Iguazu Falls (Iguazú Falls, Iguassu Falls, Iguaçu Falls, or Yguazú Falls)

Puerto Iguazu, Misiones, Argentina
Foz do Iguassu, Parana, Brazil
Rating: 5     Difficulty: 1

Iguazu Falls (or more accurately Iguazú Falls) is the Spanish name (Argentina) for this mammoth waterfall. You might also see it referred to as Iguassu Falls or Iguaçu Falls if you favor the portugese name (Brazil). Moreover, you might also see it referred to as Yguazú Falls, which I believe is native Guaraní. In fact, the meaning of the name (originally Guaraní) is said to roughly translate to "big water." The photo you see at the top of this page certainly attests to its grand nature.

But no matter how you spell or say its name, we have to say that it is indeed a crazy waterfall.

How crazy, you might ask?

Consider a network of 275 different waterfalls spanning an area 3km wide (2km of which is the upper rim of the waterfall) during its normal flow of around 1000 cubic meters per second. It is such a natural wonder that UNESCO designated the falls as a World Heritage Area in 1986.

Yet as a result of its grandeur, Julie and I were so overwhelmed with the raw human emotion of excitement and wonder during our visit that even the implications of these gaudy numbers seem to be dwarfed. Indeed, it's one of those waterfalls that you just have to experience for yourself!

Sitting on the Iguazú River, it is shared by Argentina and Brazil as both countries are separated by the river. Catwalks are built on both sides providing closer (often times mistier and wetter) views of the great waterfall.

From what we could tell, during normal flow, the Iguazu River consists of two main parts. These components are the Devil's Throat section and what I'm calling the Argentina section.

The part of Iguazu Falls with the largest volume of water is the narrow horseshoe of the Devil's Throat (La Garganta del Diablo). This is the portion of the falls that is split between Argentina and Brazil. It is also the most recognizable and powerful section of this world attraction.

The Argentina section is the part containing numerous segmented waterfalls as a result of islands (the largest of which is the San Martin Island, or La Isla San Martín) splitting up the river. And as suggested by the name I made up for this part, all of these islands are on the Argentina side.

Most of these segmented waterfalls and cascades have names. Just to give you an idea of how many named waterfalls make up this Argentina section, we've identified signs pointing out Salto San Martín, Salto Eva, Salto Adán, Salto Bossetti (very impressive), Salto Dos Hermanas, Salto Alvar Nuñez, Salto Guardaparque Bernabé Mendez, Salto Mbigua, Salto Chico, Salto Rivadavía, Salto Escondido, and Salto Lanusse. I'm sure there are others we didn't even mention.

As far as we were concerned, what made this mega waterfall so special was that it felt like it was in Nature where it belonged. Sure the catwalks and jet boat tours (along with Brazilian helicopters) could take away from the Nature, but it was certainly more natural than one of the rival waterfalls like say Niagara Falls.

Still with that being said, there was certainly no shortage of activities to do here besides walking the catwalks and soaking in the overlooks. We engaged in a couple of of these excursions (including a thrilling boat ride), which you can read about here.

Speaking of catwalks, they afforded us various ways to view and experience Iguazu Falls. Argentina had most of the catwalks while Brazil's walks mostly focused on panoramas of the Argentinean side as well as closeups of the thunderous Devil's Throat. We spent a good deal of time walking the main catwalk trails, which were called Paseo Superior (the upper catwalks) and Paseo Inferior (the lower catwalks). We even caught a short train ride that took us to a catwalk to the brink of Devil's Throat (known as El Paseo de La Garganta del Diablo). On the last day of our visit, we had some limited time exploring the catwalks and trails on San Martin Island after taking a short boat ride.

Since we were based on the Argentina side during our three day visit, we gave ourselves enough time to spend at least a half-day visiting the Brazil side. It was here that we got to look across the Iguazu River while also getting a closer and more frontal look at the turbulent and impressive Devil's Throat.

Perhaps, you may have a preference on which side to spend most of your visit or to stay. We did a more in-depth comparison of the Argentina side versus the Brazil side, which you can read about here.

And with all this going on, we even saw some wildlife such as the banded-tailed coaties (they seemed to have become accustomed to being fed or digging for trash), birds like various species of parrot and toucans, and butterflies of many different colors. I understand that there are even predatory cats like the Jaguar as well as the Puma and Ocelot though I'd imagine sightings of these majestic lords of the jungle would be pretty rare.

Throughout the year, Iguazu Falls can be seen in various states depending on its waterflow as well as how the seasons can affect its surroundings. We made an attempt to summarize our findings in this writeup, which can get to by clicking here.

Indeed there are many ways to experience the falls. Heck, if the timing's right, you could even do special tours of the falls by moonlight (something I wish we could've done)! But in any case, what's mentioned on this page merely scratches the surface of how you can spend your time here. Check out the photos below to see more of the mighty Iguazu Falls...

Directions: There are many ways of getting to Iguazu Falls. If you're interested in reading about our accounts of how we managed to get to the falls, you can read about it in this writeup by clicking here.

And at least for foreign visitors like us, we also wrote up a guide detailing the logistics of how we managed to handle some of the less glamorous aspects of enabling a visit to the falls such as Visas, money changing, etc., which you can read about here.




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PHOTO JOURNAL

Our first glimpse of the falls

Getting closer to the falls

View from the end of El Paseo Superior (the upper trail on the Argentina side)

Looking down at the lower catwalk (Paseo Inferior)

Focused on a trio of thick falls

Looking over one of the falls towards the jungle

Banded-tail coaties looking to be fed

Salto Alvar Nuñez

Looking down at one of the lower Salto Bossetti Lookouts

Distant view of the Devil's Throat

It can get a little crowded at some of the overlooks

A closeup look at Salto Bossetti

Salto Chico

Salto Dos Hermanas

Catwalk leading to the brink of Devil's Throat

Looking right across La Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat) from the Argentina side

Looking right across the river towards the Argentina side

One of the boat tours dwarfed by the falls

One of the falls tumbling from San Martin Island as seen from Brazilian side

Looking into the Devil's Throat from a busy overlook on the Brazilian side

The immense scale of Iguazu Falls

Lots of mist on the catwalks

Looking down at a boat about to get drenched

View of the misty mess while on the boat tour

Boat getting drenched beneath Salto San Martin

View of Salto Bossetti from the lower overlook

Another look from the Paseo Superior. This time in sunnier weather

Palm trees framing Iguazu Falls on the Argentina side from a very popular lookout spot

Sun bathers on San Martin Island

Wall of water as seen from the catwalk on San Martin Island

The gushing Salto San Martin

View from Isla San Martin

Salto Escondido

We noticed these big birds near Salto Escondido just before we grudgingly had to leave for home


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VIDEOS OF THE FALLS

Sweep of the turbulent Devil's Throat (Garganta del Diablo) as seen from the Argentina side


Sweep of the waterfall starting from the Brazilian side beginning from Isla San Martin and moving towards the Devi's Throat (Garganta del Diablo).


View from the top of the observation tower on the Brazilian side


Sweep of the Argentina side of Iguazu Falls as seen from La Isla San Martin


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MAP OF THE FALLS

View Larger Map




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TRIP REPORTS

For more information about our experiences with this waterfall, check out the following travel stories.

• August 30, 2007 to September 3, 2007

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GUIDEBOOKS / OTHER RESOURCES

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NEARBY WATERFALLS

• Salto Arrechea

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[Go to the Argentina Waterfalls Page]

[Go to the Latin America Page]


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