Located in the southern part of Brazil on the border of Paraguy and Argentina, are the 'must see'waterfalls consisting of 275 80m high drops across two of the three borders. We decided only to visit the Brazillian side of the falls as my passport was now lacking the clean pages for the visa stamps for the countires we were still to visit over the next 4 months, so did not want to waste any pages going to the Argentinian side.
Off we headed on local bus 231, sun shinning, rge oerfect day. We arrive at what looks like the entrance to Alton Towers, obviously this attraction pulled in enough money to build a elaborate entrance to pull even more money from the tourists pockets. Luckily for us, with Brazil being very expensive meaning we were on a tight budget, we had come prepared with homemade sandwiches and snacks. We pay our entrance fee and get on a coach which will take us to the falls.
As we weren't seeing the Argentinian side we decided earlier that we would catch a speed boat that would navigate us to see the full falls from the river, and later by foot on the Brazilian side the falls from above from various viewpoints.
So we hop off the bus at stop one and onto a golf buggie towing carrieges full of people through towering forrests engulfing the banks of the river. We get changed into clother we dont mind getting wet, and start to walk towards the river down the bank. We pass people returning from the boat trip and NOW we see why we need a change of clothes as there was not a dry person in sight!!
We board the speedboat with around 12 other people, us being the only ones who are not adorning ponchos! We sit in the front seats with four more people perched along the front rubber sides of the boat.
Off we go at high speed against the current of the river jumping and steering across upcoming breaks and waves with each yielding small screams from the people sat around us. We can hear the thunder of the falls and around five minutes later the impressive collection of 85m high falls come into view, creating huge clouds of mist with many rainbows arching through them.
Having seen many waterfalls on our travels this was certainly the most WOWing. our captain, clad in full rubber with only his eyes poking out, steered the boat towards one of the thundering falls. Screams get louder mixed with enermous laghter as the front end dipped in and we all feel the full source of the fall and get completely soaked.
No poncho in the world would keep you dry from that amount of water, and as the boat comes and the thundering water the two ladies infront of us were laughing hysterically as they empty their ponchos and realise that their designer sunglases which rested skew across their faces from the force of the water. i look over to Jo and she has a huge smile across her face with her being completely soaked.
We dart from fall to fall and then it's time to return. Now going downstream the speed of the boat was somewhat faster than on the way there, jumping over huge waves and rapids. The expert captain steered over one huge rapid slowly, as the front tipped over allowing the big wave to completely engulf and smash the front of the boat. The wave hit me square in the face, disorientated and soaked I found one of the ladies sitting on my lap placed there with the force of the water. Embarressed and a million apologies later she gets off my lap and back into her seat! We get back and get changed into our dry clothes, part one of the falls done and what a WAY!!!
We hop onto the bus and make our way nearer to the top of the falls. A 4mile walk and we get to see the full falls spreading across a huge panorama showing both sides of Brazil and
Argentina.
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We visit all the viewpoints and even see some local wildlife, i can only describe them as racoons but they are probably not, funny little things anyway!
An impressing day and back to the hostel with one more day before we head off to Florinopolis, the millionnaire island on the coast.
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