Sensory Overload

Day 11-13: Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil. “I won, I won. I'm sure I did!”, I shouted over the deafening roar that surrounded us. Karen and I peered into the swirling mist below us, but the truth was, neither of us could see anything that had entered the awesome abyss that thundered below us. “Perhaps this isn't the best place to play Pooh Sticks”, I concluded as we stood and absorbed the stunning natural beauty of this, one of the world's most spectacular waterfalls.

We had left São Paulo late on Saturday evening taking the overnight bus down to the little Brazilian border town of Foz do Iguaçu. Our driver completed the 600 mile trip solo, apparently surviving the monotony and fatigue through a intravenous cocktail of caffeine and nicotine. With the breaking of dawn, as we continued our westerly pursuit, we gazed out onto a very different landscape; for the area south-east of the Pantanal represents Brazil's bread basket: Fields of wheat, corn and maize were blowing gently in the morning breeze whilst dairy cattle grazed the rolling green hills giving an impression much closer to Ampthill than the Amazon. Although, in this quintessentially English scene, the early morning temperature had already breached 30 degrees centigrade under the rays of this blistering sub-tropical sun.

Whilst Foz do Iguaçu itself is about 15 miles away from the main attraction, arriving at this pretty little border post that sits on the boundary between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay we could already sense the feeling of excitement and anticipation driven by this, one of the new Seven Wonders of the World.

Located where the Rio Iguaçu tumbles over the edge of the Paraná Plateau, the river governs the border between Brazil and Argentina with the right bank representing Brazilian territory, the left bank Argentinian and so the only real way for Karen and I to truly appreciate the majesty of these tremendous waterfalls was to view the spectacle from both sides of the border: Brazil providing us with the the 'overview' and Argentina allowing us to get 'close up'.

The plateau itself is about 2 miles long (4 times the size of Niagara) which, depending on the seasonal flow of the river, generates up to 300 separate waterfalls and cataracts, varying in height from between 200 and 300ft. Although about half of the river's flow falls into a single long and narrow chasm called Garganta do Diablo (Devil's Throat) which accounts for the majority of the 60,000 cubic feet of water that cascades from the upper river to the lower river every single second and prompted First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to exclaim on her first visit to these remarkable falls, “Poor Niagara”.

Whether viewing the falls from the Brazilian or Argentinian side of the border, I can't hope to do justice to the magnificence that was laid out before us in either words or pictures: The expanse, the power and the natural beauty of one of mother nature's greatest shows on earth far outweighs my elementary grammatical or photographic capabilities. But the sensation of actually being there will remain with Karen and me for the rest of our lives. The sight of unbelievable volumes of water disappearing at such speed into the precipice of Devil's Throat, the roar of the cascades that echoed for miles around the Iguaçu National Park, the spray from the falls that soaked us to the skin, the smell of the rain-forest: Stunningly beautiful and infinitely memorable.

...and I still think my stick made it to the bottom first!