On Wednesday, we got up a little later, because the Brasil
side of the falls don’t take as long, and caught the 9:30 bus for Parque
Nacional do Iguaçu. The border crossing
is a bit of a pain, and there seemed to be a lot of transactions going on, as
far as picking up lost souls at the border to take them to various places in
the direction of the falls. But, at
least we didn’t have to pay the USD 160 visa fee that Brasil was going to
implement for Canadian, Aussie and US citizens in October—it was postponed
until January. We weren’t really in any hurry,
and we finally got moving again, When
you get to entrance to the park, you get on another bus to take you in to the
falls and, of course, our bus broke down and we had to wait for another one,
but not very long.
I had read that the views of the falls were more spectacular
from the Brasil side and I would say that is definitely true. It is a very different experience. The Argentine side is very up close and
personal. You are literally right on top
of the falls, or right under them, but on the Brasil side, you are mostly a
step removed from them, so you can see the panorama and the immensity, the
sheer volume and breadth of them. But
there is a lot less ground to cover on the Brasil side.The waters are still raging and the viewing
platform for the Devil’s Throat is closed, but I wouldn’t have wanted to go out
on it if the waters were anywhere near this high. It is amazing that it is still standing! But that was the only part that was closed,
and overall the site is just amazing!
After a couple of hours of wandering along the banks, we took the bus
back to the park entrance, but then had to wait almost an hour for our bus back
to Puerto Iguazu, the Argentine side—we had just missed one. There is a ton of road construction on the
Brasil side and it looks like they are trying to create a major tourism Mecca
in the area, with all kinds of new theme parks open or under construction along
the main road, which looks like it will be a super-highway when it is
done. But the border crossing going back
was much quicker and we back home by about 3:15.
Tomorrow, off to Salta, bright and early.
ts yyc
2023-12-01
How was the bus crossing back into ARG re: BRA emigration and ARG immigration? thx ts
bear_in_toronto
2023-12-05
No problem at all, very quick.