Iguazu Falls - 17th November to 20th November

We took a bus from Bonito to Dourados where we boarded the overnight bus to Iguazu. The bus was already packed when we got on and we hadn't been able to book seats together so ended across the aisle from each other. There was a small boy (maybe 3 years old) already asleep on my seat so his mum had to wake him and drag him onto her lap. Easier said than done when she already had a small infant laid across her enjoying a spot of milk! Needles to say, four of us squashed into two seats made for a rather unpleasant journey. It wouldn't have been so bad if it was the middle of the day but when you are trying to sleep with a small kid wriggling around half on top of you, kicking you in the side, laying on your feet, laying under your feet and generally trying out all the options to get comfortable, it made for a long uncomfortable night! Dan didn't fare much better, there was a mother and child sharing the seat next to him as well.

I had just nodded off when we stopped at a service station at about 2.30am and everyone piled off to use the loo, have a smoke and buy some snacks. Back on the bus my seat companions where now wide awake as they munched their way through a couple of packets of e-numbers! Great, that will help! Five minutes later mum decided it was a good time to change the little one's nappy. Why she didn't think the service station with its baby changing facilities would have been a more appropriate nappy changing venue is beyond me! Luckily it wasn't a number two nappy so apart from the awkwardness of changing a nappy with two kids on your lap in a very small confined space (which she managed impressively) it wasn't as unpleasant as I first feared!

After another couple of hours we stopped again in a small town and luckily someone near the back of the bus got off. I seized the opportunity to switch seats and spent the last few hours of the journey in the comfort of my own seat sat next to a normal sized person with no kids. Bonus. It is great that parents don't need to pay for seats for small children but 3 people in one seat is a bit much and not really fair to the person in the seat next to them! Moan over.

At 6am(ish) we switched to another bus which took us the rest of the way to the town of Foz Do Iguazu, finally reaching our hostel at about 10.30am. The hostel was nice and we had a room in the little courtyard overlooking the small pool. First stop for Dan was a dunk in the pool but after seeing his reaction to the cold water I decided to give it a miss and had a nice warm shower instead. We then headed out in search of the local bus station (to see how we could get to the falls themselves) and to buy some water (I hate to think how many plastic bottles of water we have got through in the last 11 months!). We also spoke to the guy at reception in our hostel about the best way to see the Argentinian side of the falls and to make life easier with the border crossings we decided to arrange a tour with them leaving the following morning.

All booked up we headed back out for dinner at a BBQ restaurant we spotted near the bus station. For 20Real (circa £7 each) you helped yourself to the extensive salad bar, veggies, rice, spaghetti, etc, whilst the waiters brought copious amounts of freshly barbecued meats to your table. There was also a selection of local deserts which we enjoyed sampling. Dan was in his element with the meat and I was in heaven with endless amounts of fresh salad and scrummy deserts. Sad I know, but these delicacies have been in rather short supply on our budget backpacker tours!

The following morning we were up for breakfast (more cake) before being picked up at 9.30am (unusually civilized for a tour) for our trip to the falls and a day in Argentina. The weather was beautifully sunny and the water level was apparently very high, so the conditions were perfect for seeing the falls. There were 10 of us in total on the tour which felt like a lot until the guide told us he had had nearly 60 the day before! We headed off to the Brazilian border control first where we handed over our passports to our guide and he did the necessaries to get us stamped out of Brazil. A few minutes further up the road we were then stamped into Argentina. Nobody did a headcount or checked that the people on the passports matched the people in the bus which was rather odd, especially given the formalities we had been through to get into Brazil in the first place.

Once in Argentina it was a short bus ride to the Iguazu National Park and the falls themselves. Our guide dropped us at the entrance while he parked up the minibus, then we all headed in to the park. Three of the people on our tour were Brazilian and they had been to the falls before so they decided to leave us and go off to do their own thing. This was actually a real bonus for us as it made for a smaller group number and our guide only needed to explain things in English. Usually when the guides are speaking Portuguese (or Spanish) and English the commentary in mother tongue is generally more detailed and informative that the couple of token sentences which are then repeated in English.

Inside the park we took a small train ride (6km) to the main attraction and we were not disappointed. There are around 275 individual cascades, the highest with a drop of over 80 meters, strung out along a horseshoe shaped cliff 2.7km long. Only the Victoria Falls in Africa (which we were lucky enough to visit last year) can compare to the Iguazu Falls in terms of size but here because of the shape of the natural fault you can feel like you are literally surrounded by water crashing all around you.

The thunderous roar of the falls can be heard from several miles away whilst the mist thrown up rises 30 meters high. The series of pathways take you over the top of some of the falls where you can look down into the mist to see the series of dazzling rainbows below and the swarms of small swallows who nest behind the curtains of water. A truly stunning spectacle.

We spent a couple of hours walking along the trails to see the falls from the various viewpoints, all the while trying to protect the camera from the water and mist. On dry land we stayed much drier than our trip to the Victoria falls but that was soon to change on the boat trip we were to take after lunch to get an up close and personal view!

There was also a fair amount of wildlife and we were especially struck by the number and variety of butterflies we saw. There are over 250 different species, some very beautiful. They seemed to take a particularly liking to Dan and he had several land on him, some stubbornly not wanting to take off again.

We stopped for lunch then regathered before heading down the lower trail to the waters edge to board the boat. The views from down here were spectacular and gave a better impression of the scale of these magnificent falls. The views in the queue and on the boat were less appealing as people stripped off down to their swimwear (and in the case of the old guy behind us down to his white/grey Y-fronts) to avoid getting their clothes soaked. We were less prepared (ie no swimwear) but there was no way we were prepared to sit their in our knickers so we put on our life vests and waited for the inevitable.

The boat took us up towards (and almost under!) the largest fall on the Argentinian side first, San Martin, which is the 2nd largest of all the individual falls. The water was coming at us in all directions as the boat moved in closer for a better look. We tried that trick of hunching over to try and stay dry but that proved to be a complete waste of time. In seconds I could feel water collecting in a pool on my legs before seeping through my denim shorts and it was shortly after than Dan proclaimed that he felt like he had wet himself! Nice!!

After the San Martin we rounded the corner to the main event, the Devils Throat, where 1800 cubic meters of water per second hurtle over a semi-circle of rock into the misty river canyon below. This is unquestionably the most impressive of the individual falls and sits on the Brazilian side of the border. As we approached the Devils Throat our "captain" took great delight in throwing the boat around a bit until everyone was completely drenched. The atmosphere on the boat was buzzing and everyone was very excited to be getting the soaking of their lives! We finally re-emerged from under the water and mist when the captain turned the boat around and reversed back in again....just to be sure he hadn't missed anyone the first time around!

The boat was great fun and we were pleased that we had left it until the end of the day otherwise we would have been walking around in wet clothes all day. Wet denim shorts - not good. Way too much chaffing for my liking!

We got off the boat further down the river and boarded a cantor which took us on a short 30 minute tour through the rainforest and back to the main entrance where our guide was waiting for us. We jumped back on the minibus (still dripping wet) and headed to the small Argentinian town of Puerto Iguazu where we stopped at the Hito Tres Fronteras (three frontiers) where an obelisk painted in the colour of the Argentinian flag sits overlooking the rivers Iguazu and Parana at the point where they meet and form the three way border between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. Across the river in Brazil you can see another obelisk painted in the colours of the Brazilian flag and the same again on the Paraguay side. A nice spot.

Back in the bus again and back to the border crossing where we picked up another two stamps in our passports (they are looking pretty full and impressive now!) then back to the hostel to get out of our wet clothes and get some dinner.

The following morning we headed out to see the falls from the Brazilian side. No tour this time as we didn't have the complications of the border crossings to worry about (not that they were particularly complicated in the end!). We walked two blocks from our hostel where we flagged down the number 120 bus which took us directly to the park entrance. We paid our fees then caught another bus which took us the short ride to the falls.

When we got off the bus we were right in front of the falls and the view from this side was really special. The views from the Brazilian side are more panoramic than the Argentinian side giving some amazing photo opportunities and a better idea of the scale. The Brazilian side also feels a lot more confined that the Argentinian side with only one small pathway running 1.5km along the side of the falls and culminating in a viewpoint over the top of the Devils Throat with a view right down the river. We got pretty wet again but we definitely felt a lot closer to the action on the Argentinian side - perhaps the boat trip had played a hand in that!

A few hours later we were back on the bus heading back to the hostel where we spent the afternoon lazing by the pool with the occasional dunk to cool off. The pool had heated up nicely in the sun so the water was much warmer now (according to Dan!). Later in the evening we headed back to the BBQ restaurant for another feast before turning in for the night.

The next day, our last in Iguazu, we planned to spend by the pool having a lazy one but it turned out to be a bit overcast, so instead we decided to head to the Parque das Aves (Bird Park). The park maintains both small breeding aviaries and enormous walk through aviaries. There is also a walk through butterfly cage where butterflies are bred and released when mature. All the butterflies and 80% of the 800 bird species are Brazilian.

One of the large aviaries contained about 40 Macaws all squawking and making a complete riot. There were all different species including my personal favourites, the blue (or Hyacinth) ones. This was a walk through aviary but was closed when we passed because it was feeding time so we continued on with the view to going back once feeding time was over!

We entered one of the other large aviaries which had, amongst other birds, lots of big billed Toucans. There was something amiss as we went in with some of the people in front of us screeching a bit and stressing out some of the birds. I was at the back of the line and one Toucan bounced along the handrail past the people in front and passed Dan, then jumped down on to the ground behind me. One of the girls in front kept shouting at me that he was dangerous and as I tried to calmly walk away from it the little sod took a bite out of my leg. His sharp bill caught me right on the shin and managed to draw blood. I felt him going in for another bite but managed to shrug him off. Ironic really being that all through our stay in the Amazon I was desperate to see a Toucan and thrilled when we finally did in the Pantanal. I am not so keen to see one again, that's for sure, and needless to say I decided against going back to the Macaw aviary for a closer look!

After the pecking incident we stopped off for a drink before heading back to our hostel. The rest of the day was spent idling away time by the pool, reading and catching up on the blog before catching our penultimate overnight bus to Ilha Do Mel for another attempt at some beach time. Its now less than 2 weeks until we come home and whilst we are still having an amazing time we are both getting excited to see all our lovely family and friends again and I am so looking forward to meeting my new niece who is now almost 7 months old!

Take care my friends. See you very soon.

Sue & Dan xxx