Day 36 - The Upper Circuit

Leg cramps plagued Gail overnight and she decided to forego our planned Grand Adventure tour. The Adventure was to be an open truck ride through the rainforest and a jet boat ride under the falls. I went to the meeting place but they wouldn't let me go on the tour because I have hearing aids - Park safety rules. I was irritated (nobody likes to be classed as "impaired").
Instead, I did the Upper Circuit walk. This walk, on the metal walkways, led over the Upper Iguazu River plateau along the long north arc of cascades to the right of the Devil's Throat. Each of the major cataracts is named individually, Bosetti, Adan and Eve, Mendez, Mbigua, and the second largest, San Martin (Devil's Throat being the biggest). The walkway followed the edge of the plateau, with viewing platforms at each cataract and a large one above the middle of San Martin. From above, I could see the jet boats dashing up to the cascading flows on the Lower Iguazu. The park has set up wireless routers along the walkway so you can stay in almost constant connection. The return walkway was further inland across the swift-flowing Upper Iguazu River.

Since Gail had stayed in the room, I decided to go to an out-of-the-way falls over a two and a half mile path. This is a wide dirt path through a quiet part of the park. The quiet broken by the clatter of helicopters from the Braziluan side every 15 minutes taking tourists on a short ride high above the Falls. When I made it to Arrechea Falls, I found it wasn't worth the walk, being only a small amount of water. At the bottom of the Falls, a couple dozen people were picnicking and bathing in the 100-foot drop of the water.

We spent the late afternoon reading in the room. As we readied for dinner and dusk closed in, so, too, did a large, heavy thunderstorm. It went on for several hours with rain so heavy we couldn't see much beyond the hotel pool. That cooled the temps down to the low 70s. More rain is forecast overnight and tomorrow.Read more