Iguazu Falls

After Salta, Lyds and I took a 24 hour busride across the country to the town of Iguazu. This little town is in the northeast corner of the country where Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina's borders all meet at the river Iguazu. The big draw for us here was a visit to the magnificent Iguazu Falls (or Cataratas del Iguazu in Espanol).

The falls divide the upper and lower Iguazu and consist of about 275 falls in total, varying in heights, up to around 80 metres. Two thirds of the falls are on the Argentinian side which worked well for us, because that's where we were !!

I have to say, the Argentinans have done a superb job with the amount of trails, paths and walkways around the falls. You can get suprisingly close to the falls at a number of spots and are able to admire them from many different angles. Close to the falls there are also very few touristy type buildings (such as kiosks, shops etc.) that would clutter the view. It really makes you feel as though you are truly in the wilderness seeing how these falls probably looked like when they were first discovered. It contrasts significanly with the Niagra Falls, which although on their own are impressive, they are ruined by the surrounding tacky hotels, roads and even Casinos on both the Canadian and US sides.

We got lucky and had a superb weather day which didn't hurt. We ended up spending almost the whole day visitng the falls and even taking in a quick little speedboat road which got very up close and personal with the falls, resulting in a couple of extremely wet Vargos !!

All in a great day as the photos below will attest to.

If you can´t see them properly than click on the link here - Iguazu Falls

Quick sidenote: While here we picked up our Brazilian Visa. We had heard that if you apply at the Brazilian embassy in Buenos Airies, or other cities you can expect to wait two days and are required to show all sorts of information such as ... proof that you have a ticket out of Brazil (not something you want to buy without a visa), yellow fever shots, sufficient money to support yourself(including bank statements), passport photos blah, blah, blah.

Not so in Iguazu. We had to fill in a form, get a passport photo and one hour later we had our Visa....that was it !!! The guy at the desk was so helpful he basically filled in half our form for us.

Next stop...Rio !!