Iguacu means "mighty waters" in the language of the Guarani people who inhabited this area before European settlers arrived in the mid 16th century. When Spanish explorer Nuņez Cabeza de Vaca discovered the falls in 1542, he wanted to call them Santa Maria. The falls are indeed "mighty" though, and locals didn't care a heck of a lot about Santa Maria, Santa Claus, or any other Santas the Spanish might have wanted to inflict on them. The Guarani people regarded Iguazu as a holy place. It is an appropriate attitude.

The falls aren't just one waterfall --- it is a series of 275 separate falls (that I call "chutes") spread across a jagged cleft in the Iguazu River. The river is 3km wide at this point, and the falls drop 80 meters. If you're into the math, that does indeed make them "higher than Niagara and wider than Victoria", as the travel guides say. But the complex geography of the site really makes this the most spectacular waterfalls anywhere in the world. If you're a religious man, you could stand for hours on the platforms, marvelling at the artistry of God's handiwork, and wondering about the sheer, raw, natural power that the place embodies. It is a humbling site.

Anyway, the falls are big. And the twin national parks that surround them are too. You can do both parks in one day without breaking much of a sweat, just get an early start since the parks both close around dusk so you want to be sure to enter either side not much later than about 2pm to give yourself enough time to walk the trails, shoot your snapshots, and do what you're there to do.


The Brazilian National Park...
Conventional travel guides often tell you the Argentinian side of the falls is better. It is, and yet it is not. They are both outrageously excellent parks, and both are absolutely essential places to visit for anybody who has already invested the time and money to get to the area. Both are great, but for very different reasons and very different perspectives.

The Brazilian side has the advantage of the best overall views of the falls and the absolute closest viewpoints to the stunning Garganta del Diablo (the crown jewel of the falls). You do NOT want to miss this viewpoint. The Porto Canoa trailhead on the Argentine side does give you a view of this spectacle, but it's a mere glimpse compared to the intense power of the vantage point on the Brazilian side.

The Brazilian park is also bigger --- spanning over 250,000 hectares, making it 5 times the size of its Argentine sibling. (Although most of that area is remote rainforest where few people venture).

Private cars are generally banned from the park itself and must stop in the parking lots at the main entrance, where visitors pony up bucks and then board double-decker tour buses that will take them into the park to the riverside trail.

Walk the trail along the falls, by all means, just don't feed those cute little coatis (the park is blanketed with hilarious "do not feed the animals" signs that show a coati standing on his hind feet as a human hand (sporting cuff links on the jacket, no less) holds out a plate with a steaming hot cheeseburger on it). Most people seem to interpret the signs as saying "no serving delicious hot burgers to coatis while wearing dinner jackets --- but handouts of potato chips and Hershey Nuggets are okay". It's easy to spot the people who interpret thusly, they invariably are surrounded by no fewer than 83 coatis at any given time (most complaining about the lousy service and lack of steaming hot cheeseburgers).

By the way, I wouldn't go wandering off alone too far in this park. One of the ranger dudes told me that the park is home to a lot of critters you really don't want to bump into. Aside from the cute little coaties and all those not-so-cute snakes and slithery things, the park is home to jaguars, pumas, and ocelots. Not just a handful of 'em either, but enough to contemplate seriously. The ranger dude claimed that naturalists currently have tracking tags on 56 jaguars living inside the park boundaries. I stayed very close to the hotel that night...


The Argentinian National Park...
What the Argentina side lacks in sheer land mass of the park itself (still an impressively massive 49,200 hectares), it makes up for in its excellent network of trails that get you up close and intimate with the falls, that skirt the river bend, and that bring you out across a series of dramatic bridges onto a promontory at the precipice of the Garganta del Diablo.

The Passeo Superior trail is an incredible experience --- it has a series of narrow passages that actually go in behind some of the chutes. Talk about getting so close you can touch the falls! This is the way...

My favorite part of the Argentine park was getting a chance to get up close to the biggest straight drops on the falls. The Brazil side has a couple closeup vantage points, but most are near the Garganta del Diablo, which drops twice on that side, so neither drop has quite the dramatic effect of a single big straight drop. Iguazu is considerably higher and larger than Niagra Falls, and to really experience the majesty of that height, you need to stand close to the base of the falls on the Argentine side. The Passeo Inferior is the lower trail, which goes down to the base of the big drops. My only complaint about doing this is that all that mist makes it mighty hard to get a clear snapshot --- mine mostly turned out looking like a water covered lens (though that's hardly what my eye was seeing at the time!).

There is a big boat landing at the base on the Argentine side with large inflatable boats that will take you up close to the big chutes, and across to a spit of land that's sort of an island amid chaos. The boat ride is not quite as dramatic as the Macuco ride, but it is cheap and it is fun, so there is no reason not to do it. Even if you do experience the boat ride on the Argentine side, I would still recommend also doing the boat rides at Macuco Safari --- they're a blast!


Getting Wet...
I know you want to see the falls so up close that you don't even have to worry about trying to touch 'em (they'll touch you!) Macuco Safari is what you want. It will cost R100 (US$33) per person. Trust me, it's worth twice that.

Start off on a Jeep-pulled train on a tour of part of the jungle (actually, its a sub-tropical rainforest, but whose really keeping track?) The train stops here and there for some narrated spiels ("...and this tree was 54 years old before being attacked by killer anteaters...zzzz"), then finally reaches a drop-off point where you walk trails back into the jungle, heading down towards a small waterfall (well, in comparison to Iguazu it's small --- the "little" falls was actually bigger than falls I've seen back home that had whole state parks built up around them).

All that fuzzy tree-hugging nature stuff is fine and dandy, but the real reason everybody does Macuco is the boat ride!

If you don't have a wet suit on, you might want to spring for the $1 plastic "raincoat", which looks suspiciously like a 4-foot high yellow condom, but hey, it will keep you drier than nothing. And nothing can guarantee you that you won't be completely, utterly, totally, mercilessly, and in all other ways soaked, drenched, and sopping wet by the time the boat comes back to the dock.

Know it. Expect it. Live it.

Strap on a life vest (you do need it, trust me), then climb into one of the Zodiac-style inflatable boats, with the twin 225-hp engines on the back (450 horses on a lightweight inflatable? Yep!)

Those engines power you up 6km worth of rolling whitewater, headed into the base of the falls. You'll get a few chances for some awesome snapshots, but better get that camera tucked into sealed plastic el pronto, cuz the boat is going through one of those chutes.

Nothing prepares you for the feel of total immersion as gallons upon gallons of very cold river water is suddenly thrown onto your head. Thankfully though, the boat driver just passes through the chute quickly, getting us mercifully out into the warm sunshine...

Uh-oh!....he's turning around for another pass...


Also Nearby...
As amazing as the falls are, you really can experience them completely in one full day. If you have another day or two free, here's a few things near Iguazu Falls that might help you fill a couple more days. Note that the borders are fairly open for tourists to move easily between the three countries for short 1-day visits (our taxi driver just said "tour" to the customs agent going into Argentina and that was pretty much the extent of immigration formalities...)

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Bird Park: The Parque de Aves, located near the entrance to the Brazilian National Park, boast some 900 birds in their aviaries.

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Itaipu Dam: Currently recognized as the world's largest, most advanced hydroelectric dam. The Chinese are now building an even bigger dam, called Three Gorges, but it won't be done until 2008. Until then, this is the big one.

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City tours of Foz do Iguacu, Brazil or Ciudad del Este, Paraguay: Neither city is particularly attractive nor do they offer much of particular interest. Foz do Iguacu has a boatload of inexpensive hotels and restaurants and is a good place to look for rooms if you're on a budget. Ciudad del Este seems to be regarded as the "shopping" mecca of the area, particularly if you're looking for name brand products of dubious authenticity.

If you want to go a bit further afield, there are two places that looked very interesting to me, but unfortunately, with just 3 days to spend in the Iguazu area, I didn't get a chance to go too far afield. Next time I go back, I'll budget a couple extra days so I can see...

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Bertoni Museum: Located on the Paraguay side of the Parana River, this is rumored to be a fascinating museum chronicling the natural science of the area as explored by Swiss naturalist Moises Bertoni between 1890 and 1929. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to visit...

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Missions: Back in the 17th century, Spanish/Argentine missionaries built a series of missions in northern Argentina (and a couple in Brazil too --- at least until the Portugese/Brazilians gave the missionaries the heave-ho and destroyed their missions). Missions still stand not too far from Iguazu. If I had more time, I'd have liked to have seen them. Wonder how they compare to the Spanish missions built in Mexico, Texas, and California...maybe next time I'll find out...

By the way, any taxi driver, Argentinian or Brazilian, will happily take you to any of these places: they have no problems crossing the bridges how ever many times you wish. We hired a taxi for a whole day for around US$10 per hour (not bad if you're splitting it between 2 or 3 people). He took us from the Brazil side into Argentina, waited while we walked the trails, pointed us to an excellent restaurant for lunch in Puerto Iguazu (that we'd have never found on our own), drove us up to Itaipu, and over into Ciudad del Este (complaining about lazy Paraguayans the whole time), and then back to the hotel. We could probably have done it all cheaper with a tour bus from the hotel, but it was fun to have a private driver who was personable, reliable, worked on our schedule, and who spoke excellent spanish and passable english. I recommend this dude, if you don't bump into a taxi driver you hit it off with. Our driver: Arnaldo Welter, cell phone 9114-9227, email: meurywelter@hotmail.com


Bottom Line...
Iguazu is one of the most stunning places in the world. It should be on everybody's list of "10 places I must see before I die."


Getting to Iguazu...
Iguazu is not on your way anywhere else and its not close to anything else. You're going to have to make an effort to get there.

The easiest trip is by bus or plane from Buenos Aires --- it's about 4-5 hours by bus, or a short 30-45 minute hop by plane.

From Asuncion, it's about 5 hours by bus to Ciudad del Este.

From Sao Paulo, it's about 16 hours by bus or one hour by plane.

From Rio de Janeiro, it's about 22-23 hours by bus or an hour and a half by plane (most connecting via Sao Paulo). The fare is $50 one way by first-class bus or $200 one way by plane (VASP).

If you fly, Iguazu is served by Aerolineas Argentinas via Buenos Aires or by Varig, TAM, and VASP via Sao Paulo. The airport code is IGU for the Brazil side and IGR for the Argentina side.


Where to Stay...
There are LOTS of hotels in the area. The biggest concentration of reasonably priced good quality properties is in the city of Foz do Iguacu Brazil. That's where you'll find places like the high-end Hotel Internacional Foz where rates tend to be around US$70, but you can get promocao rates as low as R140 (US$45) (on the web at www.internacionalfoz.com.br).

The Bourbon Hotel is a very highly regarded high-end golf resort, located outside the city on the road towards the falls. Rooms tend to cost closer to the US$90-100 mark there

There are many lower-end properties in the city where you can easily snag rates of US$25-35 per night. I have no specific recommendations in that market, but have seen good rates offered at the Falls Galli.

Of course, if you really want the total falls experience, you want to stay at either the Sheraton International on the Argentina side, or the Hotel Tropical das Cataratas on the Brazil side. Both will cost more than any other hotel in the area, but you're paying for location. These hotels are inside the national parks within a hundred yards of the falls themselves.


A Photo is Worth an Inflatable Boatload of Words...
You've read the review, now see the photos. I've put a few of my snapshots of Iguacu online at:
http://www.tiogringo.com/iguazu.html


Related Reviews...
Here's a couple more reviews that you'll want to read if you're headed to Iguassu...


* Itaipu Dam
* Hotel Tropical das Cataratas






Recommended: Yes

Best Suited For: Families
Best Time to Travel Here: Anytime