Iguazu Falls

 

22 March 2014 - Our plane dipped through the clouds and cut through the thick, dense rainforest and landed on a thin strip of concrete in Iguazu Falls, Argentina.  I enjoyed the shaky landing by promptly pulling out the white baggie that you hope you never have to use and vomited in it – I was feeling a bit under the weather from enjoying too much Malbec the night before…

On top of that, after buying flights to the falls on a moment’s notice, Mom and I were beginning to worry that it was not going to be worth the trip.  A few years ago, we took a train ride to Northern New York to see Niagara Falls and could not have been more let down.  It was such a puny disappointment – a smidgen of water dumping over the falls in a lackluster display.  I had seen better waterfalls on tiny side hikes in Costa Rica.  We were hoping that Iguazu Falls was not just another instance of hype and luckily, we were not disappointed.



This isn't my picture (photo by Chris Schmid), but I felt some aerial
perspective of the falls was needed.  If you look to the left, you can see
the footbridge that leads out to the the Garganta del Diablo

For those of you that do not know much about Iguazu Falls, this is a confluence of waterfalls that border Argentina and Brazil on the Iguazu River.  These are world famous falls that are notorious for the magnitude and sheer volume of water flinging itself off the edges at any given moment.  Local legend has it that a god planned to marry a beautiful native woman named Naipí, who upon hearing this fled with her mortal lover Tarobá in a canoe down the river.  Enraged, the god sliced the river in two, creating the waterfalls and condemning the lovers to an eternal fall.  Now if this is true, that God sure reacted in quite a fit of rage that left one incredible piece of natural architecture in its wake.

Walking out to the throat of the devil

Mom, Dad and I began the tour of Iguazu Falls by visiting the Garganta del Diablo or Throat of the Devil.  This consisted of taking a quick train ride up to the north of the falls and walking out on a footbridge that is atop the river.  It is a bit mind-blowing how they managed this engineering feat, but somehow they managed to construct a bridge and platform that leads you out to the edge of the falls.  Here, at the very edge of the falls, you can see the beginnings of the Garganta del Diablo… and throat of the devil it is indeed.  To your right, you can see this wide and peacefully flowing river that out of nowhere begins violently dumping water off the edge of a 269 foot long and 492 foot wide drop.   The sheer volume of water flowing over the edge at such a quick pace is a bit unreal.  For a bit of comparison, Niagara Falls are just a third in size.

Just at the edge of the Garganta del Diablo

After the Garganta del Diablo, we walked along a few other trails to view the many hundreds of other “smaller” waterfalls and to see the throat of the devil from below.  One of the more exhilarating moments was when we boarded a small boat to tour around to some of the falls.  We should have known something was up when they had us start loading all of our belongings into dry bags – before Mom, Dad, and I knew it, we were headed face first into one of the falls.  Even though this was one of the “smaller” waterfalls, the amount of water that beat down on your face was incredible.  Drenched and properly beaten by the waterfalls, I was humbly reminded how miniscule my place in mother nature is.

 



That's a lot of water right there.



Heading face first for the falls

 

The drenched aftermath