Cataratas do Iguacu

Another cloudy morning first thing so we decided to go to the Bird Park before heading to the falls this morning. It was on the way and would mean giving the weather another hour to start to clear, our tour guide collected us from the hotel and as the previous day was really helpful (apart from the not speaking english part). It was a good hour to walk round and the birds were amazing. Catherine made some friends with the toucans as they seemed to like flying close to her head and trying to eat her shoes. I was happy keeping my distance and taking the photos.


We'd been told that there was a butterfly section which as usual didn't fill me with such excitement with my irrational fear of butterflies but I survived that one without being attacked. One section the tour guide had warned us that the macaws will sometimes try to get glasses, earrings etc. so we'd prepared for that before going round the whole park - just in case - and then decided just to not go through that section instead!


After that it was finally time to get to the falls. The cloud was clearing so by the time we'd got to the entrance, paid, waited for our guide to register that he was there for the day and drive us to the start of the path it was starting to look a lot brighter. The view from the start of the path was amazing so we were really looking forward to getting to the other end to see the main part. The majority of the falls are actually on the Argentina side but that means from the Brazil side you see a lot more of the panorama of the falls.


As you walk along the path there are so many different sections to see and the sound just gets so much greater as you reach the main part. We'd had instructions from the guide where to go, but he appeared part way down just to make sure that we were ok. Once you get to the main part then the path goes right along in front of the falls - this is the wet bit! We'd rolled trousers up, put the rain macs on and shielded the cameras but still came back absolutely soaked! The view is just fantastic though, well worth the visit if anyone wants a holiday somewhere I'd definitely recommend it. There's a vote a the moment for the new seven wonders of nature and the falls get my vote (but then I've only visited a few of the finalists).

We stayed around for some lunch after we'd seen everything we wanted to. I kept my (irrational) fear of butterflies in check as one decided that the flowers on Catherine's bag that I was carrying obviously looked very life like and kept landing on it. After all that excitement and persuading the tour guide that we were quite happy with a day of sunbathing at the hotel on Thursday and we didn't want to pay to go any where else, it was another dinner at the hotel in the evening, again followed by music from the Italian group of tourists that were also staying in the hotel for what could only be described as quite amusing rather than talented entertainment.