Finally the falls!

In case you didn't know, there are some very famous falls called Iguazu Falls (Cataratas de Iguazu in Spanish and Foz de Iguazu in Portuguese) right near the border of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil.  I had heard about these falls some 20+ years ago when I was on a youth orchestra tour in South America.  Well, for various reasons it took me a long time to organize a trip there, but last weekend we finally went.  

 Devil's Throat - the first sight that we went to see.

 The reason that these falls are so famous is that they go on forever.  I didn't really capture the sense of being surrounded by water that we felt while being there, but hopefully these give you a little bit of an idea.

 One of the reasons that it took a while to plan the trip was that I was determined to see both sides of the falls (Argentinian and Brazilian) after waiting so long to see them.  This involved two border crossings and getting visas for Brazil (we had gotten Argentinian visas before our arrival in Paraguay).  In Argentina, you walk around the falls, as you can see from the first seven photos.

On the Brazilian side you get more of a from the distance, panoramic view:

To further complicate our plans, we found out the first hotel we booked wasn't on the approved list of Paraguayan hotels, so a few days before we left we had to change hotels.  Then, we found out that it was supposed to rain two of our three days at the falls.  We changed plans AGAIN and, as you can see, we had beautiful weather.  However, we ended up seeing the Brazilian side on a Monday, when apparently they divert some of the water to the hydroelectric dams.  There was noticeably less water on Monday, but the shots below were taken on the low water day!  Some of the panoramic falls looked less full, but there was plenty of water at Devil's Throat.  And, interestingly, Arianna preferred the less full waterfalls, so even the lack of water was good in her opinion!

All in all, a great trip which I will long remember.