Iguazu Falls on the Brazil side

We wanted to explore the Brazil side of the Iguaçu (Iguazu) falls today and the first bus was 0810.  I set the alarm for 0650 so we could make the second bus at 0830 in a relaxed manner.  It had been raining and when we checked while eating our oats and dried fruit, it felt cold.  Forecast was for a max of 16 degrees so I put on longs and shoes, and put on an extra layer.

We walked to the nearby bus station and made it just in time for the 0810 bus.  We were at the Brazil falls’ visitor centre at 0900 since immigration at both countries were quiet and swift.  The queues were already long but very fast-moving which saw us on a bus in about 15 minutes.

After a freezing ride in the cool wet weather in the open-sided bus, we alighted from the bus at the third stop where the track began for Devils Throat.  At first, we were disappointed looking over to the falls on the far side.  It seemed like a trickle and there was an island in the way; from the Argentine side next day we realised that the trickle wasn’t so little from close-up and the island did obscure a lot of the view.

It was better further along with concrete walkway across the waters taking us to a good view of the Devil’s Throat.  The walk on the Brazilian side finished with a lift up to street level where there were facilities and some food.  There were more eateries further along where the return bus service started from.  Prices were highly inflated (I think, I don’t have an understanding of Brazilian prices from my few hours in the country).  In particular, chips (fries) were ridiculously expensive and we wondered if there was some sort of fat tax but couldn’t find anything on the internet about this.

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We were “done” with our sightseeing by 1030 and settled down for a cuppa tea before taking the bus back to the park entrance.  Fortunately the bus was enclosed on the lower level where we were seated so we didn’t have to suffer the cold again.  Googling it later, I realised that we were at the same latitude at Brisbane which explained how it could be so warm and so cold all within 24 hours.

The buses back to the Argentine side didn’t show up per the schedule.  We waited with another cuppa for a total of around 50 minutes until it turned up around 1220.  The crossing back wasn’t as simple as the crowds had built up by now.

The Brazilian side queue was slow and it was one desk processing entry and exit (you have to tell them where you’re going).  Seems a bit haphazard (and there was no customs, only immigration when we entered).  The Argentine side was well-staffed but with the customs x-ray scanner, it was a little more involved.  This saw us back in our town of Puerto Iguazu around 1330.  Despite the higher volume of people, the overall journey was only about 15 minutes more than our outbound one bright and early this morning.

I had found the Brazil side park management to be very impressive.  It was Disney-like in terms of housekeeping, facilities and queue management.

We hadn’t been hungry for a few days now.  We’re not used to rich cheesy and meaty food. So for lunch we went to a buffet-per-kilo place attached to the bus station and had a little meat and lots of veges.

After a restful afternoon, we wandered out again.  Kim had caught a bit of a cold from our free walking tour in Buenos Aires.  The weather here was cool and damp.  To make matters worse, the room temperature was similar to the outside temperature which meant the air-conditioning didn’t work well in drying it out unless we made it much hotter or colder.  So it was good to come out into the fresh air.

We had a dinner of a cheap parilla (where a part of the meat was bony and fatty), an included salad and a tortellini.  I was secretly pleased when the included chips didn’t turn up as we had been having too much bad food lately.