Visiting the falls of Iguazu was one of the adventures I have been planning in my mind for a long time. I have been to other large parks with falls, like Niagara, the Salto del Laja (Harbour Falls), the Petrohue Falls. Going to Iguazu from Chile is both simple and cheap. It was during our last visit to Chile that we decided to take several days to accomplish this journey. There are three flights weekly between the city of Iquique in Chile’s norte grande (main north) and Ciudad del Este (“city of the east”) in the easternmost part of Paraguay. Mercosur flies there in new airplanes and the trip to Asunción takes two hours, plus a further 50 minutes to reach Ciudad del Este. The views during the flight of the Andes and the Chaco are marvellous. We flew over the copper mine of Chuquicamata, and the passed close to volcanoes like Lancancabur and Lascar.
It is best to make travel arrangements through an agent who will take care of planning your itinerary, transfers, hotels, park visits, and so on. From Ciudad del Este it takes about an hour to drive to Foz de Iguazu on the Brazilian side of the falls. The Iguazu river, empties into the Parana River, which forms a natural boundary between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. The Foz de Iguazu National Park lies twenty-five Km. above this juncture. We checked into a very good hotel in Foz and the following morning our guide arrived early to begin our visit to the Brazilian side of the Falls.
For those of you who have not visited this park, let me assure you that the views are indescribable, and if you have been to Niagara, here is a comparison: Iguazu is a coming-together of between 150 and 500 falls between Argentina and Brazil. The number of these cataracts depends upon the water which flows down the Iguazu from the Brazilian Mato Grosso. This year has been very dry, so there were about 150 falls. Iguazu is 72 m high and drops 1,750 m3/sec., as compared to Niagara which falls 51 m. with a volume five times that of Iguazu, or 7,500 m3/sec. The big difference is in the surroundings. Iguazu Foz Park is virgin forest with more than 185,000 hectares, and limited access. Here there are all types of wild animals: tigers, jaguars, monkeys, coatis, alligators, crocodiles, serpents, and poisonous spiders.
“Iguazu” in the Guaraní language means “big water.” (“I” is water and “guazu” means “big.”) There is only one entrance to the park and private vehicles are not admitted. All passengers are brought in via comfortable open trailers towed by jeeps. No one is allowed to wander off the paths and roads of the park. Guides point out items of interest along the way. I have jotted down the following in my travel diary: orchids, lianas, araceas, junipers, perobios, alecrim. The Iguazu rises out of the Sierra Madre of Brazil and is 1,230 km long. The palmera or palmito-doce, from the heart of which is extracted the delicious palmito, grows very tall. The tree is said to take between 10 and 15 years to mature, and this variety of palm dies when the palmito which grows at the top of the tree is harvested. The bark from this and other plants produces pilocarpina (shampoo), medicine to treat glaucoma, thousands more medicinal plants like the Jaboranyí. The “ladders” from the lianas are used to treat diabetes. The orchids grow to immense proportions in the treetops. They blossom once a year and the Guaraní people coincide their “New Year” with this flowering. The Timbauva tree grows reaches a height of 25 m and matures at the age of 100 years. The indians used their trunks to make their dugout canoes. They burned the centre and continued to scrape it out; this process took almost two years. The bark of this tree absorbs oxygen from the water. The natives used it to fish, throwing huge numbers of tree trunks in the water and waiting for the fish to asphyxiate and float to the top. Other interesting names of trees: Angico Mermello, Uvaina, Lauro Blanco, Maria Preta, el Jeriba, and Costela de Adao.
We left the trailer and hiked through the forest on a narrow road to a small cataract, the Salto de Macuto, which drops 25 m and forms a pool of crystal-clear water. The humidity is heavy but since the flora is so thick, the temperature is a constant 25° the year round. On the walls of the rocks are semi-precious stones: quartz and agate. The path continues across the tropical forest until it arrives at a landing where zodiac inflatable launches, each with two 150-horse-power outboard motors, await the passengers. Twenty to 25 climb in each, all wearing orange life vests. The rafts cross the rapids of the river, going up one side and down the other. It is quite exciting, and I confess that not being a person who is overly fond of rapids, I felt a little frightened. The Brazilian side is the best side to enjoy the cataracts, since there are only four large falls in Brazil and the rest of the falls are on the Argentine side.
