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.
I 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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