of the ladies had cocktail drinks at the jewellery shop in the hotel to look at their wares. Beautiful jewellery – gold, diamonds, emeralds etc. Very expensive, most items over $2000US. Brazil is known for precious and semi-precious stones. Lesley looked, but didn’t buy. Others bought, however – mostly rings.

Dinner was earlier, and not as noisy as last night. Buffet of beautiful food! And Brazilian lemonade isn’t anywhere near as nice as Peruvian lemonade!!

Tomorrow we go to the bird park, to look around and have lunch, then fly to Rio.