Waterworld

waterworld

3 days in the tri-frontier region of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay and we saw more water than we did for a whole year in London (that includes of course the very few rainy day that we indeed have back there in England!)
We started on a cloudy day by the Brazilian side of Cataratas de Iguacu since it was the closest from our Hotel (10mn by foot to the entrance of the park!). In spite of the greyish “not holiday like” weather, the view was spectacular. Imagine if the world had been flat as believed by our ancestors, (unless they were Jews… who thanks to Isaiah 40:22, knew it was not!) then the sea would have emptied itself in a bottomless pit… in Brazil, you see the falls without getting a glimpse of where the water is coming from! (except at the end of the trail when you get back to the upper part of Rio Iguazu, close to de infamous and impressive Devil’s throat!) We were lucky enough to be blessed by a tiny bit of sunshine around midday, just enough to have a nice, well lit view of the giant washing machine.PAT_9962

We had time to finish the day with a visit to the bird park (to be blogged about later!!!)

Since the day after did not give us much hope for the weather, we headed to Itaipu Dam to see even more H2O… the main difference is that instead of letting this water fall as nature does in Iguazu river, they built a super (hyper.. Mega???) structure to hold it and produce electricity (80% of Paraguay’s needs and 15% of Brazil’s)… I let you check the story either on wikipedia or on Itaipu web site… all figures are amazing!!!!
We were lucky to have a English speaking guide for our tour (by bus… under and on the dam with stops allowing us to take pictures)itaipu2
I wish we could have seen the spillway gushing tons of water but we did not… but we were privileged to see a Jaguar crossing the road in front of our bus on our way back to the visitor centre… very rare it seems and thanks to the agility and velocity of the wild animal, no pictures to prove the encounter!!!

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Last day in this region was spent on Argentinian side of the Iguazu river. In order to save us time and efforts, we hired a Taxi from the hotel to Puerto Iguazu, used the ATM there and made our way in the same car to the entrance of Iguazu national park. Not a cheap option if you count from a Brazilian perspective but still affordable on London’s cab scale!!! Main thing about this side of the falls, is how long you need to wait for the rail transfer that is going to take you up the hill on the upper part of the rio… (1 hour for us… but I guess visiting on a Saturday was not helping!) any other trail on the park is by foot and easy enough for the average walker. the most impressive one (but not the nicest to my taste) is the access to the mouth of the Devil’s throat on a 1.2 km bridge through the little islets that are scattered in the middle of the upper river.

gargantua trail

At the end of this platform people are fighting for the view of millions of gallons of water gushing down in a misty fog (that limits the photo options if the sun is shining through this mist!… unless you love white clouds on jpg)
Back with the little train to the middle station, you can either take the upper or lower trail. The longest is the the latest (650m). It is a long balcony  at the very edge of the different sections of the falls and allows nice pictures to be taken (late afternoon was good for us as the sun lit the whole thing with a nice golden light!)
Lower trail takes you for a shower at the bottom of one of the fall and further to the site of the lower river.PAT_0293 As they say on every review, you need to do both side to grasp the magnificence of this world nature wonder. That was a really enjoyable experience, humbling us in front of this powerful God’s creation.

next stop: Recife and the white sand beaches…

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