IGUAZU FALLS

STAGE 3 of 6: Monday 7th – Wednesday 9th April 2025

Those of you that have been reading the blog for a while will know that Dave and I like to visit the filming locations of James Bond movies.

There have only been a few of the suave spy franchise set in South America, most notably ‘Moonraker’, which included a few scenes filmed at Iguazú Falls. When we were in early stages of planning this holiday, we added the location to our list!

Will and Emma also wanted to visit the falls, always keen to witness somewhere considered one of the wonders of the world, in this case named as one of the Seven New Natural Wonders of the Modern World in 2011.

The magnificent Iguazu falls system boasts around 275 individual falls. Incredibly, Iguazu is the largest waterfall system in the world, at 82 meters high and 2.7km wide. This natural phenomenon is a sight to behold, and UNESCO named it a World Heritage Site in 1984. The surrounding landscape is also really beautiful, with areas of National Park on either side of the river.

Having seen Victoria Falls during our visit to Zimbabwe last year, our expectations were super high – as that magical place blew us all away.

MONDAY

Our flight from Buenos Aires took just under two hours, this time flying Jetsmart. All of the other internal flights on this holiday have been (and will be) with Latam Airlines (my quest for Qantas points knows no bounds!)

Apart from the very long queue to check-in, the airline was quite good – with a fairly new A330 plane and pleasant staff.

Dave had organised a guide, Edson, to pick us up at the airport and look after us for our couple of days here.

Iguazú falls is unique in lots of ways, including that it is the border between Argentina and Brazil and just a short distance from the border to Paraguay. In fact, you can stand on a corner in Argentina and see across the river to both Paraguay and Brazil.

Not wanting to pass up on an opportunity to visit a new country (118 for Dave), our first stop for the day after we landed in Puerto Iguazú (on the Argentinian side of the falls) was Ciudad Del Este which is a town just over the border into Paraguay.

Edson told us lots of information about the area as we drove the 30 minutes or so first to the border with Brazil, and then through the city of Foz do Iguacu to the large bridge which crosses the Parana River over to Paraguay. He was originally considering walking us over the bridge, given it is usually very busy on a Monday as trucks can’t cross on a Sunday which concertinas the traffic into Monday’s.

When he saw that the traffic was moving quite well, he drove to the back of the queue. Over the next hour he apologised a number of times in reasonable English, ‘I made a bad decision’. My toes were still pretty sore, so I personally I thought it was a great decision!

Paraguay is a popular destination for people from across the border for very few reasons apart from shopping. The country is tax free and taxes in both Argentina and Brazil are quite high, meaning this border city is a great place to grab a bargain.

We saw very little apart from brightly lit shopping malls (full mostly of electronics, perfume and clothes) and street side stalls selling more of the same, plus the odd Paraguayan snack like ‘Chipa’.

After a short, guided wander with Edson we got back in his Fiat and retraced our route – back over one border into Brazil then another into Argentina where we had booked two nights Airbnb accommodation.

After four nights’ staying in a 3-star Ibis Hotel in Buenos Aires (which I consider ‘famine’ although there was nothing at all wrong with it), I had made a last-minute change and chose a slightly bigger home with a pool. Perhaps the original place may have been worse, but this was definitely not the pick of our accommodation so far. Our arrival instructions told us not to swim in the pool unless we had our own towels; the hot water was anything but; the ‘movie room’ was not a patch on our own (the sound regularly cut out); the shower leaked; and the dishwasher didn’t work, which wouldn’t have been a problem except for the aforementioned lack of hot water; and no plug for the sink!

Argentina definitely feels like the poor cousin in this border region, but we were pleased we were only a short stroll from ‘eat street’ and the price for the 2-bedroom house was still very reasonable at less than $200 a night for the four of us.

After a big day, we decided to eat in, a simple spaghetti bol for those of us that like it, and cornflakes and toast for that person who doesn’t!

TUESDAY

Edson arrived a few minutes early for our arranged 9am pickup, and we set off in the light rain for our day of exploring the Argentinian side of Iguazu Falls.

After parking the car, buying tickets and then catching a small tourist train, we arrived at the start of the walk to the falls. Thankfully my toes were feeling a little better, as we ended up walking just shy of 15,000 steps. Even though the rain persisted, it did not dampen our reaction to seeing the magnificence of the falls. We had worn our spray jackets, plus Edson had given us light raincoats with hoods to wear. I was pretty happy to be wearing the spray jackets… seems odd but I’ve taken them around the world with me and so often they never leave the suitcase, but we have worn them a few times already on this trip! Suitcase space is at a premium, and I hate wasting it!

In total we walked three trails to get differing views of the falls, each giving us a unique perspective. I didn’t walk all of the second trail due to lots of steps and a throbbing toe (due to bumping it on the first one) but managed to get through the third which at one spot took us right over the edge of a waterfall – so amazing and so beautiful!

On the way back to the Airbnb Edson took us to the spot where you can see three countries at once (Three Country Corner).

We had dropped a very large load of dirty clothes to a laundromat not far from the house on the way out to the falls, and it was cleaned, folded and ready for us to pick up at about 5pm as we came back into town. How nice is it to have a suitcase full of clean, and particularly nice smelling clothes, whatever soap they used smelt wonderful!

Tuesday night’s dinner choice for Dave was again cereal and toast while Will, Emma and I headed to the nearby ‘eat street’ for a Mexican place we had sighted the night before. We briefly donned the obligatory Sombrero, ordered a drink (Mojito rather than Margarita – not fond of Tequila) and our dinner and had settled in eating our corn chip and salsa snack when we were suddenly plunged into darkness. The kitchen staff must be well used to it as our main course of tacos and burritos arrived soon after, which we ate by phone-torch light.

The whole town was mostly in darkness, with only a few spots in town with power – I assume they had generators to manage in these situations. Luckily one of the places with power was an ice cream shop – so a dulce de leche gelato (me) and a chocolate version (Emma) was enjoyed before we walked home to check on Dave who had been sitting in the dark for an hour or so!

WEDNESDAY

While we arrived by air into the Argentinian side of the falls, we had booked our flights on to Rio de Janeiro from the Brazilian side. That way it was a domestic flight, making it both cheaper and easier. The other consideration was that Brazil has recently instigated visas again for Canadian, US and Australian citizens, which comes into effect on the 10th of April, so we wanted to make sure we were in Brazil before then. The visas are $180 per person, so avoidance was preferred! (Why we are lumped in with the US on what is considered a ‘retaliatory action’ I am not sure).

In Moonraker, James Bond is chased by Jaws and his henchmen with the chase culminating in Bond ejecting from his boat moments before it plunges over the falls, while Jaws’ boat is seen tipping over the edge. While some of the movie was actually filmed in Pinewood Studios (UK) many of the scenes were filmed on the Brazilian side of the falls.

Edson picked us up again at 9am, and that’s where we headed. Edson lives on the Brazilian side of the border so he may have been a bit biased, but he promised us that the view from there was even more impressive. So armed with a recent watch of the relevant scenes from Moonraker, we arrived at the National Park and walked a short distance to the first viewing point.

Unfortunately, when we were packing up the house before leaving, I had whacked my sore toes on the leg of the bed. It was actually more painful than the original injury and I would be surprised if the neighbours didn’t hear my reaction. Edson therefore suggested that he drive me to the top of the second viewing location – but the younger ones walked to it and apparently saw quite a bit of fauna along the way, including the native Coati.

The water levels are actually very low at the moment, but as we didn’t have anything to compare it to it still seemed very impressive to me. A combination of lower-than-usual rainfall this wet season, plus the hydroelectricity stations upstream controlling the flow has meant that the waterfalls were flowing at around 2,000 cubic meters per second. During the rainy season over summer, the flow rate can surge to as much as 12,750 m³/s.

Edson dropped us about 1pm to the airport, where we easily checked in, passed through security (Dave and I got sent to the old persons ‘priority’ line… hmm) then had Subway for lunch before boarding our flight.

If we had flown home after two amazing weeks visiting Chile and Argentina (and Uruguay and Paraguay), I would not have been disappointed. This is certainly a trip of a lifetime and something I will never forget, of course made extra special because of Will and Emma getting engaged, but also because of all the amazing things we have seen and done (and eaten). I can’t believe we still have so much to do. I’m drafting this just before boarding the plane with our next stop Rio De Janeiro (via São Paulo). We have five nights in the famous city and I’m really looking forward to unpacking for a bit and settling in.

I’m also hoping that by the time we leave Rio the ear-worm song by Peter Allen has disappeared from my head. I literally can’t say or think the word ‘Rio’ without a brief rendition (occasionally accompanied by dancing) 😉

I’ll write again after our time in in the city that was nicknamed “The Best Nightlife City in the World” by Time Out. Not sure we will be having many late nights as we are pretty tired, but its Dave’s birthday tomorrow (10th April), so we might celebrate a little 🎂.