You CAN drink the water and you are going to...Welcome to Disnature or Natureland; that’s what the sign welcoming you to Iguazu Falls should read. The falls are, ironically, one of the 7 new wonders of the world, or a finalist, it’s all quite confusing, either way they are in the discussion as one of the most amazing and beautiful natural sites in the world. And with my limited experience (Yucaipa Regional Park serving as my litmus test for natural beauty; www.yucaiparegionalparkistheshit.com, seriously, it does have a website) I would have to agree.
So far since landing at 9am in Buenos Aires, Beth and I have had the privilege of getting up just once before the unholy hour of 9am (one benefit of being unemployed, not to mention it’s cheaper to sleep in), Monday was the second time. As a result we prepared everything the night before, from making cheese sandwiches (yes, that’s right, I went veggie for a meal) to freezing about 15,000 bottles of water, we even had the bright idea of waterproofing our belongings for the day (in true cheap fashion, with ziplock baggies) as we heard that we could fjord the river (after buying flour and bullets at the store and killing three buffalo) to get to Brazil, illegally, and catch a glimpse of the Brazilian side of the falls; supposedly they are beautiful but nowhere near as grandiose. Unfortunately this turned out to be impossible, as a portion of Disney-Nature was closed for repairs (aka flooding in Brazil caused excessive water flow), but waterproofing still proved rather fortuitous for us, nonetheless.
WARNING: Extreme superlatives to follow. Apologies in advance, however, they are necessary to convey the experience. If allergic, please skip over all “awesomes, amazings and unbelievables.”
In spite of a clearly commercial skew to the park, Igauzu falls was unbelievably, awesomely amazing. Seriously it was, so far, our most amazing day. Our first day (yes, we were forced to come back a second day and not because of the half-off tourist deal—alright, maybe partly because of that) we managed to walk almost the entire park, seeing the famous Garganta del Diablo, the Salto San Martin and the series-of-falls-with-people’s-names-that-are-gorgeous-but-too-numerous-to-mention-here. Every stop, every fall, every vista left us in wonderment. I’m pretty sure that we took at least 200 photos, each one well worth the scarce memory card space. As I’m sure that I cannot express the beauty of these falls in words, I’ll let you look at the upcoming photos, which will also be inadequate, but the best we can do. My suggestion, come and visit and be sure to tell them I sent you (I get 1.5% commission on all referrals), or you could come visit in the next week and we’ll go with you…
My personal favorite part was about ¾ through the day when the clouds started rolling in and instead of struggling with the heat, as with the rest of the day, a crazy sub-tropical torrential rain came down upon us. The wind was blowing at 100 knots (no idea how fast that is), gusting through palm trees like a tropical storm and within what seemed like seconds we were soaked. It was the most relief I’ve had since finding out Beth’s aunt had air conditioning. We spent the next 45 minutes alternating between seeing the few remaining waterfalls, seeking shelter and letting the rain soak the sweat off of us. It was the perfect ending to the best day we’ve yet to have in South America.
A few notes:
- The only area we missed on our first day was the Macuco nature trail, which was the only dirt path we encountered the entire experience, and came with a brochure (in English) laying out escape plans if attacked by poisonous snakes, pumas or jaguars (no joke). This served its real purpose wonderfully, scaring the shit out of Beth, who only braved the trail thinking she would be able to snap a photo of a Toucan (which was about as prolific as the snakes, pumas and jaguars).
- The Cataratas (falls in Spanish) like many natural beauties, contain a great deal of native local lore. The Guarani Indians falls origin story revolves around an Indian warrior who incurs the wrath of the forest god by escaping with a girl whom the god lusted after. To prevent this from happening, and punish the warrior, the “forest god collapsed the river bed in front of the lovers, producing a line of precipitous falls,” which the woman fell over and turned into a rock, while the warrior morphed into a tree, left at the top of the falls to lament over his fallen lover. (I really should be quoting more of that, or at least citing my source, which is lonely planet’s 2008 Argentinian guidebook, page 221) In reality, the falls are a result of a lava flow that abruptly stopped, in what would later become a riverbed; Not nearly as exciting as a tree and a rock, if you ask me.
- Lastly, the reason the river was flooded was because there is a dam up river by the name of Itaipu, which is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world (2nd in electrical output to the Three Gorges Dam) and is controlled jointly by Paraguay and Brazil. If too much rain water comes down, they open the flood gates, thus affecting the area surrounding the falls and making it impossible for Beth and Me to once again illegally venture across national borders. The dam is fascinating, a great deal of social cost as well as issues regarding negotiations between Paraguay and Brazil for who gets what power (a power struggle?) and for what price lends itself to an interesting story. Google it.
Sweat Meter: Mild, with the chance of showers, and air conditioning.
So far since landing at 9am in Buenos Aires, Beth and I have had the privilege of getting up just once before the unholy hour of 9am (one benefit of being unemployed, not to mention it’s cheaper to sleep in), Monday was the second time. As a result we prepared everything the night before, from making cheese sandwiches (yes, that’s right, I went veggie for a meal) to freezing about 15,000 bottles of water, we even had the bright idea of waterproofing our belongings for the day (in true cheap fashion, with ziplock baggies) as we heard that we could fjord the river (after buying flour and bullets at the store and killing three buffalo) to get to Brazil, illegally, and catch a glimpse of the Brazilian side of the falls; supposedly they are beautiful but nowhere near as grandiose. Unfortunately this turned out to be impossible, as a portion of Disney-Nature was closed for repairs (aka flooding in Brazil caused excessive water flow), but waterproofing still proved rather fortuitous for us, nonetheless.
WARNING: Extreme superlatives to follow. Apologies in advance, however, they are necessary to convey the experience. If allergic, please skip over all “awesomes, amazings and unbelievables.”
In spite of a clearly commercial skew to the park, Igauzu falls was unbelievably, awesomely amazing. Seriously it was, so far, our most amazing day. Our first day (yes, we were forced to come back a second day and not because of the half-off tourist deal—alright, maybe partly because of that) we managed to walk almost the entire park, seeing the famous Garganta del Diablo, the Salto San Martin and the series-of-falls-with-people’s-names-that-are-gorgeous-but-too-numerous-to-mention-here. Every stop, every fall, every vista left us in wonderment. I’m pretty sure that we took at least 200 photos, each one well worth the scarce memory card space. As I’m sure that I cannot express the beauty of these falls in words, I’ll let you look at the upcoming photos, which will also be inadequate, but the best we can do. My suggestion, come and visit and be sure to tell them I sent you (I get 1.5% commission on all referrals), or you could come visit in the next week and we’ll go with you…
My personal favorite part was about ¾ through the day when the clouds started rolling in and instead of struggling with the heat, as with the rest of the day, a crazy sub-tropical torrential rain came down upon us. The wind was blowing at 100 knots (no idea how fast that is), gusting through palm trees like a tropical storm and within what seemed like seconds we were soaked. It was the most relief I’ve had since finding out Beth’s aunt had air conditioning. We spent the next 45 minutes alternating between seeing the few remaining waterfalls, seeking shelter and letting the rain soak the sweat off of us. It was the perfect ending to the best day we’ve yet to have in South America.
A few notes:
- The only area we missed on our first day was the Macuco nature trail, which was the only dirt path we encountered the entire experience, and came with a brochure (in English) laying out escape plans if attacked by poisonous snakes, pumas or jaguars (no joke). This served its real purpose wonderfully, scaring the shit out of Beth, who only braved the trail thinking she would be able to snap a photo of a Toucan (which was about as prolific as the snakes, pumas and jaguars).
- The Cataratas (falls in Spanish) like many natural beauties, contain a great deal of native local lore. The Guarani Indians falls origin story revolves around an Indian warrior who incurs the wrath of the forest god by escaping with a girl whom the god lusted after. To prevent this from happening, and punish the warrior, the “forest god collapsed the river bed in front of the lovers, producing a line of precipitous falls,” which the woman fell over and turned into a rock, while the warrior morphed into a tree, left at the top of the falls to lament over his fallen lover. (I really should be quoting more of that, or at least citing my source, which is lonely planet’s 2008 Argentinian guidebook, page 221) In reality, the falls are a result of a lava flow that abruptly stopped, in what would later become a riverbed; Not nearly as exciting as a tree and a rock, if you ask me.
- Lastly, the reason the river was flooded was because there is a dam up river by the name of Itaipu, which is the largest hydroelectric dam in the world (2nd in electrical output to the Three Gorges Dam) and is controlled jointly by Paraguay and Brazil. If too much rain water comes down, they open the flood gates, thus affecting the area surrounding the falls and making it impossible for Beth and Me to once again illegally venture across national borders. The dam is fascinating, a great deal of social cost as well as issues regarding negotiations between Paraguay and Brazil for who gets what power (a power struggle?) and for what price lends itself to an interesting story. Google it.
Sweat Meter: Mild, with the chance of showers, and air conditioning.
Dos Hermanas
Salto con arbol -- right side of the many-named-falls.
Panorama of devil's asophagus (left) and the many-named-falls (right).
Technical term: The Devil's Asophagus
Nature's airconditioning.Garganta del Diablo or Devil's Throat
Wow - amazing, someday I will have to see it in person. Why isn't this post up on the other blog? Maybe you didn't have time yet. I miss you!
ReplyDeletePower is not the most reliable thing here, so we take it when we can get it. It should be on the other one now :-)
ReplyDeleteBeautiful, some of your panoramic shots are just as good if not better than what I saw online when you told me about the falls.
ReplyDeleteIt pretty interesing that if Brazil was to open the floodgates they could basically put Buenos Aires under water. Thats pretty scary no matter how many treaties are signed.
Wait, there's multiple blogs?
ReplyDeletelove the panoramic of devil's asophagus - looks absolutely amazing.
ReplyDeleteZach, one is the censored blog for the families....doesn't have delightful posts like the meaty meat one :)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.co.san-bernardino.ca.us/PARKS/yucaipa.htm
ReplyDeleteIt s true, we are cheating on this blog, but it's basically the same. If we weren't two timing, we'd never be able to enjoy the child-like humor of the likes if arlen and Gordon--god I made good roommate choices.
ReplyDeleteAnd chachee's link is, I believe, the actual web address for Yucaipa regional park. Also, you might want to look up rosie's burritos, just in case you make it out there.