Iguazu Falls

You can't be cynical about this place - no matter how hard you try

It can't be denied - all nature is awe inspiring.  Perhaps more so if you've had piles of acid.  And who hasn't spent hours examining a pebble after even half a tab?...... - but there has been a hand full of instances where the sheer beauty of the world has brought me to my knees.  And the first sight of this waterfall was one of them.  Not literally though, it's pretty muddy around here, and the mud is that brownish red sort that doesn't match any of my outfits.

I am moved

Apparently these little shits give you rabies

Loving their new "pet"

I'd seen pictures in a travel book, I'd imagined coming here - but it seemed so out of our way.  Totally in the opposite direction of where we were headed.  Whenever we can't be fucked to do something, or just can't work out the logistic to get to a place....or are too tight (more the point) - we always offer the same lame excuse - you've got to save something for next time.  Initially this pissed me off when Chalks used to drop it all the time, but I've since found it useful to cover up my own slackness.  Spend all day in bed instead of going to the biggest festival in town on a perfect day?????  "Oh well, gotta save something for next time.....".  It's stupid really.  Whatever happened to "live in the moment" and "Carpe diem"????......gone the same way that protesting for the Tarkine and doing hair braids at various hippie festivals did I guess.  These days, if I can't do it sitting on my arse, I'm not interested.  This would explain a couple of things - #1 Why I waste a lot of opportunities, and #2 Why my butt is so big.

Road trip shot

Our decision to come here took us both by surprise.  We were headed south - perhaps destined for Florianópolis (we were unsure).  We drove out of the urban decay of São Paulo - it only took us 2 hours to clear the city limits - but at last we were on the road.  To be honest, we could have been in Australia.  Gum trees, rolling green hills reminiscent of the NSW end of the stretch of road between the Gold Coast and Byron Bay.  To be more honest, it was a pain.  There was a lot of road works, a lot of trucks and a lot of fucking around.  We made it to our pit stop late that night.  Curitiba - apparently a charming city, but we didn't really give it the time of day.  We decided that night to fuck off Florianópolis after seeing a few obnoxious resort type places online, and also finding out that any half decent hotels banned children under the age of 14.  Don't blame them, I would too.  But it did bring home the realisation that any hotel that allowed children must suck.  Look I know that resorts have their merits - e.g free babysitting from the kids clubs. people in uniforms kissing your arse.  But seriously, the rest of it just doesn't make up for that brief pleasure.  I'm putting it out there - I loathe family resorts.  With their buffet of slops, their five shitty pools, and other people's screaming brats.  Mine are bad enough, and I love them more than anything I could ever imagine.  I'd die for the little cunts and I still hate 'em.

Muffins

We hatched a cunning plan.  To drive inland - to Iguazu Falls - or should I say - Cataratas do Iguaçu. Perhaps I shouldn't - my Portuguese is completely unintelligible.  I only just realised I'd been saying the masculine form of thank you for days now, and even that was badly pronounced.  It would be like if some idiot went around saying the only English word they knew with a stupid grin on their face, and pronouncing it "Thunkoo".   Anyway, according to googlemaps it was 500 odd km from our current location.  So we scoffed at the bellboy when he suggested we had 10 hours of road to look forward to.  But the righteous prick was on the money.  It was indeed a long long day.  But perhaps not as terrifying as many Internet chicken-shits would have you believe.  Google search "driving in Brazil", and the common consensus is "DON'T".  Apparently you need to watch out for the world's most dangerous drivers, car jackers - that make it impossible to ever stop at a red light,  the military police sticking guns in your face unless you throw piles of cash at them, and roads so bad they are impossible to pass without 6 spare tyres, a tool kit and a friendly Brazilian mechanic on speed dial.  Unfortunately, I am the "believe everything I read type".  Chalky often laughs at my insistence that everything I have read online is true.  But it is - I saw with my own eyes the x-ray of the eel stuck up the Chinese man's arse - the one that chewed though the colon and had to be surgically removed.  That will teach him not to try and emulate porn in real life.  But then again, I thought all porn was real too.......

So after reading all the travel "advice" late at night from a bunch of gutless fear mongers, I became infected.  I actually cried, and accused Chalks of leading us into annihilation.  Luckily by morning, (and further Internet reading - shhhhhhh) - I'd come to my senses.  The road trip was back on.  And let me just say, that the southern interior of Brazil, has great roads, friendly people, no excess amount of cops, and the toilets in the service station are about 200 times cleaner than any in Europe.  Plus my imaginings of jungle, shanty towns and the odd python were way off.  What we saw were farming lands, large cities and no rubbish whatsoever strewn by the side of the highway.  I was actually disappointed.  Call me an environmental degrader, but I was trying for 150 km to find a stretch of highway I could throw some mango skins wrapped in a piece of newspaper.  There was nothing else to cushion the piff.  Not one solitary item that shouldn't be there.  I couldn't bring myself to be an littering oath.  I hate people like myself.  I couldn't sink to my own level.  Not to be the first to add human wastage to a pristine stretch of busy highway.  I held onto my filth until it leaked all over the floor and now our car will stink of fermented fruit forever.  I say "our" car, but it's not, so sucked in Hertz.

Not a bad spot for a hotel......

But by god we made it.  After a fair few service stations - one inspired by the ranch theme with cow heads all over the walls, a dozen saddles proudly displayed, various types of bovine skins all over the floor.  Anyway, chuck in some night driving through road works with maniac trucks belting straight for you, and we were here.  We were staying in the only hotel actually built in the National Park.  Although we initially thought it must have been an old plantation manor recently turned into a hotel, we were wrong - it was built as an hotel about 50 years ago and renovated a multitude of times ever since.  I have no idea how they managed to build a hotel so close to the waterfall.  But they did, and we were staying there, and it was glorious.  The next day it was absolutely pissing down, so we did what any self respecting slackers would do.  Stayed inside and watched Game of Thrones.  We've only just discovered it, and things are heating up between the Starks and The Lannisters, so who gives a shit about a massive series of waterfalls that border Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.  I was almost disappointed when it stopped raining.  It meant I would have to do something.  Luckily we didn't have to walk far.  Stand at the door and it hits you in the face. Literally.  The spray wafts over the landscape, so that you feel like it is always spitting with a light shower.  It took us until this afternoon to work out it had been the spray all along.  The first glimpse of the falls was a seriously good moment.  A once in a lifetime kind of view.

It's been a long time since we saw the sun

The following day was blue skies.  I got my babies sunburnt for the first time ever (Gooooooo Emily) - and then that afternoon we all took an adventure trip by boat into the falls.  And I do mean into.  We had been told we would get wet.  I just underestimated the extent of it,  As the speedboat absolutely fanged it up the rapids - bouncing this way and that, Chalks and I exchanged glances of discomfort that perhaps we were leading our babies into an extreme circumstance.  Nobody had cautioned us against taking them though, so we assumed that all would be well.  Valli was already screeching with excitement, while Cordi had her face hidden in fear.  I'm sure my screaming when the captain drove us straight into the waterfall didn't help matters.  He drove it in three times - actually the last time he backed it in, and we were sitting at the back, so that was an experience not to be missed if you feel like taking the world's largest shower fully clothed.  I have never been so wet in my life.  The water was pounding us from above, and breaking over us like in waves from the sides.  The massive torrents, and the spray made it impossible to see anything.  Plus it was a noisy as hell.   It was fucking fantastic though.  For Valli, Chalks and myself.  I think Cordi has been traumatised for life.  As we sped away, she lay sobbing on the seat under a dry towel that Chalks had ingeniously wrapped in a plastic bag and brought along.  It was relief when she started talking again once we got off the boat.  She seems fine tonight and actually claims she is brave and happy that we went under the waterfall.  She didn't like seeing the video footage though.  I'm not surprised.

Heading up river

Dry and naively excited

Where are you bastards taking me?

Getting closer

Almost in

I forced Chalky to buy the footage that the adventure company took of us going under the waterfall.  I know those things are a rip off, but I watched the DVD after we dried off, and it really looked like we were having a great time.  This was opposed to the shaky movie Chalky made with our cheap camera inside a plastic bag.  I could hardly watch it.  Basically it was like this - Chalky yelling "We're going in the waterfall", me screaming bloody murder, Cordi howling her eyes out, with her head all wet, hair plastered to her face and lying on the boat's seat, and Valli going from excited joy to a bulging eyed look of fear, as a giant wall of water engulfed her.  It's the kind of footage people find after you die and say "Here was the Family Korman's last terrified moments on earth".  It was damning. I lay awake that night imagining the Today Tonight story to accompany the scary movie.....it began something like this:
"It was meant to be the trip of a lifetime, but excitement soon turned to horror when a boat capsized under the Iguazu Waterfalls in Brazil, tearing a family apart and sending two little girls to their deaths beneath the raging rapids....as the following footage will show you.....In the face of such disaster, many of us ask - how could the parents put their child's lives at risk in this way?".

My imagination is far too vivid, too dramatic, and much too gory......

Purple at sunset

So, we were going to drive on tomorrow, but we like it here, so we are staying another night.  The hotel is comfy, the people friendly and scene chilled.  Plus we have one of the most stunning views on the planet on our door step.  We watched the falls from a much more chilled vantage point at sunset tonight, after all the tourists had been booted out of the park for the night.  Amazing, beautiful, stunning, incredible.  All those sorts of adjectives.  Maybe we'll just move in permanently.

Pretty

More pretty

I'll never forget this view - Cordi much happier from above too

Orange glow

Magic