A Tale of Two Iguaçu

Feeling the ice-cold, brown water permeate my final layer of clothing, I was reminded of the time as a child, plunging fully dressed in my pyjamas into a cold swimming pool for my swimming proficiency. I could make a good argument that this was the wetter of the two experiences, the small pools inside my walking boots furthering this opinion. But we were here, against the odds, so I stood my ground, smiling and posing, whilst internally cursing Aiden for taking his sweet time with the camera.

The Iguaçu Falls, comprising 275 separate cascades, spans an impressive 1.7 miles across the Brazilian-Argentinian border, with an average flow of 1.5 million litres per second. I felt very small standing close to just one of these waterfalls. Deafened by the raging, thundering water, feeling the ferocity of its spray pushing me forward, I was utterly soaked within seconds. We had expected to get a little wet, ‘raincoats advised’, but this was a different experience entirely.

Furthermore, in almost every picture we’d seen of the falls, they’d been a beautiful turquoise blue, yet today they were a less appealing orange-brown. Still, brown as they were, we both agreed Iguaçu was stunning. From atop, as far as the eye could see, were mud coloured cascades, interspersed with islands of lush tropical vegetation. Honestly, we’d both been a little sceptical about travelling this far just for some waterfalls, and given our journey and the sheets of rain hammering down on us, it was only our tight schedule which prevented us from calling today a write off, and staying at our hotel. But now, drenched through, cold, and facing at least an hour’s return journey before the prospect of a hot shower and dry towel, we found ourselves standing in awe, and simply enjoying the falls.

Our journey to the waterfalls had started an exhausting 24 hours earlier, waiting to board our overnight coach to Iguaçu. Sad to be leaving our treehouse retreat, more so as the sun was finally beaming down on us after 5 days of clouds and rain, and very little beach time. Our mood was compounded by the uncertainty that any waterfalls could be worth a 15 hour detour. But it was time to move on, and Iguaçu seemed to be on everyone’s South American itinerary, frequently placing in people’s top ten ‘must-do’ activities.

Yet, just a meagre 4 hours into what would turn out to be a 17 hour journey, I started regretting this decision, as I felt the first unmistakable wave of travel sickness. One minute I was talking to Aiden, the next, clambering up the dark coach aisle, hand over mouth, trying my best to contain the quickly rising burning at the back of my throat. Many miserable sleepless hours later, after several more visits to the ‘bathroom’, think aeroplane toilet after turbulence, it was truly rancid, we finally disembarked. Revitalised by the thought of potentially checking into our hotel early, showering and napping before heading to the falls, even the light drizzle couldn’t dampen our mood. All we needed was an internet connection to order an Uber and we’d be on our way.

As promised by our research, walking into the coach terminal we had spotted a sign stating: ‘Wifi grátis’, perfect! Yet does anything we do turn out this easy? Of course not. As we would soon learn, most ‘free wifi’ connections in Brazil, along with purchasing online bus tickets, flights, any important bookings etc all require a CPF number. Their equivalent of a National Insurance or Social Security number. Which of course we don’t have. With no way to bypass this requirement and after failing to get any assistance from the bus terminal staff, we resigned ourselves to paying for a taxi. Problem was, sleep-addled as we were, neither of us could remember the name of our hotel, and hadn’t thought to save it anywhere accessible offline.

My first taste of traditional Brazilian coffee left me very unimpressed. As a continent notorious for its coffee bean production, I had high expectations. The reality was a hot, coffee flavoured syrup. Between tentative sips, as to not appear rude, (I’m far too British to ask for a new coffee without sugar), I recalled our first morning in South America, staring horrified, silently counting the 5 heaped teaspoons of sugar our hostess added to her double espresso size coffee. I’m the first to admit I have a sweet tooth, but it is unparalleled to the Brazillians’ love of sugar!

By 10am, buzzing from a caffeine/sugar high, with clean teeth and an Uber on its way, we were back on track. Unfortunately our hotel couldn’t let us check in early, and the rain outside was still torrential, so we sat in the foyer contemplating how to make the most of a bad situation. We had not come this far for yet another misadventure. Having read both sides of Iguaçu could be seen and explored comfortably over 2 days, one day for each country, we had given ourselves exactly 2 days here, including today. As boredom set in, we decided what the heck. The Brazilian side takes you on a wooden platform right out into the heart of the waterfall’s main u-shaped section, as we’re bound to get wet anyways, why not go in the rain.

Getting there was again more difficult than it had any right being. I’d decided to double check with the receptionist as given their proximity to the falls I assumed they surely get asked for directions all the time. And, we’d discovered, though he spoke almost no English, he did speak Spanish and I was up for the challenge. He seemed to understand me, producing a bus timetable yet he kept saying ‘derecha’ and pointing right. Hmm, mine and Aiden’s limited research (looking at the hotel’s position in relation to Iguaçu on Google maps), suggested we needed to take the left hand bus stop. I confirmed ‘parada de autobús a Iguaçu a la derecha no izquierda’, and he smiled and nodded confidently. Puzzled, we spent far too long checking Google and multiple travel blogs, and concluded that we in fact knew better than the receptionist and headed left.

I am proud to say we made the correct decision! Finally arriving at the falls, we were greeted by a very friendly guide who helped us buy our tickets and told us which stop to head to. The park is so large, there are internal buses to ferry people to the start of the walk down to the falls. Things finally going our way,  we were delighted to see a bus already waiting at our stop, and headed up to the upper deck. It has to be said, there is an unspoken universal language for ‘this empty seat is actually taken’, so finding no free seats we headed back to the lower deck. Another good decision it would turn out, as within minutes of the bus setting off the rain which had somewhat eased, returned with renewed vigour.

The rain had not eased in the slightest upon arrival, so we took a moment under the bus shelter to take in our surroundings. Looking over everyone, we saw a large pink building in one direction, and not much besides the road we arrived on and trees in all other directions. Something was off here. Doing a double take, yes, almost every other person here was at least a foot shorter and a decade or more younger than us. Our suspicion was confirmed when the unmistakable voice of authority boomed over and silenced the crowd. Yep, we had somehow joined a school trip. Bugger. Looking around in vain hope of seeing any sign indicating we’d at least still made it to the start of the trail, there of course was none, we found a park guard who pointed us in the direction of one of the tree lines, assuring us that hidden by the rain was the path to the falls. So off we went.

We ended up being genuinely surprised by how impressive and powerful the falls were. When fellow travellers have asked if Iguaçu is worth the journey, we laugh but always say yes. Yet lying in bed that night, we couldn’t help but feel apprehensive about tomorrow. Today was meant to be the easy day, tomorrow we would be taking multiple buses and Ubers, crossing the border into Argentina. Furthermore, Brazil is the smaller side of the falls, Argentina has over 5 miles of trails, which felt decidedly unappealing if the weather didn’t change.

Having found my walking boots still wet inside the following morning, I cannot express the trepidation I felt pulling back the hotel blinds. But finally it was sunny! We had a full day planned and we were going to make the most of it. This is the Tale of Two Iguaçu.

Off to a bumpy start, the hotel’s taxi service kept telling us no-one goes to the Argentinian side, the Brazilian side is much better, and refused to take us to the border. 20 minutes and one Uber ride later, we’d crossed the border, which was blissfully simple, and sat waiting for the border bus, discussing life with a genuinely fascinating, multilingual, lifelong nomad. Things continued to improve with the bus taking a shortcut, cutting a 40 minute journey down to just 15! Today was going to be great.

Feeling pretty smug, ahead of schedule by a good hour and with the sun beaming down on us, we headed off to Western Union to take out some Argentinian Pesos. On route we picked up a tagalong stray, who’s sole enjoyment in life seemed to be derived from the terrorising of all motorcyclists. Everytime he spotted one, he’d dart out between the oncoming traffic, charging the unsuspecting drivers with all the gusto and aggression of a hellhound. How he managed to dodge being hit during such frenzies we couldn’t say, but he had us in stitches.

Arriving at Western Union no later than 8:20am, we were dumbstruck to learn they’d already run out of Pesos and the next delivery wasn’t until 3pm. Paying in Brazilian Real meant today would now cost twice as much, but oh well, such is life. We’d come back at 3pm to get some pesos before dinner. Back into the sunshine, a quick walk and one more quick bus ride and we had arrived.

We’d read that due to their popularity the Argentina falls get busy, but by 9am on this Friday morning they were already heaving! The miles of walkways over the cascading falls were absolutely crowded. Between people stopping every 30 seconds mid walkway to take pictures and the many groups of school children it seemed our lot to get stuck behind, we slowly shuffled our way around. Unlike yesterday, we were now walking over the top of the falls and through sections of sub-tropical forest bursting with wildlife.

There are 3 main walkways on Iguazú, the Argentina falls. The Superior and Inferior, taking you above, below and even behind the falls. And the Devil’s Throat. A converging of 14 waterfalls into one massive u-shaped cascade. We’d stood at the bottom of the Devil’s Throat  yesterday getting soaked through, so today we planned to admire from a drier perspective, on a walkway above. Sadly however, we only achieved one and a half of these walkways. Unbeknownst to us, the ‘unseasonably’ heavy rainfalls of the past weeks had increased the water flow of Iguazú to 14.5 million litres per second. 10 times its usual volume. As such, several sections of the Inferior and Devil’s Throat walkways had simply been washed away.

Not yet knowing this, after walking the Superior and having to turn back on the Inferior trail, we hopped on the little train up to the Devil’s Throat. As the train was pulling out (in the wrong direction) we were joined by a very friendly German photographer, Andreas. His English was excellent. He updated us on the state of the walkways, and warned us that we might not be able to walk right out over the Devil’s Throat as per usual. This became a moot point when disembarking from the train we found ourselves at the park entrance. Turns out they’d completely shut the Devil’s walkway, including the trainline. I was gutted. Aiden on the other hand, having now spent a day and a half looking at waterfalls, wasn’t particularly perturbed. Especially as Andreas had offered to take us to a very good Argentinian restaurant near the bus station.

With a new plan and new company, we headed back. Yet, as we’ve been learning, plans are apt to go awry. For reasons unknown to us, our bus driver opted not to pull into the bus station. And being so deep in conversation with our new friend, we missed the fact our bus simply drove past our stop, resulting in a very hot hour long walk back before we realised we’d overshot. Fortunately, we arrived at Western Union just a little behind schedule, around 15:20 pm. Andreas was regaling us with travel stories and advice on the Argentine banking system, much to the amusement of a Swiss girl ahead of us in the queue, when at 15:40 pm we were advised they had once again run out of Pesos. Yep, the bank had run out of their local currency in just 40 minutes! Onto Plan C.

Vetoing dinner as paying without Pesos would be pricey, our now group of 4, decided to go see Marco das Tres Fronteiras, the Triple Frontier, where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet on a river. Honestly, the viewpoint was a little underwhelming, especially considering the spectacular falls we’d seen just a few hours prior, but the company was worth the walk.

I’d love to say we ended this rollercoaster of a day on a high, but drama somehow finds us. I shan’t bore you with the details, just that we of course ended up on the wrong bus back across the border, found ourselves utterly lost, with no internet and a very poor grasp of Portuguese. Needless to say we did eventually make it back to our hotel, even finding some delicious food on route.

All in all the Iguaçu/Iguazú Falls offer unparalleled views, and we definitely recommend visiting them to any traveller interested in scenic beauty and wildlife. Regarding the long standing question of which side to visit, as discussed, the two sides are very different, but it is not at all mandatory to see both. Due to their very different personalities, if you can, you should visit both sides, but by no means are both sides together unmissable.