Day 7 – Under the Falls

Day 7 – Under the Falls

You may recall from yesterday’s blog that I said we saw Iguazu Falls from the Argentinian side, the Brazilian side and from the border – that is, from the middle of the Iguazu River that separates the two countries. Well today is the day for the river view! Yes, we were scheduled for a boat ride up the river and into the heart of the Falls.

It was a casual start to the day with a wonderful outdoor breakfast in the nice cool 84° mid-morning air. It is amazing how our bodies acclimate to our surroundings (mostly in the upper 90’s and low 100’s). The buffet at the Belmond is amazing. Allow me to explain: There is a large 25-foot oblong granite counter with food of all sorts laid completely around the edge of the counter. But there is more … there is one level of food on the counter and a second level of goodies stacked behind the first level – like concentric circles or should I say concentric oblongs. But there is more … there is a duplicate counter! And then there is a separate omelet station and pastry bar! The variety was magnifico and the taste was delicio (sorry for the poor attempts at Spanish).

We arranged for late check-out since our boat tour was booked for 10:30 and would take 2.5 hours. The people at the Belmond are exceptionally gracious, but you will learn more about that a little later. For our tour, we were told “You will get wet!” so we wore bathing suits, dry fit shirts and brought flip flops (provided by the Belmond). We checked in with the concierge desk and they gave us a towel, a poncho and a bottle of water. Furthermore, they said we could give them our wet clothes when we were done and they would run them through the dryer for us so we didn’t have to pack wet stuff. We thought that was a nice little touch as well.

We were shuttled for a short ride to the tour company (Macuco Adventures) where we hopped on a tram to take us through the rain forest (yes, it is officially a Brazilian rain forest) to get us to the river’s edge far downstream from the Falls. Now, three interesting things are noteworthy.

1. When we got on the tram, there were two guys in front of us and one turned to the other and said something that Steve recognized as Russian … to which Steve replied, “я говорю на русском.” [I speak Russian.] These guys looked at us in utter shock. I introduced myself, “Меня зовут стивен.” [My name is Stephen.] The one guy then says, “How is it that so many Americans speak Russian! Do you all watch James Bond movies or something?!” They were actually from Poland, and we had some jovial conversations with them throughout the tour and boat ride.
2. We had heard that there are several hundreds of species of butterflies in this rain forest and perhaps even more that are yet unseen or uncounted. [This brought to mind a statistical article “The Relation Between the Number of Species and the Number of Individuals in a Random Sample of an Animal Population.” Authors: R. A. Fisher (Galton Laboratory), A. Steven Corbet (British Ecological Society), C. B. Williams (Rothamsted Experimental Station). Source: The Journal of Animal Ecology, Vol. 12, No. 1 (May, 1943), pp. 42-58 Published by: British Ecological Society. Any statisticians in the readership will recognized the lead author and perhaps recall this significance of this ground-breaking piece of work that was first applied to the estimation of the number of Malayan butterfly species.]     ...   OK, back to the tram ride in the jungle. We saw many, many, many butterflies of all sizes and colors flitting about as butterflies do all day. It is impossible to get a picture of them since their random flight patterns and quick movements defy explanation. Florescent blues, bright orange tips, lime green and yellow trim – all these wings were stunning. We could only sit back, watch and enjoy.
3. We also saw lots of large, ugly spiders (aren’t they all ugly?) and their rather large webs. But one species had a particularly beautiful web in that the “thread” was gold. Yes, I mean it! Bright gold! Our guide said that the web material is twice as strong as a steel thread of the same thickness. Mother Nature exceeds us once again.

We got to the water’s edge, did life jackets and all the necessary precautions and climbed into the boat that had twin 200 hp engines. You need a lot of power to go against the current of the Iguazu River!!! Soon we were off with engines roaring as we bounced and splashed our way against the current and the large undulating rapids. I do not think I have ever gone against the rapids in a river before! It was very exciting. As we took the bends in the river, we could start to see the Falls coming into view. All along the way our tour guides were taking pictures for us and making videos of the experience.

We are in the back of the boat - Steve in the white ball cap on the left of the picture.

Then the time came. After sitting at a distance and taking some pictures from water level toward the Falls, the engines roared, and we went full steam ahead toward some of the smaller/lesser falls. Of course, one could not get near the Devil’s Throat or many of the other large falls, but we did take a splashing ride under a series of smaller falls. I mean we were UNDER the falls within 8-10 feet of the rock wall behind the falls. We splashed around with our driver coming and going at different angles in and out of various falls, and it was ridiculously fun (and refreshingly cool water). Of course, once again it is difficult to explain such a unique experience. We bought the thumb drive of all the pictures and videos some of which I share below.

We reversed course super-speeding down the currents and rapids of the river. We got to the hotel, cleaned up and changed into dry clothes for lunch. We left the wet clothes with the concierge who assured us that they would be dried and ready for pick-up before our 5pm driver pick-up for the trip to the airport. We went for another sumptuous buffet lunch which we took at a casual pace. Marco arrived to take us to the airport that was in Ciudad de Este, Paraguay (note: Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay all converge at the same meeting point very near Iguassu Falls). We wanted to fly from a Paraguayan airport so we didn’t have to do customs at the airport. Marco told us that the travel time was quite uncertain as we had to cross a bridge over the river with Brazilian customs on one side of the bridge and then again with Paraguayan customs on the far side of the bridge. Indeed traffic was quite messy and Paraguayan traffic control was sketchy at best. With nothing else to do but sit and wait in traffic, Steve had a revelation, “We didn’t pick up our dry clothes at the concierge!” It was too late to turn back.

An hour and a half later we got to the Ciudad de Este Airport, and Steve called the Belmond. And with a real touch of class, they checked for our clothes and offered (without our request) to mail them to my house free of charge! Wow! How things can work out when you are customer focused.

The airport was small and no one spoke English. But between Bob’s passable English and Google Translate’s real-time voice translation capability, we got everything done.

The lone gate at the Cuidad de Este Airport.

The arrival on the tarmac at Asuncion Airport.

 We arrived in Asuncion, met our driver José and went to our exceptionally nice boutique hotel, La Misión. We checked in and went down to the restaurant for a small bite to eat and had some exceptional soups and Steve had seafood ceviche. A great end to a great day.

La Mision.

The roof top at La Mision.