Don't go ChACEing...

Our night bus luxury couldn't last forever, and we were greeted by abrupt and suffocating heat as our taxi crossed the border from Puerto Iguazu, Argentina, to Foz do Iguacu, Brazil. After dropping our things off at our hostel, we headed straight to the Brazilian side of the falls to take a look around. Now, I've never bee to Niagara Falls, but people seem to get pretty worked up over the size of it.

Dear Niagara Falls, I'm pretty sure Iguazu Falls makes a mockery of you. Niagara Falls reaches a height of 51 meters and spans some 700 meters in width, which I'm sure is impressive. However, Iguazu Falls reaches 82 meters and is 2.7 kilometers in width. Boom, Niagara... roasted. It's really incredible.

The Brazilian side of the falls is pretty perfect to conquer in an afternoon, although I'm sure you could spend a day there. On the viewing paths and decks you can see wide, sweeping views of the falls, and they're pretty overwhelming... and beautiful... man, are they beautiful. After visiting the falls, we went to eat at a Brazilian buffet with a dance show, which, honestly, was pretty kitchy and touristy, but was a necessary stop in EGTG's (the Extreme(ly) Gringo Travel Gang, if you had forgotten) quest to eat all the food in South America.

Sophie and I... touristing and stuff.

The next morning we went on a tour to visit the Argentinian side of the falls. A couple of things: 1.) aside from having to spend a ghastly amount of money to obtain visas for both Brazil and Argentina, these countries must not care AT ALL who is crossing their borders at Iguazu Falls. All three times I crossed thee border there, my driver simply took my passport inside and came out with it stamped. I never even got out of the car. B of all: very near to Iguazu Falls, Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay meet. So that's the first place our tour guide took us. From where we stood in Argentina two converging rivers separated us from both Brazil and Paraguay. That's probably as close as I'll ever come to Paraguay, which is at once very exciting and very sad.

I had the privilege of sitting in the front seat of our tour van, in between the driver and our tour guide, who tried to tell me a lot of things in broken English and Portuguese. There, I was able to experience my own personal waterfall as the van's air-conditioning system rained (and poured) on me the entire time to the falls.

The Argentinian side of Iguazu Falls was also incredible. The trails and viewpoints come significantly closer to the falls, and you get to experience, up close, just how awesome and powerful they really are. The 11 km of trails take you to viewing points directly over the Devil's Throat, the highest point and tallest drop, and to points next to the falls where, if you linger too long, you'll walk away completely drenched from the spray and mist surrounding the cascades. The roar from the plummeting water is deafening and you worry that you might get swept away as the viewing balconies shudder slightly below your feet. Definitely an experience I'll never forget.

Also... LOOK! These are like South American RACCOONS!!!