We flew early in the morning from Buenos Aires into Foz Iguazu. After a week or so in the big cities of Chile and Argentina, it was time to spend more time again with nature. And what a good few days it was!
Iguazu Falls actually falls on the border of two countries: Argentina and Brazil, with Paraguay not being very close to both borders also. The falls themselves are seen from Argentina and Brazil, and it was the Argentinian side where we started off at. We entered the National Park on a bright sunny day, and started a hike up to the falls. The Argentinian side involves walking alongside the river, and up to the main attraction of the falls, Garganta del Diablo (The Devil’s Throat), where a large portion of the Iguazu River comes crashing down a long way through a long narrow pit, creating immense scenes and a mist that rises up to 120m. We passed various different viewpoints, each giving better views as we got closer to the Devil’s Throat.
These were just a small ‘streams’ jointing the river early on in the hike. Check out the noise of these small falls!
And here’s a small waterfall, long before the Devil’s Throat is, that was so powerful. We tried to get as close as we could to it, and got absolutely soaked in the process! It was crazy how water can have that much power.
There are quite a few smaller waterfalls earlier on, which were pretty impressive themselves.
We got closer and closer, with the noise getting louder. I’ve never been to a proper waterfall before, so I wasn’t prepared for how much noise actually comes from it.
When we eventually found ourselves on the edge of the Devil’s Throat, it was amazing. The power of the waterfall and the immense noise coming from it was frightening, but in a weird way, it was so peaceful and eye-soothing to take it all in. In a funny way, it was a very calming experience.
Devil’s Throat Videos:
After seeing the falls from Argentina, we crossed the border later that evening into Brazil, and set up camp in Foz do Iguacu, the access town for the Brazil side. We experienced a typical Brazilian Churassco that evening for dinner, and sipped on Caipirinhas for the first time too. And man were they good! (More on these when we get to Rio!). This day ended our experience in Argentina, and after a week or so in a really great country, we were in Brazil, our home for the next ten days or so.
We spent the next day firstly checking out the Brazilian side of the Falls. Some people have their favourite side. You see the falls at close quarters from Argentina, but get a great panoramic view from Brazil.
I liked both sides personally, with Argentina getting us right on top of the falls and looking downwards, and Brazil giving us a wide-angled view, as well as getting us super close to the falls from the sides (yes, we chose to get right up close to them and got drenched..again!). You’ll see in the videos how close you can get, and maybe get a feel for how powerful the falls actually are too.
All in all, these two days spent at the Falls were worth it, and I’d recommend anyone coming here to try to check out both sides as they are both cool and give different, interesting perspectives from each side. This is the compilation of when we get pretty close to the falls:
Before dinner, we spent a few hours in Ciudad del Este, the second largest city in Paraguay, as it’s only around fifteen minutes away from the Brazilian border. We had a few spare hours, and the extra stamps from Paraguay on our passports were a bonus! It also gave me a chance to add another page to this blog(!), so you can check it out there.
We had dinner that night at Rafain, a famous buffet restaurant in the city, famous for it’s good food, but mostly famous for it’s South America multi-national themed show it puts on for the diners. It had traditional music and dances from many countries, and was pretty amazing.
Check out the video of the man from Uruguay performing a type of step dance alongside two strings with rocks attached to them. It sounds pretty weird, but it was the best part of the evening, pretty amazing stuff.
That was it for our time in Iguazu Falls. We really hadn’t anticipated being that much in awe of what we saw here. The falls were absolutely amazing. But again, it was time to move on. We had a lot more to check out whilst in Brazil for the short amount of time that we were there.
Lima to Mumbai 
the falls look great.
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