From the Pits: Travel Report 2: Iguazu Falls

Last month, I snuck away for an 11-day trip to South America…this is part 2 of my report (catch up on part 1: Rio de Janeiro).

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The theme of Iguazu was WATER. From all directions. To explain…

First, the before shot, as we donned our thin rain ponchos ($1 each!).

Iguazu Falls is a series of waterfalls (anywhere from 150-300, depending on the year) in the Iguazu river, which runs along the

border of Brazil and Argentina. Consequently, you can view the falls from both sides, and we did.

Iguazu literally means “big water” in Guarani (one of the most widely spoken indigenous languages of South America, and one of the official languages of Paraguay), and they’re not kidding. This is a year with plenty of water flowing in the river, so the estimated number of cataracts (waterfalls) was about 285. More or less, because really, there was so much water it was coming out everywhere.

Lots of water. Something like 464,000 gallons per second flowing over the falls. WATER.

With all of that flow, it won’t surprise anyone that it rained for at least half of the two days we were there. Including in the middle of the night. When we had the sliding-glass door of our hotel room open. I woke up at 2:30 a.m., listened to the storm a while, and decided on a trip to the bathroom. I got up and stepped in a puddle. Half our room was flooded…. WATER. (It mopped up just fine.)

We wore wet shoes for two and a half days because if we weren’t being rained on, we were soaked from the spray of the falls—particularly from the spray of Devil’s Throat (a 269 foot drop; seen from the top in the second photo to the right).

On the second day, the sun came out and we dried off. We saw monkeys and a toucan, as well as dozens of coati, a greedy member of the raccoon family (above). Then Chet and I decided to go for one last close-up of a set of falls. We got wetter than we’d ever been, and it was hilarious. The after shots: