Iguacu Falls (Brazil)

Phil woke up on his official Sth American birthday to a cooked breakfast in bed – not an easy feat for Sth America to find Bacon so sausages were the next best thing. After a few presents we were packed and ready to leave for Brazil. Unfortunately that was there the good morning ended and the stress started. We hadn’t realised how good it was to know a bi of Spanish until we got to Brazil and our Portuguese was non existent. After crossing the border with no problems our bus didn’t stop at the pre arranged stop so we were dropped off in the middle of nowhere with all our bags, no Brazilian reals and in a bit of a state. Luckily a taxi driver found us 10 minutes later and we went to the hotel Adrienne had booked as a treat for Phils birthday.

As part of Phils birthday present, Adrienne had bought him (and subsequently her) a helicopter flight over the falls and a rafting trip up to one of the falls and back down the river. The helicopter ride was amazing and gave a really good oversight to how big the falls really are. The rafting trip took us right in and under one of the falls which at the time was incredibly stressful as the organisers idea of a dry bag was a plastic bag that we use to collect fruit so our camera and cash were lucky to come away dry; the driver did get an earful when he tipped the boat so a wave would splash all over us. With no camera it would have been exhilarating and fun. The falls were just as spectacular from the Brazilian side and you didn’t need much time there to get a great picture.

After returning to the hotel we had a lovely birthday dinner at the hotel restaurant that Phils parents and grandfather had given Phil for his birthday.

The issue with Brazil unfortunately started when we tried to book buses. In Argentina the buses are good and the seats fold down to almost a bed. As we were travelling to Rio de Janiero the next day that is exactly the type of bus we wanted. Unfortunately they are not what Brazil offers from Foz du Iguacu and the best we could book was a completely upright seat at approx USD 100 each for our 24 hour journey. We did not think that was a great idea so opted to go back to the Argentinean side and book a bus from there. That would have worked out great if everyone hadn’t had the same idea and there was more than one bus company doing the route from Argentina as all the seats were booked. To cut a long story short we flew – bugger the budget.