bforsyth

Iquazu Falls - Foz do Iguaçu

The latest scoop since our last log. We have been to Curitiba, Morretes, Iguazu falls and Florianopolis. Click below to read more.

On Monday March 8th we arrived in Foz do Iguaçu from Curitiba. Foz do Iguaçu is the Brazillian town near Iguazu Falls (there are many spellings of Iguacu and I will use most of them :) which is on the border of Brazil, Agentina and Paraguay. The main tourist attractions in the area are the falls and Itaipu dam. We spent the first morning at Itaipu which is on the Parana river seperating Paraguay and Brazil. The building of the dam was a joint venture between the 2 countries and now they share the generated power 50-50. The dam generates the most power of any other dam in the world and keeps breaking its own records, and they are now adding two more generators to bring the total to 20.

On the 9th we visited the Brazillian side of Iguaçu falls, which is on the Iguaçu river, not the Parana where the dam is. We went to the falls with Andrew, a Swiss gringo, and met Eric from Chicago/Wisconson on the bus to the falls. As soon as we got off the bus we saw a Coatimundi in a tree eating some fruit, and he was eyeing us up hoping that we had some food for him. The views of the falls from the Brazillian side are breathtaking. They have done a great job with their trails and viewing platforms, some of which go right to the edge of falls. On the path we saw more Coaties, lots of butterflies, lizards and a Toucan.

On the 10th we went to the Argentinian side of the falls. It took us a good two hours to get there crossing the border and changing buses twice. It was much hotter this day, 35 degrees at 9am, and not much cloud cover. This wasn't too much of a problem because the Argentinian trails are in the forest for the most part. There are three main trails, lower, upper and devil's throat. We did the upper and lower falls first which offer close up views of the smaller falls. We also took a short boat trip across the river to Isle San Martin where we saw a huge lizard that freaked Sarah out. After exploring these two trails we had lunch in a nicely air conditioned place and caught the little tourist train to the start of the trail to devil's throat. The trail is really an elevated walk way across the river to the edge of the fall. It was a crowded walk since the whole train load of people was going to the same place, so it was slow going, and hot. But it was worth it because the view at the end was amazing. I can't beleive how much water goes over the edge, and the mist cloud that comes from the bottom of the fall is equally as amazing. On the walk back to the train from the falls we saw a small crocodile in a back eddy of the river.

On the 11th we bussed back to Curitiba and on the 12th we took a ride on the famous Serra Verde train, that usually goes to Paranaguá but only went to Morretes for us because they are working on the Paranaguá station. It is supposed to offer amazing views of the hilly country side on the way to the ocean, which it did for the most part but the fog limited the visibility for us. In Morretes we had a tasty lunch, well I thought it was tasty Sarah had some reservations about it, of a local dish that I forget the name of right now. The main part was a meat stew that you mix with manioc flour to thicken it up and then you top it with Banana and rice. Then we had some side dishes of sea fruit, literal translation of Fruitas de Mer, seafood in Portugese including deep fried prawns and fish, a shrimp soup and mixed fruits of the sea soup. Since Sarah didn't like the taste of most of these items I had to eat most of it, ,which pushed my limits. I felt bad leaving so much uneaten food after seeing little kids beg for food outside of the train as we went by their shanty towns.

The day after the train ride we bussed to Florianopolis with prime seats, the first row of the top deck of a double decker bus. This provided a nice view of the crazy driving and country side when the window wasn't fogged up or covered in rain. The rain has followed us to Florianopolis which is why this is such a long log entry, this is a beach town and the beach isn't much fun in the rain. Hopefully things will clear up for tomorrow.

I know there are plenty of spelling mistakes in here, feel free to tell me about them.

Posted by bforsyth at March 14, 2004 07:13 AM