We arrived in Foz do Iguaçu on the 6th June after a very long 2 bus journeys from Bonito via Dourados. Our second bus broke down on the way, so the whole thing took longer than expected – almost a whole 24 hours! Still, a lot cheaper than flying, so it is still worth going by bus.
We got to our hostel – called Your Place Hostel – and slept through to the next day. Our hostel was pretty good, free breakfast AND dinner, so we definitely saved some money there. The hostel was a wealth of information about the many trips available in the area. Foz do Iguaçu is home to the Iguaçu Falls National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site that contains one of the widest and tallest waterfalls in the world. In fact, due to the large number of islands and promontories, there are between 150 and 300 separate waterfalls at Iguaçu dependent on water level.
The name Iguaçu is derived from a tupi (Indian tribe) word meaning ‘big water’. The indigenous myth is that a beautiful woman, called Naipi, fled away from a god who had planned to marry her, and she met Taroba, a mortal man, whom she fell in love with. They fled in a canoe, and when the god caught up to them, in his rage, he sliced the river killing the lovers, and causing he waterfalls. In reality, the basalt rocks formed into a waterfall on a volcanic plateau in the Lower Cretaceous period, about 132 million years ago, during a massive volcanic eruption – one of the biggest in the last several hundred million years. The widest part of the falls is the Garganta do Diabo, or Devil’s Throat, which is U-shaped, about 700 meters long. By width, height and sheer volume of water, Iguaçu is one of the biggest waterfalls in the world, and definitely one of the most beautiful.
80% of the falls are actually in Argentina, which also has a National Park on there side of the river, and 20% is on the Brazilian side. We had read reviews of the tours available, and decided to do the Brazilian side first, by ourselves by public bus, and the Argentinian side the next day, using a tour company organized by our hostel. The Brazil side gives you more of an overview of the waterfalls, whereas the Argentine side is more up close and personal, where you can really experience the power of the falls.
It was easy to get to the falls – to be honest it was nice to be back in a place which had a tourist infrastructure. After the painful experience in Poconé in the northern Pantanal, being in a place where people speak English and are not dead-set on ripping you off was a relief. It took about 40 minutes by bus to get there, and when we jumped off we bought our tickets and boarded the Park’s internal bus, which takes you up the road to the falls and the various trails available, and back.
We decided to see the main trail first – we were told seeing the whole National Park would take about 3 hours, but we actually took about 5. The main trail begins with a short walk through the forest. We were chatting away, and both realized that neither of us had seen a large waterfall on our previous travels, when….bam!…..there was the amazing sight of the falls!
We posed for numerous pictures in front of the falls, and looked at it through our binoculars. We both were pretty knocked out by the falls, and had been looking at it for awhile when we realized the whole place was full of butterflies flying around, so we got some great pictures of these too.
We walked along and found a large metal walkway jutting out from our side. You can buy tickets here for rappelling down the cliff face. We decided not to do this, as we were not near the falls, and wanted to see more of the trail (plus it was quite expensive). That is when we noticed lots of other waterfalls on the other side much lower down, much smaller than the main falls, but pretty impressive as standalone waterfalls which people would probably go and see even without the other ones there!
The further we walked along, the more of the falls we saw – it seemed to stretch on forever on the Argentine side. There are lot of tourists all vying for position to get good photos – we did encounter some pretty rude Chinese tourists, but luckily for them, I did not throw them screaming over the side. We did get some pretty pictures though.
We noticed lots of vultures here flying around in the spray of the waterfall. Some of the spray reaches huge heights – the falls are up to 82 meters high, and 2682 meters wide (the widest true waterfall in the world). The maximum water flow ever recorded was in a flood year, 12,800 m³/s. However, the average flow is 1746 m³/s per year. In 2006, when there was a drought, the falls all but disappeared when there was a mere 300 m³/s.
We also saw many boats down on the river Iguaçu below us. We actually had tickets for one of these boat rides. First we walked the rest of the trail though. There are numerous viewpoints where you can stop and see the waterfalls – each one is more impressive and closer to the falls, than the last. Eventually, we could feel the spray on our faces, and we came across a walkway that the Brazilians had erected that went out into the river. They sell plastic ponchos here, but don’t bother buying one – you will get soaked anyway.
The walkway goes out into the river on a natural platform between one waterfall which soaks you, upriver, and one waterfall below you, directly next to the platform you are standing on. Here we really started to feel the power of all that water and gravity at work! Amazing.
It’s pretty slippery out there, so we decided to finish off this trail by heading up the elevadors. We were lucky as there was a long queue, but just at the right moment a Park worker got in the service elevator next to us and invited us in to go to the top – bonus! We got to the top, and we were right next to a large wall of water which was really loud. Some great views from up here too – even though we were still soaking wet from the walkway below.
When we finished this first trail, we got back on the bus (there are stops up and down the road at each point of interest), and headed on to another trail. This trail was a short electric car ride through the Park’s forest to the place where the speedboats leave from. We had already bought our tickets at the hostel for a R$40 saving. The ride on the car itself was OK – we managed to come across a troupe of capuchin monkeys romping around in the trees. After a short walk through some forest (the walkway in the forest was annoying, as it is raised of the ground and has no siding, forcing you to look down so you do not get to see anything when walking), we came to the steps down to the river. We were now downstream the Iguaçu river, and were told to get into our life jackets. I recommend getting into the front of the boat.
We were near the front, and we set off towards the falls. We could see the spray and mist from the falls far up ahead. First though, the pilot of the boat decided to dick about and speed all around so the boat tipped this way and that. It was pretty exciting, and I realized pretty quickly I was getting another soaking.
The rapids on the river threw us around a bit. It was beautiful even from the river though, with all the rainbows that appeared – again we were really lucky with the weather.
Then the main draw – the boat headed under one of the big waterfalls and everyone got drenched. It made me feel like a child again, and, although Francesca loved it too, she was a bit tearful immediately afterwards because the water was so damn cold. We went in again and again, over a period of about 10-15 minutes, and by the end, everyone was well and truly drenched. Good fun.
By the time we got back to the shore, and the changing rooms (we had bought a change of clothes and towels, etc.), we had just enough time to grab some microwave pizza and some pies before we got the last bus out of the Park. We got back to the hostel in time to put our names down for the free dinner, watch some Big Bang Theory we had downloaded, and sleep.
The next day we were heading to Argentina for our day tour. I would be allowed to get a 90 day visa with no problem, but Francesca, as a US citizen is subject to paying a ‘reciprocity fee’. In other words, because the US government charge the visiting Argentines $US160 for 90 days, the Argentines do the same for US tourists. Pain in the backside. However, the tour picked us up fairly on time (for Brazil), and off we went in a fairly comfortable people carrier.
Crossing the border was a formality – the guide takes the passports and paperwork to the border guards on both sides, and half hour later, we were in Argentina. It was a bit weird to see Spanish everywhere instead of Portuguese – damn! Another language we are now going to have to get used to…
The first place we visited was the tri-national monument area, where the river has three countries surrounding it – Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay. Each country had built a monument painted in that country’s flag on their side of the river. It was a bit of a tourist stop, but there were some nice gardens there, and we only stopped for a short while. Luckily, in this area, and in the Park on the Argentine side, they accept Brazilian Reals. This is good because Argentinian pesos are pretty worthless as their economy is in the toilet right now.
We got to the Park late morning, and the guide sorted our tickets and gave us the low down. First up, a train ride, within the Park, to the top of the falls to see the Devil’s Throat from above. The ride was nice enough, as was the walk to the train station in the Park. We walked through the forest and saw some qatis (related to the raccoon).
The walks this side of the river were much nicer and easier to negotiate and we could actually look around us. After disembarking the train we walked on the long bridges connecting the various islands across Iguaçu river. It as a good 1km walk (at least). When we arrived we were surprised by the power of the waterfall. It felt so strong it was even a little scary standing above it. The bridge and walkway was the one we had seen the previous day from the other country (Brazil) across the river. It led right to the top of the falls, and the water was so powerful when we were there that the spray soaked us, even above the falls. Wow!
We only got about 20 minutes at the top of the falls (I would recommend blowing the tour of at this point and meeting them back at the van later). On the way there and back we did see some beautiful birds and butterflies, including the pretty scary plush crested jay. I think the jays and the qatis had been fed by tourists too many times – now they were fearless and approached people openly and without fear to take stuff from them. Warning of rabies were very real, so we kept our fingers to ourselves.
We finally caught the train back the way we came. From here there are two trails to do, both fairly long – up to 9km. One is the Upper Trail which is on the first level of waterfalls, with some above and some below you, an the Lower Trail, where you can get pretty close to the waterfalls below on a walkway. Each walk is pretty awesome, with some great lookouts and views. There is also some information boards in English dotted around the Park, so we learnt a lot too.
We spent a few hours walking around here, we found out that the waters used to be as clear as those in Bonito. Nowadays, due to all of the soil erosion caused by land clearance downstream, the waters run a muddy brown/red. We had heard that there were swifts living behind the falls, nesting there to protect themselves from predators, but we did not see them.
Bats, snakes, spiders and even jaguars (their numbers are much reduced today – down to less than 12) all live throughout the Park. There are several unique orchids not found anywhere else at Iguaçu though; and other species such as cacti, ferns and bromeliads.
After the Upper Trail and lunch, we headed to the Lower Trail. This took about an hour or so, and some of the other people on the tour headed off with the guide to do a boat trip. We had done one the previous day (I recommend doing them from Argentina, they were cheaper, and it was the same experience), so we headed back around the trail and finally found our way back to the pickup point. Here we saw some of the most amazing animals we had seen, and all really up close! We saw some guinea pigs, acararis, toucans and monkeys. It was at this point our camera battery decided to die (we forgot to plug it in the night before), so we did not get any pictures unfortunately.
However, once our guide came back (about an hour late – much more typically Brazilian), we all piled back towards to the border. We arrived back on the Brazilian side at about 8pm, but the hostel still let us get in on the free dinner.
The day after next (10th June) we had planned on seeing the Itapui dam, and the associated museum, but as the museum was closed and the wait for our allotted time at the dam was later in the afternoon, we postponed it – more about that later. Instead, we headed to the Parque das Alves (bird park), which we had intended to see on our day trip to the falls, but ran out of time.
A good thing too, as it took us the whole afternoon to see the bird park. It is laid out in one huge loop – but each animal cage and enclosure is fascinating – all with English informative descriptions. Many of these animals we had seen in the wild, but it was nice to be so close to them and have a working camera (we cleverly remembered to charge it this time!).
We saw blue-jays, black tufted-ear marmosets, red ibis, flamingo and many macaws – of all different colors. And that was only the first section.
Other sections contained wood-rails, gallinules, various ducks, including the mandarin duck, all types of parrot imaginable – including some endangered species – grey-crowned cranes and screamer birds. The screamer can be heard from 2km away it is so loud!
Most of the species can be found in Southern Brazil, but they also had a Pantanal section, and even an African bird section.
One of our favorite sections was the aviary with the toucans in it. These birds are really beautiful in the wild, and really scary up close. Their beaks are pretty big an can crack open strong nuts – again, we kept our fingers to ourselves.
We got some great shots, and headed off to the reptile section. We saw some big anacondas, reticulated pythons and boa constrictors here – all safe and warm behind glass and in cages thankfully.
Next up was the most powerful raptor in the Americas: the harpy eagle. This is the bird I can mimic when we encounter sloths to get them down from the forest canopy so we can get a better look. There was a breeding pair at the bird park, but we saw no chicks in their massive nest (a camera was focused on the nest). I did learn that a pair of chicks are hatched, and the stronger one kills the weaker one. These are scary birds that have been known to pluck sloths and monkeys from trees an eat them. They are named after the mythological beast, perhaps because the female grows to a much larger size than the male – up to 10kg in weight with a seven and a half foot wingspan.
We also saw some rhea up close, and through seeing these, I realized that it was rhea we saw in Gatorland in Florida, and not an emu as we had thought. We also saw a transparent butterfly – I did not even know they existed!
There is a section highlighting the ecological work the park is doing in trying to give a foothold back to various species of parrot in the rainforest and elsewhere in Brazil – one thing they do is to build artificial nests in the wild which helps stop numbers from dwindling. Unfortunately, it seems as if it is government policy and the policing of those environmental laws that is the only thing that will really work. In a country as third world as Brazil, this is extremely difficult – not just because of it’s size, but because of the lack of political will and the rife corruption.
After looking at the parrots we found a butterfly garden which we entered. The garden is immaculate and extremely pretty – they have fruits laying around for the multitude of butterfly species they have; and feeder bottles, for the various darting and ever so colorful hummingbirds.
We saw some owls, but they were mostly in the shadows asleep, of course, and we also came face to face with a cassowary. Cassowarys are a throwback to the time of the dinosaur. They are a link from birds to reptiles in our evolutionary past. They are also extremely dangerous, and their kicks and aggressive attacks have been known to kill adult humans. Luckily for us, it was in a cage. It is when you are encroaching on their territory that they become incensed.
Our last two stops were in with the beautiful macaws. There is a sign warning you of the risks of being bitten, but we entered their cage anyway. Blue and yellow, hyacinth and scarlet macaws are all represented here, along with many parrots. They all fly about, and make an awful noise. They are not particularly territorial, or dangerous, just curious, so it was hands in pockets and we had a lot of fun – well I did, watching people, including Francesca, freak out when the birds all flew about in an explosion of color.
Francesca even got to hold one.
We headed back after a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon – the bird park is even adding more enclosures to what they have already, and Francesca and I agreed it was one of the best things we had done whilst in Brazil. If you go to the falls, do not miss the bird park next door – it is even within walking distance. Make sure you keep your eye on your wallet though, some guy tried to lift mine on the bus, and once I realized I got our umbrella from Francesca but the guy moved away and debussed before I could beat him to death – another lucky escape.
The trip to the Itapui dam was the next day, so we got on the bus and went there in the afternoon. We planned on seeing the adjoining Eco museum first so we got our tickets and started off for the museum. What they don’t tell you is that the museum is over a kilometer away from the dam. They really missed a trick in not laying on some form of transport to the museum – the dam tour and Eco museum are all set to demonstrate Brazil’s position at the forefront of green energy – why not lay on an electric car to take people between the two attractions?
We finally arrived at the Eco museum. It, and indeed the whole area, is a construct of the Itapui Binacional company. Set up in the 1960’s as a result of the mutual co-operation between Paraguay and Brazil, the company’s aims were to use the Paraná river for a hydroelectric dam. A treaty was signed at the start of the 70’s and work began late 1978. Nowadays the dam provides a massive percentage (70-something percent) of Paraguay’s electricity needs, and around 25% of Brazil’s. The Eco museum seemed to be a bit of a corporate public relations stunt to me at first. The first room has some information and dioramas of indigenous peoples from the region, but then they are never mentioned again! The next room was a collection of local artists – seemingly unrelated to energy or ecology at all.
We were treated to a full scale model of the region though, and another of the dam, and next to these were informative interactive terminals, in English no less, that gave a lot of information on the Itapui dam. More on the dam later though.
Alongside the worker’s memorial wall and the constant information giving of bi-national co-operation, I really felt like we could be in an indoctrination center. All the time there was no mention whatsoever about the displaced peoples, the ruined and changed ecology of the region (wasn’t this an Eco museum?) or information about what happened to the workers who migrated here to work the dam once it was completed in the 80s. The only allusion to social or environmental issues was the information on the computer about the local battered women charities the company donated to. Odd.
The next room has a small scale turbine for people to see and take pictures with. It was working (not generating electricity, just using it to spin round), but it appealed to the nerd in me). It was hard to get too excited knowing we were going to the dam afterwards though.
The final rooms redeemed the museum and the company in my eyes, you may be glad to hear. Full descriptive information on the problems and issues faced both sociologically and environmentally were laid out, including the solutions and steps carried out by Itapui Binacional to solve them. Before the river was diverted, biologists and environmentalists were engaged to move the local animals to other areas. Not ideal, perhaps, but they also added in a fish breeding canal into their blueprints, allowing the fish to travel the river still and breed as usual. Research has shown this has succeeded, however, I am uncertain how independent this research is. In a place like Brazil, it is difficult to attain all of the facts for a number of reasons.
Thousands of workers and families were bought in to work on the project, but, inevitably, thousands more were displaced. The company did set these people up and gave them homes, hospitals and education. I was pretty convinced from the research I did and the admittedly biased information I got at the museum that the dam was a damn good idea (couldn’t resist).
A full scale map of the entire region was in the last room, under our feet. We were separated from it by glass so you could walk on top of the Iguaçu falls an the Itapui dam.
After the annoying walk back to the dam, we arrived in time to have some lunch (pastries and cake) before we settled in for an afternoon showing of the informative video in the auditorium. This video was a rehash of the things we had learnt in the museum, but it was entertaining. After this, we broke off into groups. We had chosen the Special Tour (more expensive than, but including the same activities as the Panoramic Tour). The Special Tour did a a bus trip around the dam, allowing you to see the whole thing, but also included an internal visit, to the main control station and the generating room, with the spinning turbine!
The Paraná river was the seventh largest river in the world when they diverted it for the dam. They had to construct concrete making factories at the site to make enough concrete to build the dam – enough to build 210 football stadiums, enough steel to build the Eiffel Tower 380 times, and they moved enough earth to fill the Channel Tunnel 8.5 times!
They have 20 generators now, none of which are due to be replaced in the next 30 years. The length of the dam is 7235 meters, and it is 225 meters high. It produces enough electricity that, if Brazil had to produce the same in oil, 434,000 barrels per day would have to be burnt.
Our tour started as a panoramic tour, and the sun was still high enough to get some nice pictures. However, if pictures are important to you, I recommend going in the morning. The size of the dam was matched only by the vast waterfalls in the region. We got some snaps and then headed off to the top of the dam. This area exists as a sort of no-mans-land between Brazil and Paraguay. It is a shared area that was leased by the company when they took a huge loan that they are still paying off even today. The rights to the electricity is then shared 50/50 between the two countries. Paraguay does not need all of its allotment, however. It only uses 10% of the electricity produced by the dam; it sells the rest to Brazil.
Inside the dam, we were treated to a tour around the main control center, in which Brazilians and Paraguayans both work. The company has a Brazilian and Paraguayan director, and the workers even talk a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese. This is a pretty prestigious engineering company to work for, and they do suffer from brain drain, but they also came up with some initiatives to swap workers with other countries. They had a bunch of Chinese workers here for one of these swaps – some of those guys stayed for three years!
The 12 meters of concrete, not to mention the 100 meter high walkways you have to cross mean the tight spaces within some parts of the dam might not be for everyone. But we had fun there – I felt like a dignitary doing a tour.
The water flow rates (35mph), and turbine types were all mentioned on the tour, but if you need to know those, go to the wiki page! We both really enjoyed our tour around the dam – I have never seen anything like it – it is no wonder it has been voted, by the American Society of Civil Engineers, as one of the modern wonders of the world. This puts it on a list alongside the Panama Canal and the Empire State building. Pretty impressive, and extremely eco-friendly. In fact, Paraguay only gets its electricity from hydroelectricity. We did ask what the fallback plan was in the event of terrorism, but the tour guide (who was clearly a knowledgeable engineer), brushed the question off by talking about safeguards. One thing he neglected to mention was the blackout of 2009 (which I found out about online later), which, when transmission lines were damaged, knocked out power to over 50 million people. I guess that is not in the corporate public facing literature!
We are still in Foz now, and plan to move on soon, after we catch up with our admin and reflect on our time in Brazil. Francesca went to Argentina again whilst I was writing this blog, in fact! I hate it when she is in a different country to me, but I will leave a gap for her to write about her adventure when she returns.
Francesca:
The Jesuits were an important factor in the survival of information we currently have about the indigenous people of Brazil (including the Tupi and the Guarani people.) Because of this I wanted to make sure and see one of the numerous Jesuit missions which were established hundreds of years ago all around the Brazil/Paraguay/Argentinian area. Ever since I read the textbook on indigenous culture with information mainly derived from the old Jesuit manuscripts, I knew this would be a must-see for me.
I knew there were two options for seeing a Jesuit mission while in Foz do Iguaçu – heading south for the Sao Miguel dos Missions (this mission and its story were made popular by the movie The Mission with Robert De Niro) or heading into Argentina for a similar yet even older mission called the San Ignacio Miní. While the Sao Miguel is in better shape than the Sao Ignacio Mini, I ended up booking a day trip for the Argentinian missions as they are much easier to get to plus I’d get an English-speaking guide and an included visit to the Mines of Wanda! The Mines of Wanda is a little working mine, and while it is pretty blatantly a tourist trap I had never been in an active mine before so found it interesting!
On the bus (thanks to the helpful translation I received from my new friend Monica) we learned that the Mines of Wanda was named after a Polish princess, as the local area in Argentina has a lot of Polish settlers. We walked down a series of slippery stone stairs to get to the mine. Along the outside rocks near the mine there were tons of exposed crystals of quartz and agate. As we walked into the mine, the guide showed us the abundance of amethyst and the calcium lines along the cave leading to the crystals which indicate the build-up of various minerals and thus the gem location. These mines also have topaz, jasper, yellow citrine, and different types of quartz including rose quartz. It was really interesting to see the workers drilling for crystals while we were there – it didn’t look like the easiest or safest job and we only stayed for a minute since it was so dusty, noisy, and hot. We got to have a souvenir rock from a bag our guide brought around- I got a little amethyst. Yay!
Next we were onto the Sao Ignacio Mini! The mission was founded in 1610 by the priests Jose Cataldino and Simon Masceta, the mission was moved to its current location in 1696. This is where it stood until being damaged in the Paraguayan war in the early 1800’s and later abandoned when the Jesuits were expelled after their power became too great for the Spanish crown’s pleasure. The indigenous people suffered greatly when the Portuguese and Spanish came to their land in the new world, and the Guarani were hunted for use as slave labor. The indigenous Guarani people lived and worked in the Sao Ignacio Mini and the numerous other missions, under the protection of the Jesuits who kept the Bandeirantes (Portuguese-descendent slave-catchers) from enslaving the indigenous people. On site were stones from the Battle of Mborore, a battle between Jesuits/Guarani and the Bandeirantes from Sao Paulo (known as Paulistas) in 1641.
The missions were an attempt by the Jesuits to impose European cultural values on the indigenous population while allowing the Guarani to continue to speak their own language and tolerating the local peoples’ values that were deemed acceptable. The Spanish crown at first encouraged the missions because they were a way of spreading their own influence in the countryside. Within the mission, the Guarani people were transformed by Jesuits from a group with a polygamous culture into a group consisting of individual family units with each group cultivating two plots of land for agriculture – one for themselves and one for the collective. They attempted to educate the Guarani people through religious art and Western objects, some can be seen below. This format allowed the Jesuits to convert the Guarani and teach them morals as they saw fit thus furthering their own cause, while the Guarani received protection from the slave-catchers and killers.
We spent a quick time in the museum (too quick in my opinion) after a delicious lunch at the eatery across the street before walking out to the missions main square. Our guide gave us an overview of the layout for the missions – a church in front of a central square, housing for the Jesuits and tribal leaders near the square, and housing for the Guarani a bit off from the square.
The front of the church had two angels on it – one for the Jesuits and one for the Guarani people. It also had an insignia for the Virgin Mary. church had an alter and a music room, and was the place of burial for the highest ranking people at the missions. All of the art and décor for the church was crafted by the Guarani craftsmen and blacksmiths on site, as well as other things the community needed. Their artistic work even led to the creation of a new style called “Guarani Baroque.”
There was a funeral plot with 4 separate burial areas for Guarani men, women, children, and the Jesuits. There was even a separate building for windows and single women to (unfortunately) be “shut away.” Near this funeral area was a tree that had “swallowed” up one of the sandstone columns originally belonging to the mission structure. If you look closely, you can see the column inside the tree growing around it…
We finished up at the missions and I had some free time to walk around for more photos. A long bus ride back, and I was in Foz again for a few days of rest and blogging. Now back to Colin!
Our next stop is Porto Alegre, a coastal town in the South of Brazil. After this, we head into the South American winter, and go South, into Uruguay – hopefully ahead of and away from all the rioting protestors who are hitting the headlines at the moment.
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