Foz Do Iguaçu, Puerto Iguazú y Ciudad Del Este

Would you just look at that!

– Reid, upon first sighting of waterfall

Arriving in Foz do Iguacu was a breath of fresh air. The intense Sao Paulo atmosphere was exchanged for much more laid back feeling. We stayed a day at the Tetris Container Hostel, which is a super cool eco hostel made from shipping containers and has lots of events going on.

We had lost so much time on the bus that I was extremely ready to be headed to the main goal: Parque Nacional Iguacu. We dropped our bags and left the hostel immediately. The taxi driver offered the sage advice that we eat prior to park entry, to save money. So we blasted into a buffet and dieseled some food (we hadn’t eaten for nearly a full day on the bus). In a delirious state I took a salad that was getting rained on from water exiting a ceiling tile. On top of that, Andrew and I marched high and proud while slowly and with increasing volume chanting, “Carne mas! Carne mas! Carne mas!” en route to the counter to be dished unlimited meats. Either my body is a bug warrior, or I’m still getting ready to be sick. Fully fuelled, we were ready to explore the park.

As most (all) of the readers of this are from the Canadian Prairies, I will try to describe a waterfall. If you are from Saskatoon, consider the weir:

Iguacu Falls is essentially that. Water moves from a higher position, to a lower one. This occurs often very rapidly and very violently. Unfortunately for our readers in Regina and elsewhere, there is simply no way we can meet minds and explain this concept (Signature Landscaping clients excluded).

Brasil Side

In Brasil, you get vistas of the main falls, seeing panoramic views from afar. It all culminates with a platform that enters a stepped waterfall, allowing you to get nice and moist from the spray.

Speaking of moist, we hopped onto a boat after wrapping up the hike. Boat captain Stormy Van Gerhard IV drove us recklessly through the current, hitting massive rocks and ramping the whitest of waters. He kept screaming “I have a death wish!”, as the fifty year old ladies aboard screamed, “Wooooo!”. Although we don’t know what “I have a death wish” is in Portuguese, we are certain this is what he was saying especially following his decision to drive directly under a wall of falling water that felt like being slapped by 1,000lbs liquid sledge hammers. All in all the Brazil falls were a hoot!

To cap off our Brazil side experience, we saw a jaguar and a puma! Together! Totally unobstructed! We sure are two lucky skunks. Wow oh Wow.

Argentina Side

“Wow, not bad!”, is one entirely adequate way to describe Iguazu Falls. Another might be, “okay, nice!” The Argentine side had less of the beautiful vistas, and more raw power. Instead you got up close and personal views from atop some of the largest falls. We discussed at length where one should decide to jump into the falls, if being forced to do so. Finding a good spot to jump in proved very difficult. We concluded that the falls would really thrash you anywhere.

Approaching the main falls from the Argentine side is wild. You cross endless floodplains on elevated bridges. After walking a while you see something that looks like a sinkhole, and the water simply disappears. As you approach closer, its one of the most beautiful and terrifying views.

Magnificence might be a fair description for the Cataratas (waterfalls), however it still does not factor in the main concern of ours throughout the trip to this point. The of love of birds is extremely fundamental to our identities, and when we say birds we mean crows. Toucan’s are great and all but they should be completely eradicated from the earths atmosphere (along with every other bird) in favour of the great and mighty crow. This is no minor blemish on what what could be a great trip.

To Paraguay

As terrific as the falls have been it was time for us to move into the next step of our journey, Ciudad del Este, Paraguay! Suddenly we awoke, feeling well rested and very close to literally bullet proof. We left our roach infested but beautiful accommodations (we had left Tetris for a cabin in Puerto Iguazu the previous day) on the outskirts of the city to hit the dusty red trail in search of a taxi. Someone quickly pealed over to the side of the road like a scene from the Fast and the Furious 7. Some might believe it to have been due to the 30kg bags on our backs, but we believed it to be an act of fate. We jumped aboard and requested that he chauffeur us to our Paraguayan hostel. We had had such a difficult time booking accommodation for our Iguacu Falls excursion that we decided to plan well ahead and book hostels in Cuidad Del Este (CDE), Asuncion as well as a flight from Asuncion to El Calafate in Patagonia. We were geniuses. The taxi drive started well enough, we blasted out of Argentina and were well on our way across the Parana river to Paraguay when boom, bumper to bumper traffic.

Turns out, CDE has the choicest wares of the three towns in the Tres Fronteras area, and most Brazilians and Argentines like to head over for Black Friday. No matter, we will arrive when we arrive. Our taxi driver was vying for the tip to end all tips because he was incredible. He rode the median, he passed semi’s by mere sixteenths of inches and would change lanes through seemingly impossible margins.

Our jaws were slack the whole time. Finally we arrived at the border:

“No visa, no entry”

Our genius deflated and was immediately replaced with the feeling one gets when they realize they are a complete and utter tool/goon. We had planned ahead into a country that we couldn’t even enter, and our flights leave from an airport we would never see. But we would have to think about that later, for now we had to tell our driver he would need to u-turn through 15 lanes and take us back to Brazil. He let out a sigh, but did what he did best and drove like a total boss, one hand on the wheel, the other with a thumbs up to the other drivers he savagely sliced in front of.

We will save you the details of our ciphering, but just know that there was a tonne of it. The net result of it was is that we leave to Buenos Aires and will fly to El Calafate. There has been a financial penalty for this mistake, and we have learned a lesson. But thats all behind us now and we can get back to what is really important to us, finding crows on this crow-forsaken chunk of earth.

Conclusions

Iguazu Falls is undoubtably as cool as Saskatoons weir. We thoroughly enjoyed our time, and perhaps could have even used a bit more. Not super crazy about Paraguay however and would really encourage Justin Trudeau to fix Canadian-Paraguayan relations.

Iguazu Falls: 10/10 stars

Paraguay: Big dump out of ten stars

Reid and Andrew, currently on a plane, on a toilet, 1,000,000 feet in the sky.

PS. We have left Brazil wifeless for Reid. It is a tough pill to swallow. However he might have met his nun wife in the Argentine airport, fingers crossed!