Iguazu Falls

We left Paraty for Iguazu falls aboard a bus that was supposed to take 18 hours, infact it got there 3 hours quicker, but still 15 hours was a pretty long journey. I didn´t actually get off the bus the entire journey, I am slowly training my bladder with all these long trips!

As we arrived earlier than expected and it was a beautiful day we had time to do the Brazilian side of the falls that day. The Brazilian side gives magnificent panoramic views of the falls. You can hear the falls miles away which gives some idea as to the scale of them. The falls are made up of 275 seperate cascading waterfalls which altogether run for around 3km, they are absolutely enormous! There was no way to capture the sheer scale of them in photographs. I was completely in awe. Niagara has absolutely nothing on it, its like 275 seperate niagaras! We walked along the trail which afforded great views, and walked along one of the walkways which got you wet with the spray from the falls, this did not seem to put off one man though who stood there in his speedos!

We saw loads of beautiful butterflys, and Coatis which were kind of like racoons, they were just wandering all around us and were clearly used to humans being around them.

The following day we made the trip to the Argentinian side, as we crossed the border, we had to go through migracions and get a stamp in our passports for the day. The Argentine side gets you up close to the falls. We took a boat trip in the morning into the falls, it was on a big speed boat, and we got absolutely drenched! The force of the river and the falls is incredible! After drying off we walked along many of the trails along the park, to get a closer view of the different falls. We walked on the catwalk onto the most spectacular falls the Devils Throat, it was incredibly beautiful.

Aside from the falls there was little to see in the town of Foz de Iguasu, in fact it was a pretty shit town. Just looked like some crappy english town. It didn´t really help that it rained pretty much all day on our final day, and there was nothing to do. Once you see the falls, it is best to just get out of the town, it became all a bit bleak and depressing.

Crossing into Uruguay was a bit of a nightmare, we had to wait ages at Brazilian immigration to leave the country but once through that, we were off on another bus journey to Salto, Uruguay.