Iguaçu Falls

We rocked up to the hostel quite late and a bus ride from the airport had told us the town itself wasn’t much to write home about. The hostel was brilliant, it’s only a few months old and more like a hotel with a little pool and a hot tub on the roof! Certainly very different to our other Che Legarto experience on Ilha Grande. We chatted to our roomie Russ the brummy who gave us the lowdown on the falls as he had been that day.

You can visit the falls from both the Brazilian and Argentinian side of the border so after a leisurely breakfast the next morning we caught the local bus to the visitor park on the Brazilian side and joined the enormous queue. About 1.5 hours later we were in, there are various extra trails you can do, all for an extra fee of course, but we headed straight for the main attraction.
The path of the falls runs along the river offering various spectacular views, our first look totally taking our breath away. Rather that one huge waterfall it’s made up of 275 of them making for a seriously epic sight. You can’t quite get your head around the power of it, or where all that water comes from. The path comes out at ‘Garganta del Diablo’ Devils Throat, this is a semicircle of massive waterfalls, the power is such that the resulting spray means you can’t see the bottom. The walkway takes you out almost over the edge which provides an unreal, very wet and surely life threatening experience.
You can also walk up to another platform which juts out so you can almost reach out and touch the cascading water, crazy! Now completely soaked we dried off in the sun and had some food before getting a very sweaty bus home.
Delighted that the hostel offers free caipi’s each night from 7-8 we headed up to the terrace to watch the sunset. We met a german couple who live in Berlin, Sam and Jacob who were on honeymoon. They were planning to go to the Argentinian side the next day and keen to avoid the arduous double bus, border crossing debacle we agreed to share a cab.

So next morning after getting an excellent rate on Pesos from our driver we set off in air conditioned comfort and due to the time difference arrived at 8.30 to zero queue, winner.
There is a lot more to do on this side so first up we did the upper circuit which runs along the top of a huge section of the falls so you can look down over the water as it pounds over the rocks. The lower circuit takes you through the same section but looking up at the falls, another platform allows you to get dangerously close and I think was even more impressive than the first day! The water is a deep red/brown colour, it used to run clear but is now full of silt due to deforestation which is pretty awful.
Next up was the 12 minute boat ride, this was insane. They basically drive you into the bottom of the falls, you can’t open your eyes the water is coming down on you so hard, scary but so much fun! Finally we took the little train then walked another 2k to the Argentinian view of Devils Throat, looking from the top down, totally amazing… or a giant plug hole as described by Dan.
That evening we headed to a somewhat randomly themed Mafia restaurant with Sam and Jacob for some pasta and vino.

Our bus wasn’t until 6 the next day so it was a chilled out day by the mini pool which suited us just fine. Dreading the massive journey but excited to see what Bonito has to offer.