She’s a Waterfall

Tuesday 9 February
Foz do Iguaçu

So today I went to the Brazilian side of the falls. I caught a public bus and once again had the usual bus confusion as to where to get off. At one point I got out at the airport thinking I had already gone too far, only to double check with the bus guard in my fluent mime that the falls were still to come.

The weather was much cooler today, hardly sweat-inducing at all, and all the more pleasant for it. But it was sunny again so the rainbows were back in force. The Brazilian side involves a walk through a forest, all the while getting closer to the falls themselves, providing a wide variety of perspectives as you progress.

You realise also that there are a lot of the falls that you can’t see from the Argentinean side and there are plenty of great photo opportunities. And then when you get to the end you have the final coup de grace – a platform that extends out into the middle of one part of the falls. Here you can see the Devil’s Throat from the front, and also get slowly soaked with spray coming off the crashing water.

Back at the hostel I caught some rays by the pool and got talking to some Swiss people as well as a bunch of Australians that were working their way fastidiously through some beers. I connected with the Europeans and thankfully they were up for eating out, which is rare as most people are on a tight budget and tend to eat in. We found somewhere and despite not being able to translate the menu we had a surprisingly good and large meal at one of the restaurants nearby and made some funny jokes about Nazis.

Speaking of which, the German influence is evident even in this corner of South America – the road the restaurant was on was called Jorge Schimmelpfeng and there was a Biergarten a few blocks down. Afterwards we had a few more beers and a bit of guitar playing back at the hostel.