Sunday, December 10, 2017

The Adventure Continues - Foz do Iguaçu


We returned home, did our laundry, slept in our own beds, and, in less than 24 hours, were back at the airport to continue our adventure.
As we waited for our flight, Don and Wayne read/slept. Dianne and I crocheted. 😊


The Foz do Iguaçu airport is small - way too small for the amount of visitors this area receives. The hotel was very nice.

 Our hotel was all decked out for Christmas!

We enjoyed a delicious breakfast each morning.



Iguaçu Falls
The name Iquaçu is an indigenous word meaning "big water."
And BIG it is. 
The Iguaçu Falls stretch in width for 2.7 kilometers (or 1.7 miles). Their height varies between 60 meters (200 feet) and 82 meters (or 269 feet). This makes the Iguaçu Falls taller than Niagara Falls and twice as wide.
Brazil and Argentina share this most majestic natural wonder of the world.
The falls really are amazing.

From the Argentinian side, you can literally walk into the heart of the falls at the Devil’s Throat and, if your temple president doesn't forbid it, take a boat ride under the tumbling waters.





Over on the Brazilian side, you can take in better panoramic views of the falls from all directions.

The little critter on the left is a coati. He looks a lot like a rat with a tail to me. There are signs all over the place showing people wounded from scratches and bites from these guys. You are warned not to feed them, but, of course...

Anyway,
You really have to do both sides!


Downstream from the falls is where the Parana and Iguaçu rivers meet, and so do the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. Each country has created a landmark in their national colors on a spot in each of their countries where you can see all three.
It's called - The Triple Frontier.
We enjoyed an evening of Brazilian food and dance (them, not us).A movie was made in 1986 about events that took place in this area in 1750. We actually watched it on Netflix while we were there. The movie is sad. The music is hauntingly beautiful.
The movie's name? The Mission

Speaking of food and dance - one night our temple friends, the Wernecks, took us to the Rafain (known as the greatest show of the Foz land). Here we enjoyed a buffet/churrasco and dances from eight countries in South America.


One day, Brother Werneck took us over to Paraguay. Poor, poor little dirty country. 
It was also raining, but Brother Werneck said that was a good thing - it actually cleaned the place up!😕   Who knew?!


The Itaipu Hydroelectric Power Plant is the second largest in the world in size and first in generation of energy. (China has the largest.) In 1996, it was considered one of the 7 Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The power generated from this dam is shared between the countries of Brazil and Paraguay.


The Parque das Aves (Bird Park) was another must-do. Known as the largest bird park in Latin America, there are birds from all four corners of Brazil and beyond!



And...as if we hadn't seen enough birds at the bird park, we actually opted for a morning at the city zoo. No elephants, zebras, bears, or giraffes here, however. Just more birds!
We must thank Wayne for this adventure!!

We also enjoyed meeting some of the Werneck's children while in Iguaçu.


With our fun week completed, we returned to the very small and overcrowded airport for our one hour return trip to back home. It was pouring down rain by the time we checked in - hence, all flights were delayed. Actually, the were completely stopped. More people kept coming with no room to sit or stand. Seven hours later, they put us on a plane for São Paulo, which was actually out of our way but at least going east. São Paulo even waited the plane for all of us coming from Iguaçu. It's only an hour flight, but when we got to Curitiba, it was raining so hard they couldn't land, so...they took us back to São Paulo to refuel, get a new crew, and try again. This time around we did make it. However, our luggage didn't. (It wouldn't come until the next afternoon.) Our one hour return trip turned into 12 hours. We plopped our heads down in our own beds, finally, at 3:00 am.
I felt a little bit like the Gilligan's Island three-hour-tour people!

And so I end with the picture we began with - this is how we spent our waiting, waiting, waiting time!!!

BTW
A good time was had by all!





2 comments:

  1. Yes, it was a whirlwind vacation. We saw lots of places in Brazil and had a great time!

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  2. Wow! Those falls are breathtaking! And so brown?! Are they always that color?! SO glad you made it home from your three hour tour ;) But really....what a crazy turn of events to get back!

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