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Our flight lands in Foz de Iguazu late afternoon and by the time we get to the hotel we go out immediately to meet up with John and Kate. It seems everyone does a similar circuit in this neck of the woods. Suzanne has a few Caipirinha's and the strength of them is soon realised! John and Kate have been to Iguazu Falls today so we are pleased to get some tips from them in terms of getting there. The place is like a ghost town at night.
The following day we catch the local bus to the falls. Inside the park we have to catch the tourist bus and we ignore John and Kate's warning that you get cold if you sit on the open top deck and we then freeze for the next 10 minutes.
The Iguazu Falls are created as a result of basaltic rock forming over millions of years creating the canyon that the Parana river plunges over. The source of the water starts 1,320 kilometres away, a small part of which was visible from the plane on the flight over. Iguazu area is where the three borders of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet, but the falls are only visible from Brazil or Argentina. During the rainy season there can be as many as 270 falls. The falling area is 2,700 square metres and water volume reaches 6,500 cubic metres per second during the flood season.
As we start the walk along the walkways we are met by quinta's, the strange squeaking scavenger animal that runs around searching for food. Quite comical, but apparently quite vicious too. We hear the falls before we see them and snap away photographing the fragments that we see through the trees. We join a queue for a photo opportunity, more because everyone else is, rather than it being a great vantage point. We continue walking along the walkway and the thunderous sound of the water is getting louder. There is a large area where there are no trees that allows us prime viewing of this beautiful natural wonder. For one of us its beauty brings tears to her eyes. After 20 minutes or so we are down at the water level and at 'The Devil's Throat'. This is a pedestrian balcony reaching out to the centre of the brown, noisy, gushing water, with one fall behind us and another diving over the edge beneath us. We notice there is an area cordoned off. In this section there are two ruck-sacks, some shoes and a section of balcony missing. We try not to read too much into it and continue to the far end of the walkway. Here we get drenched in the mists and are unable to take photos of this incredible sight because we can't protect the camera.
We also go up in the elevator that takes us to a platform close the the edge of a cascading waterfall. Through the wire mesh flooring we appreciate the height of these stunning falls. Iguazu Falls are bigger than Niagara Falls and they really are jaw-droppingly beautiful. This is such a high to the end of our trip and certainly one of the many highlights.
So that Steve can flex his 'construction' muscles, we go to the Ipaitu Dam. This is the second biggest dam in the world (China's Three Gorges being the biggest) and is a joint venture between Brazil and Paraguay. It took 22 years to build by 40,000 workers. It then took eighteen months to fill the lake behind, it has enough concrete to build 210 football stadia, enough steel to build 380 Eiffel Towers and has 20 turbines. If the dam was to burst, the flood area would cover 1350 square kilometres. The power generated gives Paraguay 90% of its energy and 17% to Brazil. Unfortunately, we don't get off the bus close enough to the dam to appreciate its immensity.
Iguazu town itself is unappealing so we call it quits on the sight-seeing front. We pack again for our flight back to Buenos Aires for the flight the following day back to UK.
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