Had a brilliant day at the falls in Argentina.
We crossed the border into Argentina early this morning and then spent the whole day exploring the Iguazo Falls Nature Reserve from the Argentinian side of the Iguazo River. We had glorious blue sky all day and the Falls were bathed in sunshine throughout the whole day.
We started by following the upper section and then descended to the river level where we took a short boat ride across to San Martin Island. Here we climbed up a steep path to a lookout right on the edge of the southern section of the falls (there are around 3 km of the falls!). We then returned to the upper viewing section and after a brief snack and drink caught a small train which took us north-eastwards to the Garganta del Diablo (Devil’s Throat) Station. A short (1.1 km) walk along an elevated steel walkway over water and dense jungle brought us to the viewing highlight of the Iguazo visit. The track ends at a precipitous point directly overlooking the Devil’s Throat. A vast volume of water falls from a semicircular edge into a deep chasm 100m below. The atmosphere is utterly hypnotising as the sights and sounds are an overload on one’s senses. The amount of mist in the air provided a welcome cooling effect from the mid-afternoon sun. The water flow maximum is 6500 cubic metres (or 6500 tonnes) of water per second!
Just a short distance upstream (150m?) from the Devil’s Throat edge was a tourist boat cruising around and the thought of an engine failure was more than one cared to ponder!
We retuned to Brazil via the Tancredo Neve Bridge where the border with Argentina is marked half-way across. We stopped for photos and people straddled the international divide!
A superb day
Animals sighted: quati, lizards, monkeys, many colourful birds, armadillo, vultures, ….
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