This is a must for all who travel to South America and we can now appreciate why. The falls are amazing - and so many of them!! We started on the Argentinian side and were blown away by the sheer number of waterfalls and the quantity and power of the water flowing over them.

There are several walking circuits and boat trips you can do and we managed to do most of the walking circuits - lower circuit, upper superior, and garganta del diablo, the highlight of the park. The lower circuit was fabulous for seeing all the falls from front on. We came across a few of the local species as well - like cooties (sort of racoon/possum), tiger ants an inch long, spiders of all sizes, lizards up to about a foot long and beautiful birds of several sizes and colours. The animals just cruised over the walking tracks as if they owned the place - as they do i guess. The walk was very busy with other tourists but we just waited our turn to get the photos we wanted - and believe us there were so many places to take amazing photos! In fact we got a bit carried away but I think you will agree that words can do little to describe the falls and photos do a much better job. The upper circuit was a short 660 metres to see some of the falls from above and again looking to the skies for more birds - in particular the toucans! But sadly no luck there.

The garganta del diablo circuit was a train ride in the smallest train in the world followed by a walk of about a kilometre to the top of the main falls. It was breathtaking (when we finally got there after having to drag Nicola away from taking a million photos of the butterflies along the boardwalk). The amount of water pouring over the main falls is amazing and the noise hits you from a huge distance away, the power of them is phenomenal. What also makes the falls so beautiful is their setting, with rainforests all around them and so much nature all around. You really can imagine what the Europeans must have thought when they first stumbled on them as it seems remains steeped in virgin jungle all around.

We headed back to the falls the following day to do the Macuco trek, which we presumed would be similar to the walkways over the treks the day before. We couldnt have been more wrong! As we made our way towards the trek, which was just a mud trail through the middle of the jungle / rainforest a park ranger came running over to us to give us the warnings about the trek in English! Oh my God! It warned us about snakes (yes the poisonous kind), monkeys, spiders (yup them too) and big cats! I was ready to turn around but I didnt want us to miss out so we soldiered on, me scared out of my little mind. In fact it was a really beautiful trail through virtually untouched jungle, with huge bamboo trees and all of the indigineous plants and huge spiders! We walked past each of them ducking our heads to avoid them and then Gareth would check they were still there when we had passed, to make sure they hadnt dropped onto our shoulders or anything! But amazingly we got to see Capuchin monkeys in the wild which was fabulous, there they were just swinging in the trees taking no notice of us and hoping from branch to branch! A real highlight!

We crossed over the border into Brazil and immediately noticed the difference, gone were the dirt roads and small one and two storey buildings and in its place were huge motorways, skyscrapers and lots and lots of really developed areas. Even the vegetation changed and became much more Caribbean. The Brazilian side of Iguazu is smaller and much more commerical, with huge power lines running through the park which is a shame. However it does have a beautiful viewpoint of the main falls and again I got to chase more butterflies and drive Gareth crazy doing it! We also headed to the bird park to see some of the South American birds and got to see parakeets, parrots, massive ostrich type birds and many many more exotic and brightly coloured birds, and best of all for a Guinness drinker like Gareth, the toucans! It was lucky that we went to the bird park after the trek with snakes and spiders as seeing them in their cageswould have put an end to any chance of using going there again!!