Fall On Me

I have been in the border town of Foz Do Iguaçu for the past two days after taking a 26 hour bus ride from Rio De Janeiro. Initially, I thought I had booked a promo flight on Azul Airlines for $75 from Rio to Iguacu only to find out two days before my flight that my credit card did not go through because I had used the Portuguese internet site and not the English one! Crazy. Although I received a payment confirmation and reservation number, the airlines response was... to buy another ticket at 6X the original price. When I asked a hostal staff about this, she simply shrugged and stated "It´s Brasil."

Foz Do Iguaçu borders both Paraguay and Argentina and is a relaxed and pleasant town that is known for Iguaçu Falls (Brasilian side known as Trilha Das Cataratus) which is apparently one of the new Seven Natural Wonders of the World. Iguaçu Falls is a series of impressive falls and sort of a bigger South American version of Niagra Falls. The paved park trail also leads you to a walkway right into Garganta do Diabo (Devil´s Throat) where the Rio Iguaçu makes it´s plunge. Being in the rainy season, the water is significantly higher and thick brown with sediment. Walking the trail into the falls, you can feel the power and rush of the water. Wear a raincoat as you will get quite wet.

Foz Do Iguaçu is also near the second largest dam in the world (the largest being the Three Gorges Dam in the China), the Itaipu Dam. The Dam is a huge concrete wall and the reservoir above is a flooded land (now, a large lake) that powers 75% of Paraguay and 15% of Brasil.


I am off to Paraguay in a day or two and will make my way diagonally across the country to Bolívia as it is a good time of the year to the visit the country. It looks like my beach time is over and time to head into colder, mountain áreas.