Friday, November 09, 2007

Iguazu Falls - butterflies, rainbows and a whole bucket of awe

We reached Puerto Iguazu, the entry town for the famous waterfalls, by our last super duper special luxury bus. Travel has never been so good! After settling into our room we wandered around the town and found out how to get to the falls and planned the next day.

The bus journey to the falls was a bit hairy as the driver couldn´t seem to engage the gears and so there was some thought we might be spending the day on a bus, but luckily he managed to grind them into place and we got there with plenty of time. We opted to do the park's full tour and headed straight to a 4x4 jeep for an 8km ride through the jungle. It is incredibly lush here, and incredibly hot and humid (about 35 degrees with 75% humidity). There are countless species of trees and many beautiful orchids growing in them.

We arrived downriver of the falls and got in our boat for the thrilling ride upriver to the falls for a river view, plus obligatory soaking. As we flew upriver the falls came into sight and once again, awe was the word of the day. The falls cover a good few kilometres where a hard rock ends and a massive amount of water just plummets into a lower valley. We rode right up to two parts of the falls and got drenched utterly and totally. Luckily the camera was in a plastic bag so no harm done but it did take about 2 hours to dry off. Still when it's that hot you really don't mind.



We then disembarked on a small island, again with wonderful overall views, and we were enchanted by the variety of butterflies everywhere, plus hundreds of swallows that live in the tiny areas of the cliffs not inundated with water, plus tons of huge hawks or some sort of birds of prey. We were expecting water but were amazed at the wildlife that just don't care a jot about the tourists!



The, after a quick lunch we took a walk along the top edge where rainbows permanently abound, then took a train to the main area, called the Devil´s Throat. You walk over the river at the top of the falls for over 1km before reaching this incredible part of the falls. Looking down at the sheer volume of water makes you quite giddy and the energy from the water, all the rainbows and the cracking views all around make you realise that Iguazu is rightly described as one of the true wonders of the world.

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