Iguazu Falls – Brazil

Thursday 29th October 2015

We met at 7.30am in the brekky area of the hostel. It was a buffet style with so many things! The fruits and juices look so amazing but I still had my controllable diarrhea catching me every single time I was going to toilets so I sticked to cakes and drinking tea, hoping that at some point that diarrhea would pass. Ten days already. So annoying. So I missed on all the good stuff here for 3 breakfasts in a row. 😦

After brekky, we got ready and headed to the local bus station which was literally 2 minutes walk from the hostel. There we caught the local bus 120.

Pretty busy inside the bus.

There was this guy playing guitar to the cars at one of the light to make some money.

After a 25-minutes bus ride, we arrived at the entrance of Iguazu Falls, Brazilian side.

We got our tickets and went to the bus inside the park which take you to various spots. There was not much queuing luckily.

Here is the map of the falls.

Here was the view from the top level of the bus. A minute before passed two deers which crossed the road and disappeared in the forest to the right. They were too fast for me, I missed taking the shot!

We stopped here, at the “first viewpoint of the waterfalls”. There was this sign telling us to be careful when seeing Quatis.
I was quite curious to see which animal that was!

We walked down and here we were, our first view of them, or I could now say some of them. I had that “Wooohhh!!!” moment. Wooohhhh, I am so glad I came!! This is just incredible, stunning, a grandiose view of what nature can do. A unique place in the world. Something you can not see anywhere else in the world. Iguazu Falls. Worth taking two night buses for a 1,700 kilometers and spending 3 days in transport to get here. Thank you to you all travellers I met on my journey the last 4 months who each told me that I had to go. I had not planned to go to Brazil at all, and changed my “plan” (if I can even say I have one ahah) to come here, and I can only say I really don`t regret and say thank you. And to everyone who hasn`t been, I will say the same thing I have been told: You absolutely have to go see this, no matter what!!! It really felt like being a little mouse at the time of the dinosaurs observing a lost magical secret world.

There were lots of birds flying around and in front of this view which made it even more alive. I did try to turn them into pterodactyls and imagining at the bottom of the falls some of the brachiosorus with their long necks trying to catch leaves. 😀

Can you imagine? Iguazu falls is not less than 275 waterfalls, which are all between 60 to 82 meters high. The name Iguazu comes from “y” meaning water and “uasu” meaning big in Guarani. Big water. Iguazu legend of the Guarani which was the local tribe at the time goes that each year they would sacrifice a virgin to the M`Boi Serpent God by throwing her in the falls. A woman Naipi was to marry a warrior called Taruba but when she looked into the falls, the Serpent God fell in love with her and wanted to marry her. Taruba and Naipi tried to escape in a canoe and M`Boi chased them and transformed Taruba in a tree looking from the top at Naipi transformed into a rock at the bottom. The lovers could see each other forever but never meet. It reminds me of that movie we saw in the bus, where the man was a wolf during the night and the woman an eagle during the day. The full story is beautiful told on this link here. There are many versions of that legend but I quite love this version. Once upon a time…

http://www.buenosairescityguide.com/Tours-Side-Trips/Iguazu-Falls/Legend-M’Boi-Serpent-God.htm

There were of course lots of people who had come too. But fair enough, this is one of the most incredible place in the world, the more people can come see this, the greater!

We continued to walk and soak in this view on our right. To our left was sometimes this tree which seems to have cigarettes stick out of his branches. Not sure about its name.

We saw a few Quatis like this one.

In the distance, the Sheraton hotel, located on the Argentinian side.

Continued to walk on the path.

A couple more shots of the views from that first walk. I had the same craving for photographs I had had in Huaraz on the third day before we passed Punta Point. I had been taking hundreds and hundreds of photographs of the mountains and surrounding landscape with each time a tiny different angle. At Iguazu, you keep walking and it is so pretty that you keep stopping at every step to take one more shot, and just one more shot…It is an in-your face walk with so much to look at. And the photos can`t transmit the feeling of being there. The sound of the waterfalls is so loud!

We walked down to the Devil`s Throat or “Garganta del Diabo” in Brazilian Portuguese.

That little walk over there, that`s where we were heading to! Exciting!

It looked pretty crowded and people seemed to get pretty wet but it looked fantastic.

While walking down towards it, we saw a couple of iguanas like these ones.

At the entrance of the path, they were selling ponchos, but with Manuela and Chris, we each had brought our rain jackets, yeah. Getting into the Devil`s Throat.

View to the right

View to the left

Turned right to the platform. Looking back to where we just walked. Everyone getting really soaked in that spot ahahahaha. Like we just did.

A view from the platform

The coolest thing was how the water drops and wind were creating rainbows like this one.

Looking down at it.

Going further. Another rainbow.

Looking left. My camera kept getting drops so any photo was pretty wet.

Some people were throwing coins, making wishes.

View to the right at the end

At that moment, I wish I had the wide angle with me to capture the rainbow fully!

People were leaving bracelets or cadenas on the grid.

View to the left

Little video here

Going back

Walking away. View of the falls to the right.

View of the Devil`s Throat path on which we have just been.

Birds hanging out right next to the fall. They were going flying under the falls sometimes, disappearing from the view very quickly. The view under the fall must be pretty awesome!

Another view of the falls from closer. It creates so much droplets and fog.

We walked up the stairs to a mirador. Saw this dead scorpion on the way. Glad it was just dead.

View of the falls

And of the Devil`s Throat path

We walked away towards the lunch place. We saw Quatis checking out the bins. Sounds like the Brazilian side of the falls should maybe replace the bins to avoid that…

We saw this bird also

Another Quatis

Caterpillar which had landed on my pant while I was taking photos of the Quatis.

Butterfly. There were so many butterflies at the falls, usually so fast we would never catch a shot of them though even if we tried really hard with Manuela who was a keen photographer too and loved butterflies!

Had lunch. Real coconut drink, nice. Something pretty easy to get in Brazil. I love coconut water. Otherwise burger and fries…

Queuing to take the bus back to another stop.

Stopped here and decided to go on the speedboat going right next to the waterfalls.

It started with a little ride in a mini-bus in the jungle. One of the warnings was to be careful with your head, because you know, sometimes there could be a spiderweb on a branch. 😀

Off we went in a little mini-bus in the direction of the river.

We walked a little bit.

Here is the boat at the bottom we were about to take. They used to use this ramp to launch the boats which could have been pretty fun but they had stopped it.

I didn`t take my camera on the boat because we would get totally totally soaked but the boat ride was pretty fun, we went very very close to some of the waterfalls and we did get completely soaked!!! 🙂
Butterfly we saw after the boat ride, which landed on Manuela`s sandal.

Another butterfly at the bus stop where we took the bus to exit the park.