WOW!

Day 18

Taxi to bus station, public bus to Foz de Iguazu. Journey took about 7 hours on a so-so bus.

From the looks of things, we will be spending a lot of time in on buses and in bus depots over the next week. A lot of ground to cover.

Today, we once again entered Brazil, but it was quite quick and painless.

When we arrived in Foz, we checked into a very nice hotel, had supper there and crashed again. Tomorrow we go the falls - we are pretty hyped.

Day 19

This morning we went to the Brazilian side of the falls. The town of Foz de Iguazo is actually about 30 km from the falls themselves.

I did the optional helicopter ride over the falls first (Sue said she would wait till they had an ultra-lite option), then we spent the rest of the day just in awe, following the trails along the falls and taking a huge amount of pictures.

Every place you stop is magnificent. Hard to describe the sheer magnitude of these falls. From our memory, they surpass Victoria falls in Zimbabwe that we were fortunate enough to see some years ago.

The whole area is very well developed - well-maintained walkways that take you to the best places to see the falls. You can get good and wet if you want.

75% of the falls are on the Argentinian side of the chasm, so they can apparently best be appreciated as a whole from the Brazilian side.

Tomorrow we will be travelling to Argentina to see what they have to offer from their side.

In the evening, we went to a dinner and show in Foz de Iguazo. That was a real hoot too.

Day 20

Today, most of the group, including us, took the option of travelling to Argentina to see the falls from the other side.

Turns out they are even more impressive from there. You can get very up close and personal with the falls due to an extensive system of walkways and lookouts that get you right on the edge of the action.

Just to make things more fun, we took an optional speed boat ride, starting from a km downstream, blasting over the rapids to arrive at the base of the falls, Then we got thoroughly soaked as they take the boat right into the falls themselves. Very intense. Fortunately, they warned us in advance so we could put cameras and any other items we wanted into some plastic bags before we went under. In the hot sun (about 34 C), our clothes eventually dried out too.

Again, we spent an entire day just following the trails, at the most up-stream point literally crossing a km of river on walkways to get to the head of the falls.

To get from one end of the falls to the other, there is a small,extremely slow, train.

Instead of the train on the way back, we opted for floating down the river in a raft. Took about an hour and was a fitting end to our time at Iguazo. Argentina is at least as oganized on their side of the falls as Brazil, but offer a few more adventure type of options, like hiking, etc. There is also a very ritzy Sheriton hotel right inside the park - maybe next time.

It is a tough call to say which has been a bigger hi-lite for use, Machu Pichuu or Iguazo. I am glad we did not have to choose between them.

At the end of the day, we did not stay in the hotel, but rather caught an overnight bus to the city of Curitiba. A 10-hour bus ride on a reasonably nice bus. Did manage to get some sleep.

Day 21

Arrived in Curitiba at 7 AM, took taxis to the hotel which, surprisingly, had rooms ready for us.

We had breakfast and just toured around by foot.

Curitiba is one of the most prosperous and oganized cities in Brazil. Population is 1.5 million and is situated about 850 kms south of Rio de Janeiro.

Very modern and busy city, especially as this is the last Saturday before Christmas. Temperature here is a bit more moderate, probably in the mid to high 20s during the day, and cooler at night. We are doing a bit of shopping (mostly the window variety).

NOTE: Very fast internet access here.

Tomorrow we leave on yet another 6-hours bus ride to Sao Paulo.

Apparently Santa is on his way...