July 16th -17th 2017
Curitiba to Iguazu is a long drive. A very long drive. And I end up driving faster than Renata probably would have liked. Strangely the closer we get to the southern border of Brazil the colder it gets. I’ve been to Iguazu many times and it’s always been scalding hot, but it’s seeming like a rare cold front is passing through. We left Curitiba around 7 am and only arrive in Iguazu around 5 pm. We’re all tired but we head straight to the border, stopping only to buy a cartelinha verde (which allows me to drive a Brazilian car in Argentina). The office is right beside the border and while it takes some time, we have no problem. I wish I could say the same goes for the border.
The boys are buzzing with excitement having never left Brazil before and I’m excited too, because as much as I love Foz de Iguacu, I will admit that I prefer the Argentinean side, both for the falls and the small town there with one of my favourite restaurants in the whole world: Aqva. Seriously, best steak you will ever eat. But like I said the border does not go without problems.
As we line up for nearly an hour everyone is getting crazy excited to get to Argentina, but we run into trouble as we finally get to the immigration officers. I give them my passport, Vinny and Felipe’s Id’s and Renata’s authorized declaration to let me travel with the boys, which we thought was all that was needed. The migraciones officers talk to each other then turn to me and ask me in spanish if I am the boy’s father. I explain that no, I am not, just their mother’s boyfriend, but that we have her permission to go. They ask to see the father’s position and the judge’s letter. I explain that I have been told these were not needed. They say both are needed and that we will not be able to go. I, perhaps unwisely ask them if there’s anyway they can reconsider. A friendly migraciones lady gives me some sage advice that summed up would read like this, “I would not insist, or problems could get very serious. It kind of looks like you are trying to steal this kids.” There’s a first time for everything I guess, even getting accused of human trafficking.
I do as she says, hating how disappointed Vinny and Felipe look, and decide the best thing to do is get us some dinner, and I do my best to go somewhere that would have made childhood me very happy even in tragedy: Pizza hut of course. The fact that they have free wifi seals the deal, because now we have to find a place to stay on the Brazilian side of the falls, which ends up being very complicated, for some unknown reason the city is crammed full. It’s Renata who eventually saves us, finding a place on OLX.com (the kijiji of Brazil) . of all places and soon we’re driving to a room rented out inside a person’s home/yoga studio. It’s comfortable enough, and they all have an awesome kitten named Souria who is responsible for planting seeds in our family which eventually lead to our two amazing cats, Lolla and Charles.
The next morning we wake up and its’s -2 degrees, the boys are crazy in love having never experienced this kind of cold. I’m just thinking about how cold that mist is going to be off the falls. We’re up and out the door around 7:30 am, grabbing some breakfast with our friendly hosts firsts and then heading to the falls. We make one stop though, we did not come prepared for cold weather at all, and so at a artisan stall near the falls we pull over and buy tuques and gloves, hoping they will do enough to keep the boys warm, then it’s on to the falls!
We get to the falls, wait in a still fairly short line and buy tickets, the boys pay the Brazilian price, I pay the foreigners full price, but hey, next time I’m here that won’t be the case anymore. At any rate, we then hop on one of the first buses going to the falls, sit up top in the open air despite the cold and then we arrive and I get to show Vinny and Felipe one of my favourite places on earth. Even if I do prefer the Argentinean side, Brazilian Iguazu is also on my list of favourite places around the world.
Vinny is wow, though Felipe is largely unimpressed from the first views. He will go on to say that the falls are “Legalzinho.” which translates too A little cool. To this day I simply cannot understand this interpretation, but to each their own I suppose. Maybe he was just cold. At least he seems to like it more and more the further we walk along the trail. Despite the cold it’s a beautiful day, blue skies which means so many rainbows and as we work our way down the crowded paved trail towards the heart of the falls were blessed with countless amazing viewpoints.
The great thing about the Brazilian side of Iguacu is the further you walk, the more impressive the view gets, as you get closer and closer to the final point, the boardwalk which snakes out into the heart of garganta del diablo and leaves you surrounded by waterfalls practically on all sides. With the sun up it does warm us a bit, though that effect will be gone once we get down into the heart of the mist. Still it’s all that incredible water that leaves the scenes streaked with rainbows, only making the pictures better and better.
We reach the bottom of the trail and snap some of the pictures above before heading out on to the long concrete boardwalk built up taking lucky tourists out into almost the epicentre of the most intense part of Iguazu. Argentina may provide my favourite side overall, but out there at the end of the boardwalk is likely my favourite single viewpoint of the falls, thus making it one of my favourite places on the entire earth. And the boys seem to like it to, cold mist drenching us, rainbows dancing in the droplets and the thunderous sound of millions of liters of crashing water overwhelming all our senses.
I could have seriously spent hours out there, days even, and that’s how I feel every time I go there. I’d love to pitch a tent and spend a few weeks camping there, but for some reason the park authorities don’t allow that. Still eventually the kids do get cold from the constant swirling mist so we head back along the boardwalk and to one more viewpoint near the elevators up at the end of the trail. Spray is still bouncing off us, but less spray, though rainbows still glimmer behind us.
We take the free elevators up to above the falls and head out for our last view point, which often makes for some amazing photos, and today is no exception as we gaze out on the falls from above, myself not even believing that I don’t know when I’ll be here again. (Luckily it ends up not being so far away). Eventually we decide it’s time to head out, as we still have plans to check out Paque Das Aves, an interesting zoo near Iguazu that has huge open cages you walk through and is filled with countless exotic birds, many of them having been rescued from homes other lesser zoo’s.
As we walk through the jungle area towards where the buses wait to take you back to the parking lot we stop by a statue of the inventor of the first airplane. In Brazil don’t try suggesting it was the wright brothers, you will likely get attacked, here, and I have no idea which should actually be considered correct, the inventor of the airplane is Alberto Santos-Dumont, and don’t try to say anything different.
Having now left the falls behind we head directly into the Parque Das Aves, pay the somewhat hefty entrance fee and wander inside, immediately losing ourselves in a world of exotic flying creatures. The start is not as impressive as many of the cages seem small, though some of the larger birds do wander almost free, and I don’t care how many times I see them, listening to a symphony of flamingo honks is always fun.
Next we walk into the first of the massive walk through cages, this one filled mostly with toucans, ibis, some other less interesting birds and also a few elusive spoonbills, which I have loved since being a little kid. Still there is no doubt the huge black and white giant beaked toucans are the star of the show. (Also damn you fruit loops for making me thing toucans were blue…. but thank you for your deliciousness.) . The boys are also instantly enamored by the friendly and curious toucans who will never cease to entertain me either.
We eventually leave the toucans behind and wander through the dense forested park until we come to the harpy eagle, which is just a massive bird that looks utterly beautiful and terrifying all at once. Every time I come here I feel like I want to be friends with this bird, and only partially because I feel like If I’m not it’s friend it might kill me for the fun of it.
Next up is probably my favourite part of the whole park, the second massive walk through cage, filled with Macaws of every variety. The colourful beauties swoop and caw all together, constantly on the move making you worry about both getting attacked and and getting pooped on, though luckily this does not happen. The boys love the curious macaws who let you get close and definitely check you out while you are checking them out. It’s a truly special place to be and easy to lose hours in this one massive cage.
The bird park done we head back to town, spend a little downtime in our yoga studio room, and then head out to dinner at a all you can eat barbecue place where the waiters bring you meat and cheese on a sword and you eat until you can’t walk anymore. My kind of place. Then it’s back home and to bed after some play time with Souria. Tomorrow we’ll be doing an alternative Foz De Iguacu Itinerary, and taking a brief trip into Paraguay (sort of) . just so my sons can say they’ve now left Brazil, something they are pretty excited for.
