Brett and Emily in South America: Iguazu Falls: LOTS O´ WATER

Visiting Iguazu Falls was truly amazing. Possibly my favorite thing so far, especially since you all know how I love fresh water in large quantities. This was a lot of water. I was very impressed that it was surrounded by a nice national park, which probably helps the water quality, although I´m not so sure about the land management further upstream... ok, I´ll stop being a dork... Anyhow, we went to the Brazilian side first, which was cool because it had better vistas of the entire falls. It also had a walkway that went over part of the falls and the mist from the falls gets visitors on the walkway very wet. We were very impressed with the falls, but it didn´t quite compare to the Argentinian side.

Overlook from the Brazilian side

Overlook from the Brazilian side, with a view of the bridge over the falls

Pretty nice Panoramic from the Brazilian side

Last pic from the Brazilian side

In Argentina, the park was bigger with lots of walking trails through the jungle (on both sides there were tons of butterflies everywhere) and a train that you could take to different parts of the park. There were lots of walkways that went over or next to the falls, so we had some great close-up views. It was pretty crazy looking down from a walkway to see huge amounts of water crashing down into an abyss below us, or looking up at falls coming out of the jungle and spraying us on their way down.

A view from one of the walkways over looking a huge semi-circular fall

View from the Argentinian Side

Yeah, Brett is pretty good at taking pics

The best part was the boat ride we took. For those of you who have been to Niagra Falls, this boat ride made the ´Maid of the Mist´ look like a stroll through some kids sprinklers. It was a motor boat with about 30 people on it and it took us around to get some good photos of the falls, then everyone put their cameras into waterproof bags (they provided) and the boat went under the falls. We were soaked by water crashing down on us, but it felt great on a hot day.

View of the Argentinian Falls from the Speed Boat

The Speed Boat we took

I am sure that I will be asked how Iguazu compared to Niagra. The answer is that Iguazu is much better. It is surrounded by jungles, more spread out, has more water, and there are multiple levels of falls.

-Emily

Other random things that were cool from Iguazu that I took pics of include...

1) This butterfly which decided to land on my hat for 30 minutes. I walked, got on a train ride, walked some more, entered a building, purchased lunch, went back outside to sit, removed my hat from my head several times and finally after a half an hour it flew away. Evidently, butterflies like sweaty hats.