Foz do Iguaçu

Ola Brazil!

The cities of Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil), Porto Iguazu (Argentina) and Ciudad del Este (Paraguay) form a tri-point of countries and cities at the confluence of the Iguazu and Panera rivers. We had just spent a couple days in Porto Iguazu to the the Iguazu falls, and it was magnificent. Now we were in Brazil to see them from the other side. And enjoy Christmas.

It was a quick 20 minute bus ride across the Iguazu river to Brazil. The border was almost too easy to cross. Our initial impressions of Iguaçu was that of a resort town. All along the road into the city centre was that of massive hotel resorts, duty free shopping, and billboards for all sorts of theme parks. We were going to be staying at the nicest hotel of the trip so far too for the holidays. Thanks hotel rewards points.

We got to the hotel, and we had been upgraded to a penthouse master suite. We had a beautiful view of the Panera river, and Paraguay on the other side. The cities had building roofs poking through thick luscious jungle.

We had shawarma’s for dinner. Apparently Iguaçu has a major middle eastern population. There were shawarma joints everywhere. And they were really good. We have missed good Mediterranean food for a long time now.

We stayed up a little late, and as midnight hit, the entire country of Paraguay lit up in fireworks. At least 50 locations across the river were shooting them off. For about 10-15 minutes we watched the skyline light up in reds, blues and sorts of colours in celebrations. It was really pretty.

Christmas day! The day was spent very simply for us. We had a fancy breakfast buffet from the hotel, then proceeded to watch a crappy Hallmark Christmas movie. Fancy lawyer lady moved back to fancy Xmas town, and meets local man. Featuring a dash of family mystery. Then our friends and families all woke up, so we spent the day calling home. We had plans to go check out the Iapatu dam, but we just got distracted. We had a nice Christmas dinner at another shawarma joint.

The sunset over Paraguay this night was the best one that we have ever seen. Every hot colour your imagination could come up with was in the sky over the jungle. Reflections in the still river gave a ribbon of colour among the blackened trees. We watched it for half an hour, admiring our own little Christmas miracle. Once again,

Back onto the main event. Back to the waterfall. The Brazilian side features the “Devil’s Throat,” a large horseshoe of thundering water cascading into the void of self created mist. Its much smaller in terms of walking and views than its Argentinian counterpart. Right away though we could tell that the vibe on this side was much more commercialized and busy. And it was.

There were massive lines for a bus to the walking paths of the falls that took about 20 minutes or so to get through. That was followed by a 15 minute bus ride through the jungle, with the ambient noise of pumped in bird calls. We then got off at a large hotel, and descended into the trees with every other tourist to see the waterfalls.

These paths were incredibly busy. At the first lookout point there was a line of ~50 people waiting to get their picture taken with the devils throat far in the background. We skipped that spot, for other viewpoints almost equally as crowded.

It was cool seeing the Argentine falls from across the river. We watched the little boat we were in a few days back crash into the spray zones. The falls were back down to their normal flow rate too, so it was a bit of a different view. Much less powerful, and more graceful. The brown water colouring from the clearcutting was much less with less water. But still, so many people.

We made it to the Devils Throat, or as close as you could get. There’s too much power and chaos in it to get anywhere in the canyon. The noise is deafening. The horseshoe itself is impressive. You cannot see the bottom river, there is too much mist. Out of the mist comes the massive brown rapids that is the continuation of the Iguazu river. Everything about the falls was busy. The noise, the water, the people. So much of everything.

Cam put it best when we were there. You go to the Brazilian side to see Iguazu falls. You go to the Argentine side to experience it. We are really happy we did both sides. I really like waterfalls. The whole thing felt otherworldly. But now we are done with the rainforest. Another location, another plane. And more guests from home. We will see you back at the ocean.