23-25/3/2012 - Iguazu falls part 1 – The Brazilian side

There's a nice symmetry to my 2 experiences of Brazil – my first was on the northern-most border from Venezuela at the border town of Pacaraima when I was volunteering all those months ago. The other has come near the end of my journey at one of its southern most points at the Iguazu waterfalls. Despite the language barrier (Portuguese is surprisingly very different to Spanish) both experiences left me wanting to see more. La proxima vez I guess.

My hostel in Foz de Iguazu was a nice chilled out affair and the receptionist, who also doubled as the barman, was friendly. Iguazu falls sit right next to the triple border point between Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil and are accessible from both Brazil and Argentina. Opulently I decided to do both. In the morning I jumped on a bus to the Brazilian side and can't say I was overly impressed. My only other experience of waterfalls had been in Venezuela where the experience had been a lot more close up and exhilarating. We'd walked under the curtain of one of the waterfalls and climbed around a couple of others. Despite Iguazu being huge, the tourist path never let you get close enough to appreciate their power. Sure they were pretty, but when it comes to waterfalls you want to be able to feel the sheer force of the water and I was left a little disappointed.

Cheeky racoon type things at the waterfalls

Everyone I'd spoken to had said the Argentinian side is better so I decided to reserve my judgement until I'd heard both sides of the story. Just outside the Iguazu complex was a bird sanctuary which I decided to go to on a whim but actually turned out to be really fun, with lots of toucans hopping around within touching distance and staring at you with their beady eyes.

I headed back into town and grabbed a typical Brazilian all-you-can-eat buffet which went down a treat but made the walk back to the hostel a bit of a challenge.

The next day I jumped across the border into Argentina – my last country of the trip. Puerto Iguazu (the Argentinian town on the border) was a nice if slightly touristy affair and it didn't take long to explore the entire town which was mostly comprised of restaurants and shops selling tourist tat. Tomorrow I would give the waterfalls another shot.