WOW!

We arrived in the tropical town of Puerto Iguazu on the Argentinian/Brazilian border when they were experiencing a rare cold spell, great! So instead of the humid tropics we were expecting it was cold and rainy! Not great when you are here to see one of the best natural wonders of the world. So the first day we spent just holed up in the hostal and checking out town hoping that the weather tomorrow would be better… it wasn't! But hey we couldn't hang around for ever so decided to go anyway. Even with rain and grey clouds the sight of 400,000 tonnes of water gushing over 80 meter drops for nearly 3km is pretty dam amazing! Walkways around the park take you out over the water and to the edge of some of the drops or to the bottom of others – it's a wet experience but a thrilling one! Unfortunately because of the recent rainfall we were unable to get over to a small island in the middle of the river but we did however take a quick boat ride up to the mouth of the falls getting thoroughly drenched in the process! Spent the last hour in the park overlooking the 'devils throat', the main part of the falls, while a thunderstorm lurked over head. Standing there watching the water drop into the abyss while thunder and lightning rumbled above you was a bizarre feeling (especially when one is standing on a metal platform hmmm)! The following day we woke up to blue skies and sunshine so we quickly jumped out of bed and back to the falls, this time starting on the Brazilian side, the views takes on a whole new feel in the sunshine – rainbows form everywhere across the falls, the water shimmers and glows with different colours and the mist generated by the falls fills the sky – it is awesome! Back over to the Argentina side for the afternoon and retracing our steps from yesterday – well fighting past a few more people though because with the weather came the crowds! It was even more impressive! Standing staring from one of the many platforms you couldn't help but smile and even giggle lots in our case (for some reason we felt the need to act like children)! Someone once said that any other waterfall in the world after having seen Iguazu will be like watching someone pee in a bucket and I can now understand why!! We even went back a third time, this time at night though. The park is open for 5 days a month over the full moon period which we were lucky enough to catch – so with the fear of Shona turning into a werewolf we headed back out to the platform by the devils throat! I won't gush anymore as its only water falling off an edge after all but hey it was pretty damn spectacular lit up by the moonlight too!