Brazil facts & history in brief
Iguaçu Falls, a large horseshoe
shaped cataract carved in the River
Iguaçu, which surpasses the Niagara
Falls in Canada/U.S.A. and the Victoria
Falls in Zimbabwe in size, and is
one of the great natural wonders
of South America.
A spectacular series of nearly 300 (The number
varies with the seasons)
individual falls interspersed among rocky islands
along an escarpment of approximately
5 km long, each drop 60 m and more,
at the frontier between Brazil
and Argentina and Paraguay.
There are about twenty major drops.
There are walkways over and surrounding the falls in
the surrounding lush, semi-tropical
forest with many different rain forest
trees, orchids, bamboo, pine and palms.
A wide variety of birds and
butterflies are found everywhere
in this dense National Park.
The roar of
the falling waters and the mist
and rainbows above the falls can be heard
and seen from miles away.
On the Argentinean side and on the
Brazilian side as well you can walk
on miles long walkways over the
falls which provides a spectacular
view of Garganta do Diablo (Devil's
Throat).
There are
observation towers at the Santa
Maria and the Floriano Falls.
Most of the falls are on Argentinean
side, but they are best viewed from
the Brazilian side. You can also
take a boat tour or a helicopter
ride to see the Falls up close.
Iguazu in Guarani language (The local
Indian population) means
big water.
The crest of the falls is more
than 60 m high and the water
falls partly in a large double
drop or in a series of cataracts.
In the dry season two crescents
of water are formed, each 732 m wide; in the wet
season the two merge into
one vast fall nearly 5 km wide.
No words or photos can do proper
justice to the Iguaçu Falls.
The river originates in
the Serra do Mar Mountains and
is joined by many tributaries on its way to
the falls.
It joins the Parana River about
22 km to the southwest and
later receiving the Uruguay
River to form the estuary of the River Plate.
The Iguazu National Park in
Argentina and Iguaçu National Park in Brazil
together protect the Iguazu
Falls and about 2,300 square kilometres of
tropical rainforest around it.
Soon after our arrival at
the Airport we were accosted by
one of the agents (Bayardo Hornos)
of Four Tourist travel and a very
attractive picture of our sightseeing
trip was presented to us. We were
promised everything until we paid
up.
In reality we ended up very unhappy
and feeling fiddled, cheated and
short-changed.
These sales
people have wide knowledge of
various countries visitors are likely to
come from.
They endear themselves to you by
praising your country and call you
by the nickname of your country,
(Kiwis in our case) also rattling
off numbers of people they dealt
with from your country etc.
Now the promises and the unkept promises.
We were very interested to take
the trip, after all that's what
we came for, and the sales talk
and promises sound very good, but
very soon we got our first disappointment,
he would not accept our Visa (Cost
too much commission and rampant
inflation, he claimed).
As New Zealanders
we have to buy U.S. dollars of which
we only had a limited supply, to
last another 6 weeks.
We were to
go on a jungle safari, a boat ride
up to the falls, (We did get these
two and thoroughly enjoyed it too)
then we were to be transferred to
a regular free boat to go to the
island where another boat would
have taken us to the Devil's Throat.
Arriving at the landing we were
promised a video of our boat trip,
to be delivered to our hotel but
we never received that and we were
told the free boat to the island
was not running, neither did the
boat to the Devil's Throat.
From
the landing site now we had to walk
to catch a little train to take
us near the walkway over the falls.
We got lost because the people promised
to meet us at arranged places just
weren't there. Our walk over the
falls was terrific, thoroughly enjoyable.
Next day the continuation of our
tour was just as troublesome.
We desperately wanted to explore Foz
do Iguacu, the Brazilian Iguazu
town, but our driver only give us
a glimpse of it, claiming we had
no time, but we had to spend 5 hours
at the Airport waiting for our plane.
Iguazu town, our Hotel the Los Helechos
(Telefax(03757)4-20338, was reasonably
priced and quiet adequate) and the
spectacle of the falls were terrific.
Please be careful with the choice
of Tour companies, the many unkept
promises can be expensive and disappointing.
You can click on these photos for
an enlargement.
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Devil's Throat or
Garganta do Diablo |
Devil's Throat or
Garganta do Diablo |
Devil's Throat or
Garganta do Diablo |
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