From living in a jungle hut, and tramping 'round the Argentine rain-forest, we went to colonial luxury at Iguazu Falls, Brazil. We felt like vagrants rolling up at the Hotel Das Cataratas, smelling of camp-fires, with mud on our shoes, but no-one batted an eyelid. Imagine turning up at a posh hotel in the UK, looking like Ray Mears, after a particularly taxing expedition!
We dumped our stuff, and decided to go straight out and look at the falls, as the hotel was about 100 yards from the Falls Trail. It was raining, so I grabbed one of the posh hotel brollies, only to be told by the door-man they were 'for use only inside the hotel', what, your ceilings got a lot of leaks, then?
It was difficult to tell the rain from the spray created by the waterfalls, and whether you've got a brolly or not, you end up soaked, but impressed, as the falls are just incredible, so much bigger than Niagara. We wandered around alone, the crowds having disappeared as the park closes at night, and guests from Hotel Das Cataratas have the falls to themselves, it was fabulous.
Next day, it was back across the border, to experience the falls from the Argentine side. Bizarrely, only 20% of the falls are on the Brazil side of the border, but they boast that the views are better, while the Argentinians, with their 80% of the falls, reckon you actually experience the falls properly on their side. Either way, it's fantastic. We walked the various trails, in and out of the waterfalls, with the rest of our tour-group, who were all Argentinian, and our own personal camera-man, who was filming our visit for a souvenir DVD (yes, we bought it, yes, it's as embarrassing as you'd imagine!).
The other trip that everyone does at Iguazu is the motor-boat ride under the falls. We did this too, Sally-Anne was very brave, as she is a big scaredy-cat, and it was quite extreme. We got the souvenir DVD, again, for the side-splitting 30 seconds of footage where Sal tries to force a smile, it's comedy gold!
PS. We were having breakfast, and one of the staff came over, 'Mr Cox, there is a telephone call for you, I'll bring the 'phone over', he brought the 'phone to the table. It was the tour agency, apparently the helicopter trip was cancelled due to the weather. How much did we enjoy taking a 'phone call in the breakfast room, and saying, in a dramatic voice, '..helicopter's off, darling..'!