Iguazu Falls and Rio Week One

On July 14 Abram, Gail and I left Buenos Aires to see Iguazu Falls. At the Three Borders Mark in Foz do Iguaçu you can stand at the unique meeting point between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. As the Iguazu River flows down from Iguaçu Falls it converges with the Paraná River to form one of only a few places in the world where two rivers create a border between three nations.

Iguazú is considered one of the seven wonders of nature, and is a series of waterfalls. With more than 275 individual waterfalls, the Iguazú Falls are the most extensive waterfall system in the world.

We spent two days there, the first day on the Argentina side and the second day on the Brazil side. The waters flow from the Argentina side and there is an incredible construction of raised metal walkways that stretch across the tops of the falls. The noise and power of the thundering water under your feet is astounding! On the Brazil side you can look across and see the falls stretched out in front of you from across the divide. On the Argentina side you are up close and personal.

There are national parks on both sides of the falls, too. A bird sanctuary on the Brazil side. And animals in the forest/jungle.

At the hotel on the Brazilian side we tasted cachaça, the alcohol that is the base of the popular Brazilian drink the caipirinha. We tasted it neat and it was delicious. It's made from fermented sugarcane juice and lots of people say it tastes like somewhere between rum and tequila.

Some photos and videos from the Argentinian side. The two still photos aren't mine, but they give a good sense of the walkways.

The next video was taken by Abram at the Garganta del Diablo, the Devil's Throat. You take a little train then walk to get to that part of the falls.

Day two, from the Brazilian side. Our hotel was inside the park and had views of the falls from its grounds and tower.

These videos barely express the totality of the experience!

We took an evening flight at the end of the second day, winging us to Rio de Janeiro.

Flying Down to Rio! (Apparently this movie featured the first screen pairing of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.) We'd booked our first three nights in a nice hotel with its own beach, just south of the main part of Rio. Our plan was to look around, get the lay of the land, decide whether to stay in Rio for a while or explore other beach towns/cities in Brazil.

The hotel property is built into the side of one of the crazy vertical granite hills/mountains that surround Rio.

Abram's cousin lived in Rio and pointed us to the neighborhood of Leblon, next to Ipanema. We decided to spend the following few nights in town and booked a large apartment for the three of us, since Gail was with us for 8 days in Brazil. However... sometimes things are "Extra Chuy" (see previous Uruguay blog) and we needed to get out of there fast, in the evening, in the pouring rain. It had been pouring rain all day, with a series of misadventures which culminated in this truly bad apartment. Abram remembered that he'd seen a small hotel a couple of blocks away so we rolled our bags through the storm around the corner to the Ritz Rio (no, not that Ritz, but very comfortable) for the night.

We still needed a place for the next 3 nights with Gail, in or near Rio since she was flying out of the Rio airport. In our searches we kept seeing Barra de Tijuca, which turned out to be suburb south of Rio on a 12-mile-long beach with a lovely lagoon and the insanely high and picturesque mountain Pedra de Gávea in its backyard.

The mountain from the roof of our hotel.

The mountain covered in fog.

Gail enjoying some agua de coco at our beach kiosk in Barra.

Evening horseback riding on the beach in Barra.

A Carioca friend of Abram's cousin suggested we go a bit further south down the coast to Praia Prainha, a small picturesque beach. We taxied down there and spent a nice day - it's truly lovely, backs up to a park, has a couple of little food kiosks, very chill.

Always a granite peak in view.

We had a fun informal taxi ride back to Barra, charming fellow who spoke great English, drives a car fueled with natural gas, and told us about his two honeymoons to Buenos Aires.

There's another small beach just south of Praiha, Grumari, which is apparently even more beautiful. We will definitely head back down there one of these days!

And so, we bid farewell to Gail (she kindly brought us some supplies from the US and carried back some clothing we didn't need ❤️), and Abram and I decided that Rio seems like a fabulous place to spend a winter month. We've booked an apartment in Leblon for the next four weeks. Pretty excited about it!

With winter like this who needs summer?

Sunday on Leblon Beach!

Now to learn some basic Portuguese - what a beautiful language.

Adeus por não.