Up to now we’ve been pretty happy with the flight route we set in February 08 but now we’re discovering a few things that could have been done differently. On hindsight, we should have skipped the BA to Sao Paulo (SP) flight and gone overland but, back then, we really had no idea where our round about travels in between flights would take us. The One World ticket allowed us 19 flights worldwide but we have to fly in and out of the same airport each time. Overland travel from one place to another is fine but each ‘segment’ you do overland (Beijing to Singapore for example) counts as one flight. We could have changed the route, dropped the flight and gone overland but that costs. Route changes cost, date changes don’t. Lesson learnt.
The actual flight to Sao Paulo was only 2 ½ hours and the sights that greeted us as we came in to land surprised us. Blocks of high rise apartments and houses for miles and miles. Sao Paulo is one of the worlds largest cities with around 17 million people and covering an area of 1,500 sq kilometres.
We’d made the decision not to spend any time in SP so literally landed, headed straight to the bus station and jumped on the first bus to Foz do Iguaçu, 16 hours away. Foz is a city on the Brazilian side of the world-famous Iguazu Falls that border Argentina and Brazil, with Paraguay a little way down the river. Both from the air and road the Brazil countryside looked very colour-rich, with bright emerald greens and rich dark ochre-coloured earth. It was very different to what we’d seen of Argentina and Uruguay (both from air and road).
We spent two days visiting the falls, one day on the Brazilian side where you can get an overview of the falls and the second day on the Argentine side where you get a lot closer to the action. People say the Argentine side is more impressive but we beg to differ and think that they’re equally impressive (but the Brazil side is considerably cheaper and only has 25% of the falls area).
View Larger Map
There is no photo that we could take that would give an overview of how large the falls are but the water plunges 75m over a frontage that stretches for some 2.4km in a semi-circle terraced area (they are four times wider than Niagara apparently). The high lava terraces each have their own waterfalls and there are 100s of different waterfalls across entire area. The setting is beautiful and the surrounding greenery is made up of begonias, orchids, palms, trees and ferns.
Brazil is apparently experiencing the hottest summer in 11 years and boy did we feel it! I don’t know how hot it is but it wasn’t until we’d taken this photo that we realised how much we were sweating (a bit gross but it’s a bit novel to drip with sweat standing still with a low heart rate!).
The best thing about the Brazil side is that you walk your way along the river and you can see the most important waterfall in the distance. Then you only get glimpses of it until you’re right there, on a walkway that takes you right out to the edge.
I’m standing in the middle of the walkway and resorted to the usual arm wave rather than attempt a cartwheel or hanging from the handrail.
This is the view from the end of the walkway
and the view downriver.
From the walkway a lift(!) takes you up high where you get a different perspective (you can just see the walkway in the middle left of the photo). Again, this is only a very small part of the falls.
From higher up again, at the top of the falls, you’d have no idea what was just down river! Only a small amount of spray in the air gives it away.
Not far from the falls is a bird park that covers a huge area and has large aviaries that attempt to recreate a number of environmental areas in Brazil, such as the Pantanal. It was a great opportunity to see so many different birds in one place and after trying so hard to get decent photos of flamingos in the Galapagos, here was a whole flock within meters of us. They had a mirror in the pen that made us laugh. Flamingos normally flock in the thousands or even millions and only feel safe in large numbers. The mirrors were there to create the illusion of a large flock. I don’t think they’re particularly smart birds….
A huge aviary had many birds found in the Pantanal and as soon as we walked in this Toucan came bumbling over. They fly but appear rather clumsy and seem to hop better than fly. Their beaks are massive and I wasn’t getting too close (nor taking my eyes off him!) even though I was SO excited as I'd never seen one before. They're a lot smaller than I thought they were but are very beautiful.
Euan got this shot of a hummingbird and if you’ve ever seen them move you’ll know how difficult it is get a decent photo. These ones are tiny – if you put your forefinger and thumb together, that is about the size of the ‘flower’ that it is drinking out of. They were playing or fighting around us and they sounded like large insects whizzing past our ears. Some were no larger than the end of our thumbs.
This aviary had loads of macaws (among other parrots), all playing up and clowning around. One was hanging from the top of the aviary by is beak, another swinging like a monkey from one claw and others, as soon as we walked in, flew straight at us with the tips of their wings brushing past our heads. It was all too calculated; they knew exactly what they were doing and, we suspected, got quite a good reaction from some visitors. They’re big birds and you have to really tell yourself not to duck or shriek with fright!
This little guy liked my crocs but his sharp pointed beak was probing a bit too close to the soft part of my foot for comfort.
On the Argentine side of the falls, we had a lot of ground to cover (along with loads of other people). We made good use of the tripod I got from Mum & Mark for Christmas and the trees came in handy!
This was the result.
This is the shot of the falls we were at on the Brazilian side and the land immediately on the right hand side is an island and the falls arc their way around the back of that.
You can just see the walkway we were on the day before. There water flow varies hugely and we noticed that there was a lot more water going over than the day before thanks to a downpour that evening and overnight. The only known time that the falls have dried up was in 1977 after a drought.
This photo sort of shows the layout of the falls with the island in the middle (it took us AGES to get this photo as people kept walking in front of the camera that was perched high on a railing). The two main waterfalls are to the far right (San Martin) and far left (Garganta del Diablo) of the photo.
These boats took tourists right up and under the San Martin falls
and they would almost disappear from view under the water. It looked like a great ride but for US$35 for 12 minutes we gave it a miss.
You can get to Isla Grande San Martin by boat then hike up to see the San Martin falls up close.
The best bit (we think) is taking a tiny train 3km through a forest to the top of the main waterfall, Garganta del Diablo. The river is still and calm, seemingly running slowly and you can walk out along a 1.2km walkway. It was very peaceful but also incredibly hot and the insects, particularly butterflies and these small bees, landed on you all the time to lap up the sweat. The butterflies were welcome but I wasn’t so happy with the bees.
This was what was at the end of the walkway and to stand right at the edge of this mass of water pouring over the precipice was impressive. No photo will do the it justice and the roar of the water has to be heard to be believed.
Euan visited Iguazu Falls when he travelled around South America in the early 1990s but he hadn’t seen this and when we got out there he realised why. There had been a walkway but a flood destroyed it the year before he visited.
Argentina on the left, Brazil on the right.
Looking back at the falls.
Standing on the edge.
The wildlife around the falls is pretty special also. We saw a stunning large black and white lizard, a cayman lazing in the shallows and thousands and thousands of butterflies. This is a bunch of them all huddled up on the ground, doing quite what we have no idea.
If you went closer they flew up but not away and I found myself standing in a wee cloud of butterflies.
Getting to and from the falls is a bit of a faff and involved buses, borders then more buses but thankfully the Brazil immigration is fairly relaxed and only on the Argentine side do you have to be stamped in and stamped out (we’ve now got 10 Argentine stamps in our passports from going in and out from Brazil, Chile and Uruguay). We decided to stay on the Argentine side as late as possible to have dinner (food is much cheaper than in Brazil) and catch the last bus back. It seemed that everyone else had the same idea. The small bus that did the last crossing was absolutely packed to the point that no one could move. It’s a great chance to meet people although the jolly Turkish man was enjoying being squashed up a bit too much for my liking. To escape, I zoomed through the passport queue, jumped back on the bus and grabbed the last two seats right down the back. Stupid, stupid move. It wasn’t until an Australian girl asked where we were staying that I looked at Euan in horror and said “how on earth are we going to ask the driver to stop and how are we going to get off?”. I tried the window with the idea that, if we could get him to stop, we’d jump out the window but it was too small. Thankfully, we had some Israelis on board who needed to get stamped into Brazil so the bus stopped and we climbed, pushed and squeezed our way to the front. The bus was so loaded the driver was worried about the suspension and went no faster than 10km/hour the whole way.
The falls are the main draw card to the area but in between Brazil and Paraguay is the worlds largest hydroelectric plant, Itaipu, and we were not leaving without seeing it. It’s a local bus ride from Foz do Iguacu and they do tours around the dam – we opted for the ‘special’ tour that took us inside dam itself. It’s difficult to give scale but the dam is simply colossal.
This photo is courtesy of Itaipu and I included it to show an overall view of the structure.
From top to bottom it is 1km high and 1,350km long
and this is the view down stream - the spillway is a long way from the intakes.
Standing inside the structure looking 800m down the huge metal grid stairwell was a bit freaky.
This is one of three spillways
and the amount of water being released was minimal and there was only one of the three spillways open but you can see the force of the water
The dam is jointly owned and run by Brazil and Paraguay and everything is split 50:50, right down to the managerial structure, power output and, incredibly, even the control room floor space (seriously, there is a line running down the middle of the room!). The dam supplies 20% of Brazils power requirements (pretty impressive for a country of 190 million people) and 90% of Paraguays power. The power that Paraguay doesn’t need is sold back to Brazil.
These are some of the 20 intakes above the ~330,000 tonne turbines below and they don’t look very big at all
but when someone stands beside them you see they’re absolutely massive.
This is the access area for the turbines that are beneath the floor.
and we actually got to go down and see one of them in use. I really like this sort of stuff and could have stayed there for ages but the lady who was guiding us didn’t like the noise and I guess if you’re doing this day in day out you’d get a bit fed up. I thought it was pretty cool that they let us that close and the whole control panel was right there with lots of coloured buttons just begging to be pushed. Euan made sure I left.
At the end of our stay in Foz we were in a bit of a quandary as to where to go next. There is an estancia (ranch) in Tacuarembo, Uruguay, that we had really wanted to visit but the owners were on holiday when we were in Uruguay so we had to give it a miss. After hours of research (Tacuarembo has to be one of the more difficult places to get to in Uruguay unless you’re getting there from Montevideo) and discussion, we decided to get on an overnight bus and start the long trek back across into Argentina, down into the top of Uruguay and make our way to Tacuarembo. The fact that there was the annual gaucho festival on in Tacuarembo played a very small part in the decision and at the time we didn’t realise it was the largest gaucho festival in Latin America. We crossed the border back into Argentina (again) and set off on our way. Euans passport is nearly full and border officials are struggling to find space. Here’s hoping the US officials don’t mind too much! After all, it’s still a valid travel document….
The actual flight to Sao Paulo was only 2 ½ hours and the sights that greeted us as we came in to land surprised us. Blocks of high rise apartments and houses for miles and miles. Sao Paulo is one of the worlds largest cities with around 17 million people and covering an area of 1,500 sq kilometres.
We’d made the decision not to spend any time in SP so literally landed, headed straight to the bus station and jumped on the first bus to Foz do Iguaçu, 16 hours away. Foz is a city on the Brazilian side of the world-famous Iguazu Falls that border Argentina and Brazil, with Paraguay a little way down the river. Both from the air and road the Brazil countryside looked very colour-rich, with bright emerald greens and rich dark ochre-coloured earth. It was very different to what we’d seen of Argentina and Uruguay (both from air and road).
We spent two days visiting the falls, one day on the Brazilian side where you can get an overview of the falls and the second day on the Argentine side where you get a lot closer to the action. People say the Argentine side is more impressive but we beg to differ and think that they’re equally impressive (but the Brazil side is considerably cheaper and only has 25% of the falls area).
View Larger Map
There is no photo that we could take that would give an overview of how large the falls are but the water plunges 75m over a frontage that stretches for some 2.4km in a semi-circle terraced area (they are four times wider than Niagara apparently). The high lava terraces each have their own waterfalls and there are 100s of different waterfalls across entire area. The setting is beautiful and the surrounding greenery is made up of begonias, orchids, palms, trees and ferns.
Brazil is apparently experiencing the hottest summer in 11 years and boy did we feel it! I don’t know how hot it is but it wasn’t until we’d taken this photo that we realised how much we were sweating (a bit gross but it’s a bit novel to drip with sweat standing still with a low heart rate!).
The best thing about the Brazil side is that you walk your way along the river and you can see the most important waterfall in the distance. Then you only get glimpses of it until you’re right there, on a walkway that takes you right out to the edge.
I’m standing in the middle of the walkway and resorted to the usual arm wave rather than attempt a cartwheel or hanging from the handrail.
This is the view from the end of the walkway
and the view downriver.
From the walkway a lift(!) takes you up high where you get a different perspective (you can just see the walkway in the middle left of the photo). Again, this is only a very small part of the falls.
From higher up again, at the top of the falls, you’d have no idea what was just down river! Only a small amount of spray in the air gives it away.
Not far from the falls is a bird park that covers a huge area and has large aviaries that attempt to recreate a number of environmental areas in Brazil, such as the Pantanal. It was a great opportunity to see so many different birds in one place and after trying so hard to get decent photos of flamingos in the Galapagos, here was a whole flock within meters of us. They had a mirror in the pen that made us laugh. Flamingos normally flock in the thousands or even millions and only feel safe in large numbers. The mirrors were there to create the illusion of a large flock. I don’t think they’re particularly smart birds….
A huge aviary had many birds found in the Pantanal and as soon as we walked in this Toucan came bumbling over. They fly but appear rather clumsy and seem to hop better than fly. Their beaks are massive and I wasn’t getting too close (nor taking my eyes off him!) even though I was SO excited as I'd never seen one before. They're a lot smaller than I thought they were but are very beautiful.
Euan got this shot of a hummingbird and if you’ve ever seen them move you’ll know how difficult it is get a decent photo. These ones are tiny – if you put your forefinger and thumb together, that is about the size of the ‘flower’ that it is drinking out of. They were playing or fighting around us and they sounded like large insects whizzing past our ears. Some were no larger than the end of our thumbs.
This aviary had loads of macaws (among other parrots), all playing up and clowning around. One was hanging from the top of the aviary by is beak, another swinging like a monkey from one claw and others, as soon as we walked in, flew straight at us with the tips of their wings brushing past our heads. It was all too calculated; they knew exactly what they were doing and, we suspected, got quite a good reaction from some visitors. They’re big birds and you have to really tell yourself not to duck or shriek with fright!
This little guy liked my crocs but his sharp pointed beak was probing a bit too close to the soft part of my foot for comfort.
On the Argentine side of the falls, we had a lot of ground to cover (along with loads of other people). We made good use of the tripod I got from Mum & Mark for Christmas and the trees came in handy!
This was the result.
This is the shot of the falls we were at on the Brazilian side and the land immediately on the right hand side is an island and the falls arc their way around the back of that.
You can just see the walkway we were on the day before. There water flow varies hugely and we noticed that there was a lot more water going over than the day before thanks to a downpour that evening and overnight. The only known time that the falls have dried up was in 1977 after a drought.
This photo sort of shows the layout of the falls with the island in the middle (it took us AGES to get this photo as people kept walking in front of the camera that was perched high on a railing). The two main waterfalls are to the far right (San Martin) and far left (Garganta del Diablo) of the photo.
These boats took tourists right up and under the San Martin falls
and they would almost disappear from view under the water. It looked like a great ride but for US$35 for 12 minutes we gave it a miss.
You can get to Isla Grande San Martin by boat then hike up to see the San Martin falls up close.
The best bit (we think) is taking a tiny train 3km through a forest to the top of the main waterfall, Garganta del Diablo. The river is still and calm, seemingly running slowly and you can walk out along a 1.2km walkway. It was very peaceful but also incredibly hot and the insects, particularly butterflies and these small bees, landed on you all the time to lap up the sweat. The butterflies were welcome but I wasn’t so happy with the bees.
This was what was at the end of the walkway and to stand right at the edge of this mass of water pouring over the precipice was impressive. No photo will do the it justice and the roar of the water has to be heard to be believed.
Euan visited Iguazu Falls when he travelled around South America in the early 1990s but he hadn’t seen this and when we got out there he realised why. There had been a walkway but a flood destroyed it the year before he visited.
Argentina on the left, Brazil on the right.
Looking back at the falls.
Standing on the edge.
The wildlife around the falls is pretty special also. We saw a stunning large black and white lizard, a cayman lazing in the shallows and thousands and thousands of butterflies. This is a bunch of them all huddled up on the ground, doing quite what we have no idea.
If you went closer they flew up but not away and I found myself standing in a wee cloud of butterflies.
Getting to and from the falls is a bit of a faff and involved buses, borders then more buses but thankfully the Brazil immigration is fairly relaxed and only on the Argentine side do you have to be stamped in and stamped out (we’ve now got 10 Argentine stamps in our passports from going in and out from Brazil, Chile and Uruguay). We decided to stay on the Argentine side as late as possible to have dinner (food is much cheaper than in Brazil) and catch the last bus back. It seemed that everyone else had the same idea. The small bus that did the last crossing was absolutely packed to the point that no one could move. It’s a great chance to meet people although the jolly Turkish man was enjoying being squashed up a bit too much for my liking. To escape, I zoomed through the passport queue, jumped back on the bus and grabbed the last two seats right down the back. Stupid, stupid move. It wasn’t until an Australian girl asked where we were staying that I looked at Euan in horror and said “how on earth are we going to ask the driver to stop and how are we going to get off?”. I tried the window with the idea that, if we could get him to stop, we’d jump out the window but it was too small. Thankfully, we had some Israelis on board who needed to get stamped into Brazil so the bus stopped and we climbed, pushed and squeezed our way to the front. The bus was so loaded the driver was worried about the suspension and went no faster than 10km/hour the whole way.
The falls are the main draw card to the area but in between Brazil and Paraguay is the worlds largest hydroelectric plant, Itaipu, and we were not leaving without seeing it. It’s a local bus ride from Foz do Iguacu and they do tours around the dam – we opted for the ‘special’ tour that took us inside dam itself. It’s difficult to give scale but the dam is simply colossal.
This photo is courtesy of Itaipu and I included it to show an overall view of the structure.
From top to bottom it is 1km high and 1,350km long
and this is the view down stream - the spillway is a long way from the intakes.
Standing inside the structure looking 800m down the huge metal grid stairwell was a bit freaky.
This is one of three spillways
and the amount of water being released was minimal and there was only one of the three spillways open but you can see the force of the water
The dam is jointly owned and run by Brazil and Paraguay and everything is split 50:50, right down to the managerial structure, power output and, incredibly, even the control room floor space (seriously, there is a line running down the middle of the room!). The dam supplies 20% of Brazils power requirements (pretty impressive for a country of 190 million people) and 90% of Paraguays power. The power that Paraguay doesn’t need is sold back to Brazil.
These are some of the 20 intakes above the ~330,000 tonne turbines below and they don’t look very big at all
but when someone stands beside them you see they’re absolutely massive.
This is the access area for the turbines that are beneath the floor.
and we actually got to go down and see one of them in use. I really like this sort of stuff and could have stayed there for ages but the lady who was guiding us didn’t like the noise and I guess if you’re doing this day in day out you’d get a bit fed up. I thought it was pretty cool that they let us that close and the whole control panel was right there with lots of coloured buttons just begging to be pushed. Euan made sure I left.
At the end of our stay in Foz we were in a bit of a quandary as to where to go next. There is an estancia (ranch) in Tacuarembo, Uruguay, that we had really wanted to visit but the owners were on holiday when we were in Uruguay so we had to give it a miss. After hours of research (Tacuarembo has to be one of the more difficult places to get to in Uruguay unless you’re getting there from Montevideo) and discussion, we decided to get on an overnight bus and start the long trek back across into Argentina, down into the top of Uruguay and make our way to Tacuarembo. The fact that there was the annual gaucho festival on in Tacuarembo played a very small part in the decision and at the time we didn’t realise it was the largest gaucho festival in Latin America. We crossed the border back into Argentina (again) and set off on our way. Euans passport is nearly full and border officials are struggling to find space. Here’s hoping the US officials don’t mind too much! After all, it’s still a valid travel document….
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