Days 91 - 94: Iguaçu Falls

Oi! We are now in Brazil and struggling with the change to Portuguese (our Spanish was going so well!!) but have mastered hello - oi!

From Uruguay, we had to pass through Argentina again to reach the Brazilian side of the Iguaçu falls. So we are rapidly accumulating passport stamps! But we have now survived night bus nine of ten, and made it to country seven of seven!! So straight off the bus we headed to the Brazilian side of the falls. Our Argentinian guide Tomás keeps telling us proudly that the Brazilian side is the seats in the theatre, and the Argentinian side is the stage. So the first day we walked along the trail on the Brazilian side, where you get a stunning view of the falls from a overall distant perspective. The falls are spectacular!

The next day we went back to the Argentinian side of the falls. Our first stop was the waterfall called devils throat, an impressive amount of water, and the path took us so close to the top we got pretty soaked! That was great though because it was sooo hot in Iguaçu - 34 degrees and super humid!

We spent the morning walking around the top of the falls, then we did the jet boat ride!! Usually you get wet on the jet boat, which takes you under the falls, but the driver loved the girls' giggling and screaming so took us under an extra time, and by then we got off the boat absolutely saturated. Was great fun and definitely another highlight of the trip.

That night we had a BBQ at the tour guide's house, where he put on an impressive spread. We had the next day to fill in before our last night bus, we went to the bird park, which consisted of massive walk-in aviaries, where we came face to face with an angry toucan, but it was pretty amazing!!

Then the bus. Our last night bus was 24 hours long. An 18 hour bus from Iguaçu to Sau Paulo, where we switched to a private bus for the next 6 hours. It was horrible, the worst bus we have been in yet in terms of leg room and space to recline. Our feet swelled up from inactivity and sitting upright. The private bus was great but we were so keen to not be on the bus anymore! So now we have arrive in Paraty, no big buses left, and only Ilha Grande and Rio to go now!!

Xoxoxo

Sam Fact - Iguaçu Falls is one of the new wonders of the natural world. It consists of 275 drops over a distance of 2.7km. The highest drop is 82 meters. Just a few kilometres downstream of the falls is the triple border between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil.