Iguazu Falls - Brazilian side

One day in Brazil (Parque Nacional do Iguacu)

Continuing on from our previous blog we spent one day in Brazil taking in the other side of the Iguazu River.  The Iguazu River forms the border of Brazil & Argentina with the deepest part of the river being the deciding line.  The road to get there including a bridge crossing – there is a line painted across the road (where the border is) and the sides painted in each country’s national colours; blue & white for Argentina & yellow & green for Brazil.

First we had to clear immigration at the border and have our passports stamped… even for the single day visit. 

From the Brazilian side it is possible to see more of the falls at any one time than from the Argentinean side – a different perspective and in our opinion a better view.  The sun was shining, the skies were clear; all in all the weather was sensational but still very hot and steamy.  This allowed such amazing clear views of the falls.

Our adventure of this day was a scenic helicopter flight over Iguazu Falls another experience made possible from our wedding wishing well.  What an amazing opportunity to gain a birds-eye view of the falls.  It was a memorable occasion – seeing the falls from above showed us another aspect of the grandeur & immensity not possible from ground level allowing us to appreciate them even more.  Roy had the front left seat of the helicopter, next to the pilot (who was on the right), where he could see an all-round view and watch the pilot and flying instruments while we flew.  Coreena had the window seat behind the pilot (therefore on the right hand side) and great opportunity to enjoy the views from a different angle.

After our helicopter ride, the tour took us to the entry of the national park from where we took the official national park bus to Porto Canoas Square, the beginning of the walking path to see the falls.

The tour was scheduled to spend only the morning here so we’d made arrangements, with our guide Roberto, to separate from the tour and return to Argentina in our own time.   Roberto was very helpful and gave us all the information we needed to make this possible.  From the time we arrived at the beginning of the walking path we were able to take the walk at our own pace with more time for taking in the experience & of course photography.

The infrastructure of pathways is much better here as the pedestrian traffic moved only in 1 direction – no trying to make way for 2-way traffic on a narrow path – in fact this made it much more enjoyable at the viewing platforms too as the crowds were spread out more… apparently there can be the same quantity of visitors each day as on the Argentinean side (5-7,000) but it just wasn’t as obvious and we didn’t feel overcome by the number of people at each of the viewing points.

From all the viewing platforms we again took in the grandeur of the Devil’s Throat and the other falls that make up the entirety of Iguazu. 

We spent several hours just taking it all in, not just the falls, the surrounding area too - the butterflies, the lizards, the birds, the trees and the forest in general. 

As mentioned earlier, the pathways were nowhere near as crowded as over in Argentina so this made the experience all that more enjoyable.  The most crowded place on this walk was the viewing platform at closest point to the falls, but at least we weren’t as squeezed in like sardines like we’d experienced the day before.  This is where we could feel the mist coming from the water, cooling us down nicely.  Putting the cameras away we took some time to just take it all in before making our way to the end of the path for a much needed lunch.

After lunch, we returned on the bus to the main park entry station and walked across the road to the “Parques das Aves” (Bird Park).  A 1-2 hour visit is recommended here but we managed to spend a good 2½ hours observing the tropical birds in large aviaries, some that we were able to walk into.  The many bird species included Toucans, Macaws, Flamingos, Scarlet Ibis, Eagles, Hummingbirds and so many more.  They also had other animals such as Anaconda, Caiman, Turtles, Capiburra (a giant rodent), butterflies and possibly many more that are not coming to mind just now.

Roy’s favourite in the park was the Toucan – a rather interesting experience – and a close encounter with 2 different species.  The first one just decided to take a seat beside him, the other, at a different time, wanted a good taste of his camera lens and strap – cheeky toucan!  They were beautiful birds to observe, we could have just watched them all afternoon. 

Part-way around the park, they had “cooling stations” – large fans that sprayed a cooling mist – just stand in front and enjoy – aaaaahhhhhh!!  There are places at home that we think could use this idea.  Oh, and water fountains where we could fill our water bottle with chilled water.

Scarlet Ibis

One of the cheeky Toucans

The tiny hummingbird - very difficult to photograph while in flight

It got to 5.45pm, thunder was rolling and the park was closing – we think that we may have been the last ones to leave.  We needed to walk back over to the National Park entrance to find a taxi… from the distance we couldn’t see a single one, but fortunately there was one left.  We no longer needed to worry about how to get back across the border to Argentina and our accommodation.  The trip itself of only approx. 10kms so would generally only take maybe 15 minutes travel – that’s without 2 immigration checks; the first one to get out of Brazil, the second to get back into Argentina… to complete the process we needed an extra 45 minutes or so for the trip.

By the time we’d returned to our hotel the storm had rolled in – the pouring rain actually began while we were waiting to exit Brazil.

There endeth our Iguazu experience.

Our trip home…

Departing on the morning of 25^th January we returned Buenos Aires to get ready for our Australia Day long-haul flight to Sydney continuing home 2 days later.  The adventure has come to an end as we make our way home… we used some frequent flyer points for a business class upgrade so the flight was very comfortable indeed, although neither of us slept a great deal.  During the flight we lost 14 hours but returning home we will gain 1½ hours of that back again.

Finishing with a hot climate in Iguazu & Buenos Aires may or may an advantage – we’ve been reliably informed that the weather in Alice Springs is forecast at 40°+C for the week we return.

After 3 months of travelling, primarily in colder climates, we feel this will be a shock to our system but we can only be destined to adapt.