wet, wet, wet

getting wet on a boat
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We came to iguazu expecting tropical weather and wet waterfalls.  we certainly got wet on more than one occasion.  we arrived in sunshine and put the tent up in the light!!!  ate alot of barbequed meat for dinner, done by alex´s own fair hand this time.  next day dawned a little dull but we headed to the falls anyway.  on the way it started to rain and then it got harder and wetter and louder.  apparently it had been raining like this for about a week and so the falls were very high, so high that one of the viewing areas and one of the boat landing areas had been shut due to flooding, of course this made the falls all the more spectacular.  i have never seen so much water in one place.  the noise is deafening and we worried about the catwalks being washed away.  the pictures don´t do it justice.  we decided that the best course of action was to forget the rain and just get as wet as we could as many times as we could. first up was a boat ride, as one of the landing sites was shut we had to do the "full adventure" which included a truck ride through the jungle as well as the boat ride.  if you have the choice don´t bother with the truck bit, that is unless you have never seen sub-tropical trees before.  the boat ride, however, was exhilarating - it was a very fast jet boat and the driver delighted in bouncing us over the rapids, leaning us into the turns and of course getting us thoroughly soaked in teh spray from the falls.  our first soaking of the day, see photo.

winess the power
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we decided to have our next soaking th etraditional english way, by wandering around in the rain in inappropriate clothing.  next tourist stop was a ride on the "jungle train" to the gargantua del diablo, the biggest and most powerful of all the falls, and it lives up to the hype.  you walk across a long bridge over the upper river and then you hear the falls before you see them.  the catwalk hangs above the falls and if there wasn´t so much water you could see the bottom, as it was we were satisfied with watching the spray and being amazed by the power and noise,  we got thoroughly soaked again.  we thought we had been pretty close to the falls in the boat, turns out we hadn´t as there was no way a boat was getting anywhere near the bottom of these falls without being crushed.

the best course of action was to forget the rain and just get as wet as we could as many times as we could

beautiful, even in the rain
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next stop was the upper and lower paths through the jungle that get you really close to some of the smaller falls, although still bigger and better that any i´ve seen outside of iceland.  the views from the lower path in particular are stunning, see photo, and that was in the dull grey rain.  i can only imagine the effect of a deep blue sky with the sunlight being refracted through the spray (or buy a postcard).  we got very wet again - this time out of choice - see me waving in the photo.

getting wet in a waterfall
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after our wet day we were dissapointed but not overly surprised to find our tent a little damp, and not just on the outside.  luckily the campsite had some room so we movedin, took all our wet stuff with us and turned the heating up to max.  we got in just before the massive thunderstorm started - and it lasted for 2 days.  you are supposed to go over to brasil and see the falls from there as well, apperently the views are more panoramic, but we decided that they wouldn´t be all that panoramic in the rain and hung around puerto iguazu instead -eating more meat and hanging around cafes- whilst a chap put a new cam belt on our car.

now all we need is a barrel
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next day we started our long drive west towards salta.  stayed overnight in a non-descript, sport fishing based town.  finally we had left the tropical thunder behind and were under clear blue skies gain.  it was so nice not be all damp.