Alright Folks,

Wopppeee, we are now up to date! Sorry if any of the postcards seem less funny or the flow it backwards but I am sitting in a internet office with no air con in 35 degree heat and feel like my brain is about to melt out of my ears. I just want to finish and get to a pool.

So here we go, last postcard of the day, Iguacu Falls. The worlds biggest waterfalls. There are about 275 falls stretching over 2kms in length. It is an impressive sight. The falls sit on the border of Argentina and Brazil. We spent a few hours in a bird park first before we went into the Brazil National Park to see the falls. It was set up to try and breed indangered parrots and other birds. The colours were amazing we were able to walk freely into their reserves with them flying around us. The breeding birds are kept separate as the males get very aggressive and attack the other birds. We walked past their cages (all very large) and they made such a racket with the male birds trying to attack the other male birds through the cages. Needless to say we didn?t stay there that long as we didn?t want to make them worse. We got some cool shots but missed even more as the batteries in my camera were low and it took forever to take a pic. We did get some good ones of the humming birds and some tucans. Sharlene also got a cool top in the gift shop.

The Brazil side is further away from the falls and affords better views of the entire falls. There are helicopter flights over the falls, but at 60USD for 10 minutes we decided not to bother, and from the reports of other travelers we were right to. When we got into the National Park we headed for some of the trails and saw the abseiling was available down the side of the cliff with views of the falls. It was free abseiling (no wall to walk down) which allowed us to turn around and see everything. As Sharlene was ill when I did the waterfall abseiling we decided to do it and it was fab! You can see from our pics we had a great time. It was 55m high and we took over 10 minutes to do it. After that we did the walk along the cliff edge and saw some amazing views of the falls. I also did a short movie clip but the site doesn?t show clips. We got soaked at one point as there was a cat walk out between two falls and at the end we could see the devils thought (the largest of all the falls). From there we did the gift shop and got Sharlene a cool fridge magnet.

The next day we visited the Argentinean side. The views were just as amazing and much much closer. Again I got a few movie clips of that side and got soaked again. When we were there we did a eco tour which was a small boat (10 people) ride along the water just away from the edge of the falls. The water is so calm and slow you would never know that there were massive falls just about 50 metres away. The idea of the boat ride was to see the flora and fauna. We saw loads of trees and such but only one caiman (a mini croc). That took about 20 minutes and from there we did some of the other walks on offer all with, you guess it, amazing views! We than went out onto the water in a zodiac boat for 10 minutes and saw the falls up close, dripping wet close! The water was lovely and warm so after the zodiac boat trip we went for a swim. I went in and than remembered that I still had my wallet in my pocket, ooops. We could?t go out far as the current was really strong only to be made worse be speeding zodiac boats. I got know over by the ways and lost my glasses but thankfully we found them.

To dry off we walked for another couple of hours and than headed back to the bus. The Argentinean side was just as amazing as the Brazilian side and we are glad we did both. Waterfalls are like sunsets though, you can never get enough pics and in the end they all look the same.

Today we visited the worlds most powerful and largest Hydroelectric Power Plant. It produces 95% of Paraguay?s energy needs and 25% of Brazils. It took 21 years to complete and broke all the records for speed of completion! The rate of construction was equivalent to a 20 story building being built every 55 minutes and the amount of steel used would build 380 Eiffel Towers. I am sure that would piss the French off, if Brazil and Paraguay decided to build 380 Eiffel Towers in the middle of nowhere. It sounds very impressive but looks like a sh*t lot of concrete with a little bit of water flowing out of it. It is only when you see a car near it that you see its massive side. The spillway for the dam can handle 40 times the amount that flows over Iguacu.

Speaking of all this water is killing me so I?m off to get a nice cold bottle of ?.. water. So enjoy all the pics and if you want to feel like you are there get someone to throw buckets of water at you.

Until nest time, Em & S.