Brazil

06 August 2009, Foz do Iguacu: 275 waterfalls and a 80m drop.

We finally made it to the waterfalls, catarates, in west Brazil, the oversized local water feature and tourist magnet. We endured a long overnight bus from Curitiba and arrived early in the morning. We left our backpacks at the entrance gates and enjoyed these magnificent waterfalls without hauling them around. I have been here in 1996 already on a clear sunny day like today. The only difference is that it didn't rain during the days before my last visit thirteen years ago. Today the water is not blue and clear as I remember but rather brown from all the siderivers despositing their mud and dirt into Rio Parana. Check out the photo gallery for more photos.

Photo: Devil's Throat, Iguacu Falls, Brazil

 

One of my travel mates from Malaysia 2005 wrote about the Iguacu Falls: "... picture if you will, a wonky horseshoe 3km wide, 90 metres high with 275 waterfalls spouting from it like a giant watering can! In the rainy season, the falls merge into a gargantuan wall of water, cascading 17,750 cubic metres of water a second..   According to some nerd on the Internet, an Olympic swimming pool holds 375 cubic metres of water... Noooow.. if i jus do that calculation in my head (rigght).. that´s approximately 43 Olympic swimming pools falling 90 metres every second...  Put plainly, that's a lot of water falling a great deal of the time... And like one of those electric pictures hung in Chinese take aways... it´s near impossible to stop staring at!!!" by Dan Cremin, 13 May 2006

 

28 July 2009, Canela: A German town in southern Brazil

Two days ago we left Uruguay. The last night we spent in the border town Rio Branco. Brazil is just on the other side of the river. We could just walk over and have a look around without doing immigrations - which was easy but almost ended up in an disaster when we went to buy tickets to Porto Alegre. We were told the local bus wouldn't stop to do the border formalities. Luckily there was enough time to go back to the Uruguayan immigration office (5 km outside of town) to obtain our exit stamp and to go to the Brazilian policia federal to receive an entry stamp. Formalities completed, we then bought the bus ticket with our last USD and Uruguayan pesos - the brazilian ATMs didn't like our bank cards. We were actually USD 5 short but still obtained a ticket!

Photo: Caracol Waterfall (130 m.), Canela, Brazil

 

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