MondayMorningMutiny.com

This will be disappointing until I have successfully uploaded my photos, so this is mostly a placeholder until I find a suitable, and ideally high speed internet connection.

Even with pictures to accompany the most descriptive of words, justice wouldn´t be done to this awesome natural wonder.

However, as this is a blog comprised of words and pictures, an absence of these would just be empty space.

There are 275 falls, occupying an area more than 3km wide and 80m high, making them wider than Victoria and higher than Niagara.

Thousands of years before the falls were `discovered´ by whites, the falls were a holy burial place for the Tupi – Guarani and Paraguas tribes. Guarani legend says that Iguassu Falls originated when when a jealous forest god, enraged by a warrior escaping downriver by canoe with a young girl, caused the riverbed to collapse in front of the lovers, producing the falls over which the girl fell and at the base, turned into a rock. The warrior survived as a tree overlooking his fallen lover. The geological origins are not quite so romantic. In southern Brazil, the Rio Iguassu, passes over a basalt plateau that ends just above it´s confluence with the Parana. Where the lava stopped, at least 5000 cubic meters of water per second plunge into the sedimentary terrain below.

Being there is hard to describe,  on the train to the mighty Garganta del Diablo (Devil´s throat) streams of butterflies float by like leaves on a windy autumnal day. This, the largest of all the falls here, is immense – it´s constant roaring power, yet almost slow motion appearance, much like a never ending avalanche, is strangely hypnotic. Sprays of mist soak the walkways, a refreshing cool off from the jungle heat.

After seeing the upper walk, the Garganta and the lower walk, we took a speedboat ride to get a close up view of the falls. Parts of this  were extremely close up, at one point taking the craft right into the thick spray of the San Martin Falls. This was comparable to taking 50 showers at once – impossible to keep your eyes open under the raw power of the water and the boat instantly filled with water. Again, this was lovely and refreshing.

Wildlife lovers would be in their element here, with countless types of butterflies and birds, lizards, turtles, alligators, fish and coites.

On the way back from the falls, I noticed an roadside electronic clock and thermometer, which claimed it was 43 degrees. It was clearly hot but surely not that hot. Another read the same. Perhaps that was the temperature in the sun, or have I just become used to the heat? I doubt it, as I spent most of the day walking in the sun and didn´t feel particularly uncomfortable, which I think I would have, were that actually the temperature.

I stayed on the Argentinian side of the falls, in Puerto Iguassu, and had an amazing steak one one night. I had learned from the previous day that there was a tendency to overcook the steaks, so I insisted on it extremely rare and it arrived perfectly cooked and huge. This was of course washed down with fine red wine from Mendoza – a meal which will no doubt become a regular feature during my time here in Argentina.

This entry was posted on March 29, 2007 at 9:29 pm and is filed under Argentina. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.