The largest system of waterfalls in the wold - The Iguazu Falls (Brazil)

When my sister and I were in Argentina in January this year, we consentrated on visiting places in the north east corner of the country. That meant Iguazu Falls was on our list. This amazing system of waterfalls is the largest in the world and probably one of the top attractions on a visit to Argentina or Brazil. The falls are shared by the two countries and the national parks are located on both sides of the river that also functions as border between Argentina and Brazil. The largest part of the falls are located on the Argentine side of the river ( aprox.80%). The Brazilian side has only a short trail, but it offers panoramic views of the Argentine side, so a trip to Brazil was also on our list. The name Iguazu derives from the language of the indegenous people and means "Great water". An apropriate name for the largest waterfall system on our planet. Iguazu Falls is also on the UNESCO's World Heritage List. It was added to this list in 1984.

My sister and I are ready to start
Foto: an unknown bypasser

We stayed in Puerto Iguazu (Argentina) and did a half day tour to the the national park on the Brazilian side. We had booked a guided tour, simply to make it easier to cross the border and get to the entrance without needing to worry about how to get there. When crossing the border, we didn't even need to get out of the minibus for passport control. The guide collected all the passports and took care of everything. Then we drove to the entrance and had to wait for the busses that took us to the starting point of the trail. There were a lot of people here, which meant that there was some queuing, but fortunatly we did find places with shadow and aircon (the souvenir shop).

Along the trail

Then we start walking along the canyon and high above the Iguazu River. The views are indeed panoramic when looking over at the Argentine side. Lot's of viewpoints where we all take time to make stops. There are lots of people which made it impossible to take photos of the trail without getting somebody else on the photos! Bbut I quess that is to be expected at a world famous place like here.

We are now approaching the last vantage point towards Devil's Throat, the highst fall of all (82 m.) Metal walkways are built out on the river. This enables us to be able to get up close to the cascades and the sprays of water from this mighty waterfall. We both hear, see and feel (wet) the enormous power of the waterfall. What a sight it was to look towards the Devil's Throat and listen to the roar of the waterfall. We were very impressed and not at all ready to leave when we had to! One of the downdraws of being on a guided tour.

Some facts and numbers

How did these enormous waterfalls come to be? It is the volcanic activity millions of years ago, that has created the landscape and the falls. All the cascades that makes up the whole system are situated on a basaltic line crossing the border between the two countries. The Iguazu River runs towards the Paraña River. The confluence of these two rivers also serve as border between Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. Paraña River is the river that flows into the Atlantic between Argentina and Uruguay.

The total length of the Iguazu Falls is 2,7 kilometers with drops that vary from 60 – 82 meters in hight. I have read that there are 275 drops, but I have also read that it's believed some of them are not seperate drops, but a continuation of drops, so I guess it's exact number isn't agreed upon. The highest drop that reaches 82 meters is named Garganta del Diablo, or Devil's Throat. My sister came up with another piece of information that she had read, which is that the falls were discovered fifty years after Christopher Columbus discovered America (1492).

The tour ends and we have to take the bus back to the visitor center. To get to the bus stop, we could either choose to take the stairs or take a lift. We chose the stairs and thus had the opportunity to stop along the way and look down at the waterfalls one last time.

The park has lush, green subtropical vegetation and wildlife like tapir, giant anteater, jaguars, ocelots, monkeys and birds. We didn't see any of the mentioned animals. I am sure they stayed far away from the tourist areas. Neither did I take the time to study the vegetation, but if we had organized the tour ourselves, we could have stayed longer. The day after we spent the whole day in the national park on the Argentine side. We did not do a guided tour, so we had time to look for animals (we did see some) and to take time for a closer look at the vegetation. The park on the Argentine side has many more trails, which meant we could easy spent the whole day there. I will come back with the photos from the oposite side when I have finished sorting them out.

Sources: Information at the park and https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/303/

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