Iguazu Falls

This weekend, I went to Iguazu falls with Jim. I was able to convince him to join me a couple of weeks ago, and we were off to see one of the best waterfalls in the world.

Friday at Itaipu Dam

Like all flights in Brazil, the flight to Iguazu was running late. On the flight, we met some fun Canadians (plus one Brazilian) that we ended up hanging out with on Saturday night, but more on that later. As soon as we got to Foz, we took the nearest taxi to the hotel and then to Itaipu Damn. I think that they said this was the biggest damn in the entire world at the moment. It was built in the 70s to harness the power of the river and provide electricity to 90% of Paraguay and a good deal of Brazil. Looking at the damn is spectacular. It is a mass of concrete that spans as far as you can see to either side. Off to the left is the spill way, which is a huge slide of cement ready to fill the river below if there is a heavy rain. In the center, there is an office building that sits on the border between Paraguay and Brazil. We took a tour of the damn and saw the turbines spinning and the control room inside the office building. We also met a woman named Christine that we ended up having dinner with and talking with for a couple of hours. She became my travel buddy in Rio a bit later.

Saturday in Argentina

You can spend the whole day on the Argentinean side of the Falls because there are so many great views to see and so many hiking trails in the park. After learning how to use the bus to travel to Argentina, we made it to the park a little after 10 am, or so we thought. We didn't actually figure out that there is a +1 hour time change as you go over the river coming from Brazil. We couldn't figure out why everything was closing so early until late in the day.

The first view of the falls was amazing. It is a very wide falls with a huge amount of water flowing over it, but when it rains it gets even more massive than my pictures show. Most of the ridge is stepped so there are two main levels of waterfalls and there are waterfalls absolutely everywhere. See all the pictures I took, because describing the view doesn't give it any justice. Needless to say, I was very impressed. We were advised to do a boat tour from the Argentinean side, and it was well worth the money for the hour long tour. It started out with a close up view of two main sections of the falls, and then a really really close up view of them. By this I mean that they take the speed boat practically under the falls to make everybody complete soaking wet. Later, you take the speed boat careening down the river and over some rapids before getting off and taking a truck ride through the jungle in hopes of seeing some animals.

The best views of the falls are from an island called San Martin in the middle of the ridge. You can take a small ferry over to it and hike to a view point where you sit right at the base of one of the falls.

We ended up seeing the Canadians that we met on the airplane in the afternoon. After texting them throughout the day, we were finally able to meet up with them later that night. When we got back to town, 2 of them (Marilia and Rebecca) came out to party a bit with us. We had a great time, talked for hours, sang Brazilian songs, and partook in some of the bar's specialty mojitos. We didn't get to the next hotel until about 2:30 in the morning. This was a bit of a shame, because this was one of the nicest hotels that we've been to and it was in the national park on the Brazilian side, right next to the waterfall.

Sunday in Brazil

This was sort of a relaxing day. After sleeping in a bit, Jim and I got up for breakfast and then a short hike to see the Brazilian park. We had spent the night at Hotel Das Cataras, which is an extremely nice hotel right in the national park and sitting on the ridge which overlooks the Brazilian side of the falls. Though you can see many of the same waterfalls from the Brazilian side and the Argentinean side, the Brazilian side differs in that you have a larger wider view of the area. Plus, this is the best place to see the most dramatic falls called Gigante do Diabo. There is a walkway that goes out to just above the lower falls to see the whole area and it provides a terrific panoramic view.

In the afternoon, we checked out this bird park where we got to see a lot of the native birds included small parakeets and large macaws. It wasn't too exciting after the falls, but a good way to spend the afternoon.