Iguazú Falls: Birds, Lizards and a Ton of Water
Written by Kyle on Saturday, February 21, 2009 in Argentina
Feelin' happy
Upon seeing Iguazu, the United States' First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt reportedly exclaimed "Poor Niagara!" While neither of us have never seen Niagra falls, it's hard to imagine finding water falls any better than this.Feelin' happy
Basically, Iguazu falls looks like a lake with a large hole on one end of it. It's as if someone just punched a big hole in the ground and now the lake drains into the hole. Except that the water just keeps coming and coming without an apparent end.
In reality it is a river (the Iguazú river) that just happens to go over a basalt ledge. There's no spectacular geographic story to go with this one, only a river that just happened to lose its way and go over a cliff. That's fine with us, more waterfall goodness to see!
I think the only thing to note that can't be seen in the photos is that A) it was hot and B) it was loud. First, hotness. I'm sure all of you back in the States in cold weather is probably thinking that we have nothing to complain about, but I'm going to do it, anyway. It was freakin' hot. Being in the middle of the jungle and near all that water means that it is more than 90 degrees with somewhere around 105% humidity. Because of the heat, we saw many shirtless Latin men who probably should be keeping their shirts on. As long as they stayed out of our view of the falls, we were ok.
As far as the loudness, you can imagine that all that water creates quite the ruckus. Standing virtually in the Garganta del Diablo (the Devil's Throat) it's like being at a rock concert where the band is The Waterfalls. It's not the kind of sound that makes you want to cover your ears; more like the soothing white noise turned waaay up.
Finally, if you're not into waterfalls for whatever reason, there's plenty of nature to enjoy. It's easy to spot the (annoying) coatis, who'll steal your lunch if you're not watching closely. We were also able to see some lizards, creepy large spiders, some sort of bird with a mowhawk, and a real-life toucan!
Mowhawk Bird; Large Spider
Toucan! I'm lementing our lack of a zoom lens.
A note about the Brazilian side:
Quite a few friends told us "you have to see the falls from the Brazilian side!", and while we wanted to, there were a few obstacles as Americans. From Brazil, you can see fantastic panoramic views of all of the falls, while the Argentine side offers the close-up view. However, in order for us to get on the Brazilian side we either had to:
1) pay the visa costs $100+ per person or
2) according to a friend, we could have snuck over the border by not checking in with the Brazilian immigration office
After hiking around the Argentine side for 9 hours, we decided we had enjoyed the falls enough to not pay too much or smuggle ourselves over a border, we hear it's worth it though.
Bessie with Brazil in the background - the panoramic views in Brazil are from a walkway in the middle of the treeline.
If you want to really experience everything from the Argentine side, watch our official video:
Comments on "Iguazú Falls: Birds, Lizards and a Ton of Water"
I have seen Niagra and Iguazu certainly rivals it!
Iguazu Falls blew me away - what an extraordinary falls. I;ve not seen Niagara either but have seen Victoria and Iguazu outguns that.
by Mark H at February 24, 2009 05:48 PM