Friday, March 8: We had a nice breakfast buffet in the hotel, all sorts of breads, cold cuts, cheeses, and fruits - even scrambled eggs. And of course, fresh squeezed orange juice. Wilson picked us up at eight and drove us directly to the Brazilian Consulate in Puerto Iguazu. It was a tiny building and kind of shabby looking. Wilson spoke Portuguese, which may have helped. In any event, the Consul gave us applications to fill out. We then went with Wilson to have passport photos taken. We had the visas within 15 minutes after getting back to the consulate. Wilson charged us a total of $15 for taking us to the Consulate. That certainly was a bargain, although we all understood that, once we got the visas, we would have Wilson take us to view the falls from the Brazilian side for $40 each (versus $10 each for the same tour by bus).

As we crossed the bridge over the Iguazu River between Argentina and Brazil, we could see Paraguay just a few hundred yards downstream where the borders of the three countries meet. Once inside Brazil, Wilson took us to the Cataratas Hotel, a beautiful colonial style building we could see from our hotel across the river. It had an impressive location, but there was no view of the falls from any of the rooms. Then we took the walk along the river, looking across at the Iguazu Falls on the Argentine side. Although the falls had been spectacularly beautiful from the Argentine side, there was an entirely different perspective from Brazil. We could see much wider vistas of the falls at one time, although never the entire falls. 

They could be seen in three main groupings. Just opposite the Cataratas Hotel were the tremendous double falls (in two steps) curving around San Martin Island. A little further along, there were several single falls one after the other. Finally, we came to the Devil's Throat. 

Double falls seen from Brazil (San Martin Island on the left)

Looking upriver from Brazil side toward the Devil's Throat

Approaching the walkway leading to the middle of  the river

The walk had been descending gradually as we went in that direction and, by the time we got to the Devil's Throat, we were only a few feet above the river. At that point there was a walkway out into the river and nearly to the center of the Devil's Throat. The spray was very heavy, so Jane rented a yellow rain slicker to walk out there. I declined and got soaking wet.

From the walkway the view of the Devil's Throat was awesome, although it was difficult to keep one's eyes open in the face of the heavy spray. Of course, it was impossible to take any pictures. The view downstream from the walkway was quite spectacular, too. From the bank, we also got some excellent shots of the one waterfall inside Brazil.

See who wore the slicker?

See who got soaking wet?

The one waterfall inside Brazil

In the souvenir shop at the end of the walk, we finally found the postcard we had been looking for, with an aerial view of the falls. We bought ten of them. Wilson met us at the elevator back to the level of the road. He drove us to the Bird Park, which turned out not to be a National Park, as we had been led to believe, but a private bird zoo. We saw just about all the birds native to the area, but even more that were from elsewhere in the southern hemisphere, especially New Zealand. The toucans, with their giant bills, were the probably most interesting birds. The local parakeets came in many colors, too, and were larger than pigeons. There was one parakeet that knew Wilson and would pick a cigarette out of his pocket.

Toucan on the bridge

Parakeets

We ate a light lunch at the Bird Park, then Wilson drove us back to our hotel. After resting a bit, we went down to the travel agent and signed up for the evening dinner and show in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil. We'd noticed that our hotel was supposed to have a tour to San Martin Island at 3:30, so we signed up. It turned out that the water was too high for the boat to land, and a walking tour to Macuco Falls was substituted. It didn't start until 4:00 and, of the nine participants, we were the only ones over 25. We walked nearly two miles down a jungle path to the top of the falls, then climbed a steep cliff to the bottom. The falls dropped into a small pool formed by a ring of rocks. It was like something out of "South Pacific." Most of the guys went swimming in the pool. We were worried about getting back on time to get ready for our evening out, so we started back. 

At the top of Macuco Falls

Showering under the falls

We hadn't gone twenty yards before we realized we weren't sure of what path to take. Finally, two of the guys joined us and walked back with us, only to find the others had taken a different route and beat us back.

We were down in the lobby at 7:30 when the bus was supposed to leave. It finally left at 7:45. There were eight of us on the tour, including one Argentine couple and the Gonzales, a Mexican couple with two daughters around 20 years old. The bus made it as far as Puerto Iguazu when it had some kind of mechanical trouble. The driver dumped us on the street in a seedy part of town (the whole town looked pretty seedy) and drove off. About 15 minutes later he came back in a van and picked us up. When we got to the Brazilian border, there was another delay, some problem with the Gonzales' visas. That took a good half hour to straighten out. We finally entered Brazil at 9:05. Fortunately, the restaurant was not very far, and we were then in another five minutes.

Of all things, it was an Italian restaurant. The food, served family style, was very good. Unfortunately, though, it was practically thrown onto the table in front of us, possibly because of our late arrival. We had tortellini in brodo, white lasagna, spaghetti, roast chicken, polenta, and a sorbet. As we ate, we discovered that the Gonzales all spoke English. They were a very charming family and all very attractive in appearance. And talk about a small world, the older daughter, Laura, is a student at the University of New Mexico where my cousin, Dick, is President.

Show in Brazil Balancing act