Water Falls and Butter Flies

Before heading down to Buenos Aires for 2 weeks of Spanish lessons, we would be foolish not to visit the famous Cataratas – the waterfalls in Iguaçu National Park. It is said to be a wonder of nature and many have quoted it the most awesome thing they’ve ever seen. The waterfalls stretch from Brazil through to Argentina and at least a day is recommended on each side.

We arrived at Foz do Iguaçu Wednesday lunchtime after spending nearly 24hrs on a coach and found a hostel. There were 3 of us as we bumped into Jasmin at the bus station, a friend from our hostel in Rio and who we travelled to Ilha Grande with before going our separate ways. I was very excited because our hostel’s sign had a toucan on it – my favourite bird. I remember having a toy toucan for most of my childhood. It was touch and go for the toucan a lot of the time and he would find himself in some precarious and often dangerous situations sometimes, like floating off down the river in Norfolk having been accidentally dropped overboard by his irresponsible young owner. Luckily Dad was at the ready to rescue him with his fishing rod. I’m not quite sure what happened to him, but I was hoping his spirit maybe alive somewhere here in the forests of Iguaçu national park and apparently if I was very, very lucky I might catch a glimpse of him!

Our hostel was very plush, well plush as hostels go. Just 3 of us in one of the many rooms, with a swimming pool in the courtyard and an amazing outside cooking / eating area and cheap beers to buy. We ditched our rucksacks and headed off to the Brazilian side of the park. Apparently the Brazilian side gives a great overall view whilst the Argentinian side allows you to get ‘up close and personal’ with the falls, whatever that means.

It was beautiful and the falls looked amazing from a distance. What was equally as amazing was the amount of butterflies everywhere! I’ve never seen so many and they were so tame, they just came and landed on you! So many different species and colours. I even managed to put one on my nose. 

Brazilian side of Iguaçu Falls

 

 

A Coatis

There were also lizards – really big ones which were amazing and the biggest I’d ever seen, along with little geckos and coatis (possum like creatures). We walked the 1km circuit through the forest to the foot of one of the largest falls. Until this point, it had obviously been stunning but I think I was equally as excited about all the creatures. However, after turning the corner and seeing this gigantic mass of water fall and crash right in front of your eyes, spraying everyone and roaring continuously, I was blown away. I laughed and laughed and was transfixed. It seemed unnatural to be so close to something so powerful. I hadn’t ever seen anything like it. (Little did I realise at this point, what was to come tomorrow mind you).

This whole scene was a bit crazy!

Me Tim and Jasmijn, our mate from Holland

A weird butetrfly

Big mister lizard

Me with a moon face and a butterfly on my nose

Just in case you are unsure what I mean by 'moon face', here are some other people with moon faces....

Tony 'moon face' McCoy

An actual moon face

The following day we headed to Argentina. Hooray. Spanish speaking territory. Even the border control officers looked more cool and beautiful, people seemed more laid back, I could understand more signs and they sold ice cream at passport control. I liked Argentina a lot already. We were still together with Jasmin and found a great hostel, named Timbo Pousada in a town called Puerto Iguaçu – the nearest town to the Argentinian side of the falls. This was a hostel we had researched and planned on finding, for obvious reasons and it was great. Me and Tim treated ourselves and got a double room and Jasmin grabbed a bed in a dorm. Due to the previous day’s magnificent waterfall experience, we thought we’d find a few other things to do around the area and visit the falls the following day, before heading off to Buenos Aires.

We visited a wildlife rescue centre called Oguira Oga a little out of town that looks after unwanted animals that people think they can keep as pets such as monkeys, big cats, road runner type birds, but soon realise they can be either a bit bitey or are totally unsuitable. Funny that. They also look after injured animals, orphaned babies and run breeding programmes for endangered species. Carlos who showed us round has worked there 3 years and said he never once regretted swapping the big city life of Buenos Aires to brush crocodiles’ teeth. He loved the animals so much and was very ashamed at what humans are doing to the animals. We watched the eagles eating their lunch and much to my pleasure, got to see a couple of toucans! Again, unwanted pets but now to domesticated to release into the wild. I took a few photos but not many. Capturing a photo of an animal in the wild is fantastic, but I felt really sorry for these little creatures, so taking photos didn’t feel right. But I had to get a toucan and then right at the end, we saw a stick insect. He was so funny. I totally thought it was a stick! See if you can tell where the insect ends and the tick I placed next to him starts.

Friendly domesticated toucan

Just such a dude bird.

Sticky and his stick friend

After this we headed to the Jardin de Picoflores (Humming bird gardens). I found it out through trip advisor and it sounded beautiful. A garden you could visit, owned and maintained by a local family who have feeders out and you can watch / photograph the humming birds! We arrived and didn’t really know what to expect. We were let in by a little old Argentinian lady who had a beaming smile and led us to her little garden where she has put out all these feeders for humming birds. The garden was full of them, zipping about and she was beaming from ear to ear. It was so sweet, she must see these little fellas all day every day, but she was so happy and enthusiastic pointing out how beautiful each one was, it was like she had never seen one before and often she seemed close to tears she was so happy. A beautiful lady with a beautiful garden. For a small donation you could sit there as long as you like and snap away. She also bought out books for us to look at to try to identify different types together with mosquito repellent as the little blighters were in force in the shady garden. She was laughing at how fast the humming birds were, repeating ‘muy rapido’! Between me and Tim, we must have taken at least 1000 photos, perhaps more. They are impossible to photograph! 

As the light diminished, we headed off back to the hostel, stopping for a few beers on the way. This town was great. Loads of hostels and bars lined the streets but everyone was so laid back and it wasn’t too touristy either. Just colourful and chilled. 

In fact, I probably had one of my favourite ever meals there later that night. We found a road at the top of town, where all the locals appeared to go. Tables line the street, but rather than restaurants, they are just shop fronts that have opened their doors to the street and have set up BBQs. The shops look like they all sell oils / olives / tapenades of sorts and they use all this produce on their BBQs. BBQ smoke and smells billowed from every entrance and waiters darted around bringing plate after plate to our table of meats / cheeses / rice / other delicious stuff. You could hear shouting, chatting, live music in the distance, plates clinking. Me and Jasmin polished off every dish including a plate of black pudding and sausage, a loin of pork and a steak each! It was an amazing place and ridiculously cheap to boot.

This was just to start! Meat feast extraordinaire.

 The next day we visited the Argentinian side of the falls. We had 6 hours to do it in, before our bus for Buenos Aires left. There were 3 trails we wanted to walk in the park. For the first we needed to take the train halfway up – like one of those little trains you have at theme parks to get you around. Again, the number of butterflies around this area was overwhelming. 

Billions of butterflies

We then continued the walk on foot. What was waiting at the other end was jaw dropping. It was like the world was falling away in front of your eyes in slow motion. The very expanse of this one fall was nearly too big to take in. It made you feel giddy. It was like a giant plughole and the amount of water plunging to the depths of the fall, amidst an eruption of spray was just incredible. Sometimes, standing there, the spray coming back up at you was so strong that you had to just hold onto the rails at the side of the walkway. Everyone was drenched. And it was so loud, you had to shout to be heard. It was incredibly scary. I kept thinking what if the walkway collapses! This particular fall was called the devil’s throat and it’s an experience and sight I will never forget. I’ve attached some pics Tim took with his weather proof camera. It was too wet for me to even think about getting my non waterproof snappy cam out. 

One of the most awesome thing's I've seen.

After this, we hiked the upper trail for a few more panoramic scenes and followed this with the low trail. This took us closer to the foot of different falls. On both trails, we were gifted with rainbows at every turn. It was paradise. 

Igucu Falls - Argentinian side

The fauna was incredible too and I had to stop to talk a shot of the bluest little bird I’ve ever seen. I called for the other guys to wait. It was only after stopping here for a minute or so when something big and black flew through the bush in front of me in which I was looking. Then I saw a flash of yellow and red. It was a toucan! A real life, wild toucan! I was stunned and didn’t really know what to do with myself. I froze whilst I think my eyes widened to twice the normal size they usually are as I hissed at the others ‘it’s a toucan!’ I watched and took a couple of shots. He looked around and then hopped onto another branch and became a little more obscured. 

Real life, wild as they come TOUCAN!

 

Steadily the number of people around us grew as the penny dropped as to what we were watching in the bushes. Before long there must have been about 20 of us, crouched low to the ground, in silence with all our cameras at the ready waiting for the Toucan to appear! But he never reappeared and so we walked on. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. It was like the toucan came and found us. It was just us and him for a good few minutes before the crowds gathered. 

I can’t believe just how crazy this place is. It’s like you take all the most colourful and kooky looking works of nature there are and you put them in this incredible place full of waterfalls, turn on the sun and whack the temperature up to 30C. There is no place on Earth that could beat this.