Iguazu Falls

An 18 hour bus ride complete with wine, dinner and breakfast, led the Terrible Three to Iguazu, a sleepy little town that looks and feels exactly like a small Queensland town. So much so, that this was remarked on several times by one member of the group. The heat was stifling, forcing two group members to take the plunge into the hostel's pool.

Iguazu is definitely an entire day trip, meaning the early bus needed to be taken in the hope to fit all the walks in. Starting off in the jungle, one particular group member was more than a little concerned she would encounter a puma. Kindly, the other group members didn't tell her pumas are more nocturnal than not. They let her be on her guard all day even though the chances of meeting a puma during the day in the forest is little to none.





However several unusual animals were spotted, including a toucan and monkeys. Not as in the band, but the animal. Seven to eight monkeys following each other along the path, making ridiculous jumps from tree to tree and never dropping. The other animals were and looking like a giant oversized rat. Perhaps its Master Splinter from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.









The waterfall at the end of the jungle walk, called for two group members to shower underneath it. The rocks were incredibly slippery, causing our Neil Young obsessed fan to return to the waterfall by method of sliding over the rocks. She claims she planned it. It wasn't until a little later on, when she leapt over a "huge crevasse" to make it back to safety, that her jeans (not rock climbing material) gave out. This left her with air conditioned jeans for the rest of her time in South America.






The Adventurous Three took a boat ride into the spray of the falls, crossing briefly from the tango waters to the salsa waters of Brazil. Unless you were wearing sunglasses, being drenched under a powerful waterfall means nothing except getting soaking wet and feeling like you were having a rather extreme cold shower. No chance of pictures either although you can, of course, buy the DVD of your ride for approximately a million dollars.




The legend is that there was a young warrior who fell in love with a beautiful princess. They ran off together down the river. A particular god was so enraged at this that he caused the ground to fall away beneath them. She fell to her death, becoming a rock at the bottom of the falls (which is pretty hard to see), and he remained a tree at the top, to forever look down upon her and their broken love. Heart renching. The stuff legends are ....
Anyway, the sheer volume of water that goes over the falls is unbelievable. The boardwalk out to Garganta Del Diablo takes you over calm waters with fish swimming lazily by. Within metres of the falls, the water picks up speed and thunders down around an 82m drop.









Each member of the group marveled at the fact that nobody knows what the bottom of the falls looks like. The Chinaman remarked that there could be a full orchestra down there and nobody would know. Thats right. The possibility of that must be pretty high, chino.