Iguassu Falls

There is no denying it, I was expecting a lot from Iguassu Falls.  Nobody seems to visit it and leave disappointed.  Everyone talks about how incredible it is, how powerful, how beautiful.  I wondered if there was any chance that I would actually leave feeling the same.  As is so often the case when you visit a place whose reputation precedes it, I was afraid that Iguassu would disappoint.  Well, maybe not disappoint, but I thought there was a distinct possibility I would be a little … underwhelmed by the whole thing.

I was so far wrong I was in another continent. 

Iguassu Falls is probably the single most impressive natural site we have visited over the entire trip, in fact, probably the single most impressive site full stop; and this trip has brought us to many incredible places: The Himalayas, Angkor Wat, Polonnaruwa, Fox Glacier to name but a few that have really stuck in my mind.

Our first glimpse of the falls was from the Brazilian side renowned for its panoramic views (they straddle the Brazilian-Argentinean border).  It did not disappoint.  However impressed I was though, I was assured, the best was yet to come.  The following day, the jet boat ride up river towards the pounding columns of water blew me away and still I was told it would get better.  As we walked up the stone steps in the cliff side, soaked to the skin after the boat ride, the views became more impressive still.  With over 270 separate waterfalls making up the truly awesome Iguassu family, every few minutes walk was rewarded with mind blowingly beautiful views.  The climax though, the true winner of the day was the roaring “Devil’s Throat” – Garganta del Diablo – with water cascading, roaring down over 82 metres around 240 degrees, meeting in a violent, misty, swirling cauldron below.  The noise is deafening, the power unmissable, it is impossible to stand there, on the walkways adjacent to the falls and not be transfixed by the thousands of cubic metres of water sprinting over the edge and crashing into the basin below.  How could there possibly be this much water in the world? And how is this only the tiniest fraction of it?  Maybe places like this are meant to remind us that we are not as big a part of it as we would like to think.  I don’t think I have ever felt more insignificant in my life.  Bizarrely though, it was a comforting thought.

The story of the formation of the Iguassu Falls is an interesting one, not the geological version however, but rather the ancient legend of the native Guarani people.  They believe that at one time, the Iguassu river was a still, wide, flat river.  Each year the local Guarani tribe would sacrifice their most beautiful virgin to the serpent god of the river M’Boi.  Naipi was due to marry Taruba who was a warrior from another local tribe, but when the serpent god saw her, he fell in love with her and demanded she be the virgin sacrifice.  Afraid to anger the powerful serpent, the tribe conceded and made ready to sacrifice Naipi.  Naipi and Taruba being very much in love, made a plan to escape down the Iguassu river in a canoe.  Sadly for them, M’Boi uncovered their plan and in anger chased the lovers down the river, writhing and splashing and in doing so cracked the river bed forming a huge gorge which would become the falls.  In revenge for their disloyalty, M’Boi transformed Taruba into a palm tree overlooking the falls and the beautiful Naipi into a rock at the base of the falls.  The lovers would spend eternity always close enough to see one another, but suffer the torture of never being together.

Far fetched perhaps, but there is something magical about Iguassu Falls, something other worldly about the sheer power, the volume, the crashing, angry water, which makes you wonder … maybe, just maybe!