Iguazu Falls
The “Oh Wow” journey continues, this time from the Brazilian side. We are glad that we took the time to do both sides. Where the Argentinian side had a lot more trails and pathways and let you get right up overtop a lot of falls, the Brazilian side looked back toward the falls and gave a better overview. It only had one trail actually walk over the falls on the Brazilian side, but it was probably the best one!
These three pictures try to show a bit of how the falls are laid out. The walk on the Brazil side starts furthest down stream and the view is basically the one on the right. Then you walk along the side of a valley/canyon upstream working towards the left with the left picture looking upstream towards Devil’s Throat.
And again, trying to capture the size of this and explaining it is hard to do. This video does the opposite of the three pictures above: it starts looking upstream and pans downstream while standing at the lookout in the middle picture above.
Marika wanted to play with the camera to try and do a slower shutter speed to get the waterfalls to blur together, a trick she learned in an art class. I showed her where the the shutter speed priority setting was and she took a few shots playing with the settings trying to get it right. She ended up getting this shot that almost looks like a painting which I found to be quite creative photography on her part. No filters or anything, just shutter and aperture.
The one spot on the Brazilian side where you could get down and personal with the falls (i.e. get wet).
The Brazil trail ends with a nice tower that gives an awesome overview of the falls. I think Julia could have spent the rest of the day just standing at that railing, it was so breath-taking.
Before signing off on the falls, I wanted to mention that if anyone has seen the 1986 movie “The Mission” it is the Iguazu Falls that are featured in that movie. Excellent but sobering movie if you haven’t seen it.
Posada
Even though this post is titled Foz do Iguaçu, we didn’t actually see much of the town other than driving through the edge of it after we crossed the border. That is because we decided to stay in this little eco-farm posada really close to the park entrance which is 15 to 20 minutes outside of town. We had read good reviews about it and we decided to book a few days there. After spending a few days in busy cities, it was nice to relax in the countryside a bit.
The entrance to our inn on the farm.
There were some paths that we could go exploring their property on and we saw the normal farm animals, but they also said we could help ourselves to any of the fruit that was available. The grapefruit and bananas weren’t ready yet, but the limes were and they girls decided to make some limonade.
The lodge had the most interesting showers we have seen to date and have a high probability of being the most unique of the trip. The shower wall was basically all glass, with a brick wall outside about 3 feet away to provide privacy. However, as you can see, between the glass and the brick wall, they planted all sorts of plants to fill that gap making a little garden there. It felt a little bit like taking a shower inside an aquarium which was both a little unnerving and really cool at the same time.
The girls also loved that they had pool, foosball and an obstacle course on the farm.
Parque das Aves
On recommendation from our friends in Montevideo, we decided to visit this bird park which was right across from the falls park entrance and an easy walk from our posada. We all loved our time there. The park was really well done, had signs in Portuguese, Spanish and English, and did a great job of explaining the conservation efforts regarding the Atlantic Forest as well giving science lessons about some of the species they have at the park. The Atlantic Forest is the 2nd most biodiverse ecosystem in the world but only 8% of it remains. If you are interested in learning more, their website has great information.
This little guy above seemed to be as curious about the girls as they were about it. This is an alagoas curassow, which are believed to be extinct in the wild. It is humbling and sad to recognize that deforestation has primarily wiped this species out and that you are looking at one of the few remaining specimens of its kind.
I can’t seem to end a post without talking about food. We were told to watch for a few things in Brazil and we found 4 of them in the cafe at the park so we gave them a try: coconut water, acai, a coxinha, and brigadeiros.
The coconut is self explanatory. The acai up to this point we have only had inside of Brookside chocolate from Costco. We learned the fruit doesn’t keep very well so it is either made into a powder (and put into chocolate) or frozen into a desert like what you see above. It is like a thick smoothie, almost ice cream and is a very dark purple (kind of chocolate colour). In this case, the acai is topped with granola and strawberries. The coxinha is usually shredded chicken with spices and cheese which are wrapped in a dough and then fried. The brigadeiros (which we took back to the posada for an evening snack) are balls made of chocolate and condensed milk, covered in chocolate sprinkles (what we call hagelslag in Dutch).
All were excellent and we have had all of them again in our continued travels in Brazil, though most of us think these were the best of what we had (especially the brigadeiros!)