After the treachery of that 16 hour bus journey, we arrive in Foz de Iguazu, the brazillian side of the falls. Regina, Mags and I add one more to our travelling party, a guy that Mags had met before somewhere (Bradley from Leeds) and the four of us get a taxi to the main bus station and from here get the bus to the boarder, we check out of brazil and wait for another bus to take us over to argentina, we check in, and off we go to the hostel. As looks would have it its the nicest place so far. Lovely red brick buildings, a wide open area in the middle with a big open kitchen area at the back beside the swimming pool. A nice air conditioned lobby and bar area and a general look of a place where people would stay, as opposed to the first place we stayed

Evening number one, we go get food at a local restaurant. The food is fantastic, we even got a free starter!!! It is ridiculously cheap for what we get also, after that we more or less chill out to get over the bus ride and make plans for the trip to the falls the next day....

Early next day we get up for breakfast (I think it was rubbish but its not important). We get a lift to the falls and even though we have a tour booked we have to pay into the national park (we knew this would happen). It is 85 pesos for foreigners, 25 for argentinians, and 10 for locals. 10 pesos is about 2 euro btw. Its a scorcher of a day so we waste no time getting to Reginas favourite part of the tour, the visitors centre ;). After the second it takes us to get bored of that, we head down to get the jeep through the "secondary jungle" to the start of the tour. We booked the best tour the park does, pricey but worth it, around 70 euro. We get to take a speed boat up towards the falls.... we are warned we will get wet..... its hot, we dont mind. Up we go, and there is some slight spray off the falls, not wet at all. We are all very dissapointed when the driver makes an illegal manoever to head towards another area of the falls (I have photos of boats going where we went). He is heading for the falls...... Ahhhh we say, now I get it!!!! After a short pause for everyone to get a photo from in front of the boat, cameras and belongs are stored away in dry bags, and in we go. This is where the description of what happened has to end because it was simply indescribable.

Just kidding, I will give it a go. As we approach the spray is sooooo refreshing, every inch we think this has to be as far as we go. I had my glasses off as I thought I wouldn´t be able to see anything, turns out I couldn´t anyway, so I put them back on and looked up. Not even a triton T90i sport could have rained down on us like this, it was amazing. We went right in under the falling water and got drenched. He came out and made another two passes, the screaming was unbridadled!!! Eventually, much to everyone on boards delight and disgust we made for dry land. From here we tried to dry off, and the epic scenary began. The photos dont do it justice, the video I took but cant upload yet doesnt do it justice. The noise is immense, the view goes on forever, there is about 10 large waterfalls side by side along where we get out, and there are even more further passed. The river breaks in two at the falls and there is an island in between. Birds of all kinds fly in and out of the water and the spray like stunt pilots. If there is a paradise on earth, this could really be it. We take a walk up along the trail stopping for more and more photos (we took more than 200 on the first day). After a while we reach the end of the lower trail and get some food.

Then its to the top and a look down along the entire system and over the side, yet more photos. Gangways run along the top, to the right small streams babble along unknowingly, to the left they fall over the edge at a speed of about 9.81 metres per second. We continue along the trail stopping wherever we can to push our jaws back up to where they belong and pinch ourselves and wipe our eyes. At the end of the upper trail we take a train to the Devils Throat, the start of the main falls. At the station, and all along the route we pass about a million beautifully coloured butterflies (sorry Mam, not for you, you would die instantly). At the end of the train ride we head across the river on gang planks suspended above the river, which admittadly seems quite calm. In the distance however is always that rumble, and as we get closer the mist can be seen rising above the trees. Some butterflies decide to hitch a lift on Reginas hands, and head, and backpack. Finally we get close enough to see the devils throat, and it is roaring and spitting. You can get right up to the mouth of it, leaning over, all you can see is white, and it is soooo bright you cant look at it (seems more like it should be Gods throat than the Devils). Every few seconds the spray soaks everyone in sight. Looking over the edge there are the most beautfiful rainbows, and the most daring sparrows flying through the water to the cliff edge. We can barely talk it is so overwhelming, luckily there are some odd people there for us to talk about (a good line from regina was created by one such person, but its not for repeating on a travel blog)

After we tear ourselves away from the falls, its back to the start of the tour via rubber dingy along the banks of the river, furthest from the falls. We see a couple of monkeys in the trees, and a turtle or two sitting on rocks (they obviously dont know there is a waterfall around)

We are all exhausted from the heat and sheer excitment of it all, so we get the bus back to town and go for dinner. There is no point describing food after what we had just seen, even though it was fecking awesome food.

The next day we would head to the Brazillian side of the falls.... you can wait to see if it was better or worse, I will give you a sneak preview though, it wasnt better....

Waiting for a bus to Buenos Aires, the Iguazu blog will be updated their... I must remember to mention the other animals we saw, as we renamed one type Jonnys (not sure why, it just happend organically ;) )... til next time xoxo