After our night bus to Foz do Iguacu, we got straight on with seeing the falls, firstly from the Brazilian side.
There's not really a lot of words adequate to describe the whole effect this place has on you. It' absolutely beautiful walking through the rainforest seeing waterfall after waterfall and they just get bigger and bigger as you go along. Iguacu falls lie on the Argentinian-Brazilian border and most of the pictures you see are from Brazil looking over to Argentinia. To quote our guide 'the Argentinians put on the show and the Brazilians get to enjoy it'. As well as all the water and the magnificent sound and rainbows it creates, in this tropical environment butterflies, birds and hungry coatimundis thrive, so the place has a really magical feel.
After seeing the Brazilian side, e few of us visited the local bird park. It was better than expected. A lot of the birds are free to fly around and it takes a few hours to walk through the whole park. Rob got a bit of a shock when one of the toucans came up close and allowed us to take some great pictures...before flying down, chasing him and giving him a couple of pecks on the leg! If you've seen a toucan's beak, you'll understand why he's still getting flashbacks!
The next day we travelled to the Argentinian side of the falls and saw the enormous 'Devil's Throat' - the largest of all the waterfalls, and a place to cool down as you get completely covered by the masses of spray it produces. We were soaked! In the afternoon we took a boat through some of the smaller waterfalls and got another soaking. I wouldn't say the trip was good value as it was really short, but it was good fun, and much needed after walking around the national park all day.
In the evening our guide took us to a huge buffet with entertainment in the form of music and dancing from all over South America ... and Mexico. It was really cheesy but we really enjoyed it and ate extremely well.
Our two days in this amazing place set us up well for the next 24 hours, which we're spending on buses, through Sao Paolo, to Paraty, where we'll spend a couple of days and hopefully go to the beach - hurray!