Christmas Vacation of a Lifetime: Stop 3: Mighty Iguaçu

 

The definitive photo of Iguaçu Falls: a tour boat goes into the spray

The trip of a lifetime, 1997 edition, continued on to one of the greatest natural wonders of the world: Iguaçu Falls. Iguaçu straddles the river border between Brazil and Argentina (where, in term, is misspelled "Iguazu" on the Argentine side).

After five days (and nights!) in Rio de Janeiro, it was time to jet off to the Foz de Iguaçu airport. My hotel was luxury accommodations: the Hotel das Cataratas.

The Hotel das Cataratas was (probably still is) a luxurious and isolated hotel. It is located on park land within walking distance of the falls.

How close?

Very close.

The hotel was quite nice, as I said, and, oddly enough as I thought at the time, it was packed with Brits. The most common species of European tourist in Rio was German. In fact, at one store, the clerk came up to and starting speaking in German, assuming I was Alemão since the number of English-speaking tourists in Rio was comparatively lower than the German-speakers. (And in Asuncion, I believe I was the lone tourist that spoke any language other than Spanish.)

There were walkways over the Iguazu River to take in the mighty falls.

Here's me posing on one of the walkways, Iguaçu over my shoulder.

Well, a much younger, thinner me.

I had two nights at the Hotel das Cataratas. Two nights really means "one day" when you factor in transportation. So for the one full day, I signed up for a "jungle cruise."

This is the jungle.

We were transported through this on the way to the boat, which was fairly small, maybe eight or so passengers, me being one.

 

And soon we were cruising on the Iguazu River to the falls. We got wet. There's a whole lot of water cascading over that cascade.

Then it was back to the luxury hotel. There was some interesting South American wildlife on the hotel grounds. I believe this fellow (or gal, I didn't check the undercarriage) is a coatimundi:

And this would be an aww-so-cute coatimundi baby:

And this might be a caiman.

I didn't get any closer to check.