Iguazu Falls (Mon 17th - Tues 18th Nov)

The falls are in the north of Argentina on the border with Brazil. It's a 20 hour bus journey from Buenos Aires to the small town of Iguazu so we decided to treat ourselves by booking a 90 minute LAN Airline flight. We stayed for 2 nights in a large hostel with swimming pool about 30 minutes from the falls. The vast majority of the guests were young backpackers in their 20's so Gwen and I stuck out like a sore thumb.

On our second day we visited the Iguazu National Park home of the falls. It is difficult to describe the size or the noise of the falls. Hopefully the pictures/video will give some idea but I doubt if either will do it justice. The origin of the falls are that in Southern Brazil, thr Rio Igauzu passes over a basalt plateau that ends just above its confluence with the Parana river. Before reaching the edge, the river divides into many channels to form several distinctive cataratas (waterfalls) (This last sentence was purely for Diana's benefit) There are in fact about 270 of these waterfalls. There are different walkways to see different falls from various angles and at times you can be standing very close to them. There is also a small train that can shuttle people to various locations including the biggest fall the Garganta de Diablo. The whole thing is a spectacular sight and well worth the 6 hours we spent there. You can also get an overview of all the falls from the Brazil side but unfortunately we did not have time for that as we had a bus to catch to Rio.