Foz do Iguaçu

What was meant to be a 14 1/2 hour coach journey, turned into 17 hours and a bus swap due to technical difficulties. However with 2 very numb bottoms we made it to Foz do Iguacu.

After staying in 6 bed dorms for the last 2 weeks we decided to treat ourselves to a private room with an en-suite. Our room comes with a pool view (it's literally outside the door). And who said hosteling wasn't glamorous?!

Around 4pm we decided to head to the Tres Fronteiras (Three Borders) where you can see the rivers that separate Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. Each of the three borders have erected an obelisk painted in the national colours of their country. The lady at the hostel advised us that it was great to see at sunset however just as the sun was setting some big grey clouds decided to move in and spoil the show. By staying for the underwhelming sunset, we also missed the last bus home and as the alternative of, in Simon's words, "walking through the ghetto for an hour" wasn't very appealing, we had to pay for a taxi which was a bit annoying.

In the evening we ventured out to the supermarket to pick up some bits for dinner. We didn't think it was possible but we found an even better supermarket than the last one! Unfortunately, despite access to a vast variety of exotic goods, we still managed to cook ourselves a very tasteless dinner of rice, vegetables and eggs. To quote Simon again, "I could have vomited on my plate and eaten it and it would have tasted better".

We then spent the rest of the evening watching a huge storm unfold. Quite possibly the loudest thunder we have ever heard right on top of us with flashes of lightening that lit up the entire sky.

Today was the day we were really looking forward to and the reason why we came here, Iguazu Falls. It was pretty overcast in the morning but the sun was due to come out in the afternoon, so to kill some time we decided to visit a Buddhist Temple which has 120 giant statues, It was a bit random but free so we decided to give it a go. At the very least we enjoyed imitating the statues.

As promised, the sun came out and we headed to the falls. There is a scenic 1.5 km walk that you take to towards whats they call the Devils Throat. From the moment we stepped onto the walkway the views were breathtaking. At 80m high (not quite the 60km wide like i tried to tell my Dad) and the largest in the world, they really are incredible and like nothing we have ever seen before. The closer we got to the Devils Throat the wetter we became and after putting on our raincoats we ventured across the walkways, right into the middle of the falls. We were soaked!

Only around 20% of the falls sit on the Brazilian side so tomorrow we are crossing the border to Argentina to view the falls from the other side.Read more