Foz de Iguaçu, Brazil

​3rd October – 6th October 2017

Once we had all got on the truck, which was beautifully decorated, we all gathered around the tables to sing happy birthday to Jack. We had got him a cake and put candles in it and all embarrassed him with our singing. After singing, Sabrina cut it up into 14 pieces and we all got cake for breakfast!

As well as cake, Katie’s cook group had got us all a yogurt, an apple and some juice. They had been told to get us a truck breakfast because we should have been leaving earlier but I think they needed a little more time to make sure that the truck was working in the morning.

After we had been driving for about an hour, Sara thought she heard a funny noise and the truck started squeaking, like it was the day before, so we pulled over. The crew all hopped out to have a look but they said it all looked okay so we carried on. Apparently when they were changing the tyre, they were also checking the air pressure tank, which had a loose cap. When Adam went to tighten the cap, he tightened it too much and the whole thing broke. This was apparently the problem the night before and it is what they were trying to fix. Although it was safe to drive with, apparently, we were strongly advised to put our seat belts on because if too much air leaks too quickly then the handbrake would automatically go on and we would just grind to a halt – it didn’t sound safe but they had to get to Foz to fix it apparently.

We stopped at one service station before lunch but I didn’t get out because I was in the zone catching up on my writing, so I stayed on the truck. I didn’t nap or snack, besides an apple, all morning, but I was keeping myself busy.

Lunch stop was another boring service station and it was my group’s turn to prepare lunch. It was very hot outside, so I felt like we needed to cook quickly so that the food didn’t go off. William kind of took charge and I just did as I was told – it was nice to not be the chef! We prepared tuna and avocado and cucumber and there was some ham and cheese and salad left from the day before, so we put those down too. While others got their food first, I stood and wafted to keep the flies away – they’re such a pain. I think everyone was full because there was tonnes but we didn’t leave much! After lunch and clear up, I had a yogurt that was left in the fridge from a few days ago, before we all got back on the truck and carried on towards the border, with 300km to go.

Back on the truck, we drove for a couple more hours which seemed to drag because we had only done about 130km before we stopped again. Adam came to sit with us for a little while and we played a few rounds of cards to try and pass the time.

At about 3.30, we set off from our final service stop in Argentina with 170km left until we reached the border. On the truck, we played a couple more rounds of cards before people started to drop out. Sabrina had started reading ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ in Spanish because she had found it in the library, so she read some of it aloud and then translated it for us – it entertained us for about ten minutes.

I slept for the first time of the day, to try and pass the time because the day was really dragging! Nothing we seemed to do, seemed to make the time go any quicker and we were all getting quite frustrated with the day. Lars came around with his notebook and pen in order to set up our first game on Yana – the border game was back! Although we have crossed a few borders on Yana already, this was the first time we had played a game and I started to calculate the best guess in my head. In the end, I went for 1 hour 11 minutes which I didn’t realise at the time but it was in the middle of lots of other guess, so it didn’t look great for me.

We pulled up at the Argentinean border at 6.22 and all piled off to go into the office and get our exit stamps. Once Yana had been stamped out, we then had to drive a couple of hundred metres and cross over the Iguaçu River into Brazil. When we stopped at the Brazilian border control, we all got off again and filled out our forms to get our entry stamps into Brazil. We were done in no time at all but the truck stamp seemed to take ages. As people had guess every minute from 69-72 minutes with me being in the middle at 71, I really didn’t hold out much hope and I was right not to because the seventy first minute came and went very quickly – probably the quickest minute of the whole day.

One of the first issues I noticed once we crossed the border, was the language barrier again. I had just about picked up enough Spanish to string a sentence together, since being in South America but now we’re finishing off in a Portuguese speaking country, so I feel like I’m back to square one.

Sara and Lars finally arrived back at the truck at 7.42, 80 minutes after the timer had started – I don’t like losing the game when my time is less than the actual time. When they got back to the truck, we still had 10km to go to get to the campsite. Luckily, Lars had ordered a buffet dinner for us, to be served at 8 but we were pushing that time because of the border.

We arrived at our campsite/ Hostel at exactly 8 o’clock and dinner was ready straight away. We went into the kitchen and bar area and it was a very basic buffet dinner. We had a choice of salads, chips, rice, spaghetti, meat and some sauces.

After dinner, Lars checked us in – we were meant to be camping but because there was the option to upgrade and we had arrived so late, we all upgraded to some sort of room. I was in a dorm with Jessie and Courtenay, which only cost us around £4.50 for the night. Lars then gave us a tour of the grounds and told us a little bit about the following day.

We all went off to our rooms and settled in, before meeting in the bar area to celebrate Jack’s birthday. Caipirinhas are apparently Brazil’s national drink, so most people were drinking those, but I just stuck to my water.

The temperature had dropped quite a bit, so at around 11, I went back to the dorm to get myself ready for bed. I had initially only said that I was staying in the dorm for one night because we had arrived in the dark and I was too tired to put my tent up, but as I went to bed the first night, I was swaying more towards upgrading for the whole time.

Although I was in a dorm room, I was still a little chilly in the night, but I didn’t have my sleeping bag out, I just used a sheet, so it was probably my own fault. I woke up before my alarm, but as I needed a shower before breakfast, I just got up and got ready. Breakfast was included which was nice because we didn’t have to prepare it. I had some bread and butter and some cake – this is the second time a place has offered us cake for breakfast which is kind of strange.

After breakfast, we had a little time to get ourselves ready for the day before being collected in a minibus at 8.30 to head to the Brazilian side of the Iguaçu Falls. We couldn’t take the truck because apparently, if the place where you buy tickets sees that you are a group, they make you buy a guide, so we got the minibus to drop us off outside and split ourselves into smaller groups to buy tickets and get in.

It was very busy but we didn’t have to queue for very long. We had the tickets and then had the line up for the bus, which I found strange, I kind of just imagined to walk through the doors and he falls be there. We got on the bus and sat upstairs on the open top bus. I had just taken my jacket off because it was warming up but as soon as the bus started moving it wasn’t so warm because it was still only 9.30, so the jacket was needed again.

After about 15 minutes on the bus, we arrived at the third bus stop which was the stop we had to get off. We all piled off the bus and we had our first views of the falls. It was packed so we had to be patient to get a photo, but the views were stunning. We took some photos there before William noticed a sign for a new viewpoint just to the right, so we walked down there and it was perfect because the views were great still and there were no people.

Once we had got enough photos at the first photo stop, we started the 1.5km walk along the paths to different view points. The paths were quite narrow and full of people, so it was difficult to enjoy the walk without being elbowed out of the way or pushed by another person. We would often end up waiting behind at view points to try and get some good photos but we really didn’t have much time before the next bus load of people would arrive and try and jump into the photo spots, ruining our photos.

Towards the end of the path, we came to a viewpoint of a different part of the waterfalls. There were beautiful rainbows in the plunge pools and we could walk along paths in front of the falls but we got sprayed at this point – it wasn’t too bad though. After battling our way through the crowds, in the heat, to get our photos, we walked back up to the top and carried on to the end of the trail. It took a while to get off the trails though because of the amount of people but we did it eventually.

Back at the top, we walked to the bus stop and looked in the shops before getting in the queue to get the bus back to the main entrance. It was only me and Sabrina that decided to go back at this point; the others had gone for a drink but we didn’t fancy it.

Back at the main entrance, we looked in the bigger souvenir shop before leaving and walking back to the meeting place for collection. The driver noticed us straight away and called us over but we had to wait for the others to get back because the meet time was 1 and it was only 12.40, so we looked at the market stalls around but there wasn’t really anything interesting.

Slightly after 1, the others arrived and we got the minibus back down to the campsite. It was the hottest part of the day, at about 28 degrees according to the weather app, and we were all hungry, hot and tired. Most of us decided to go downtown on the bus to get some food and I wanted to try and find a patch.

After a 20 minute walk to the main road, and the bus stop, we luckily got there just in time for the bus, as it arrived just as we got there. We got onto the packed bus, which was also very sweaty and drove towards the town. The fact that the bus was full and hot wasn’t the problem though, about five minutes into the journey, we realised that we didn’t know where to get off. This caused a problem when we drove past the supermarket that Joe and Jack were told to go to, that I didn’t know anything about, and Joe started to get cross that we missed the stop and the bus now wasn’t stopping. It seemed to go a really long way and it did turn out to be a ten minute walk back but Joe had a real strop about it and stormed off from us – I’m not sure why because he didn’t need to be there because Lars had offered to go food shopping for him and it wasn’t our fault but the combination of being hot and hungry doesn’t work.

We awkwardly followed him for a little while because we all had to go in the same direction, but we soon caught up with him. Most of the group went to a restaurant to get food, but me and Sabrina went to the supermarket to see what we could find. It was, by far, the best supermarket we have seen in South America: it had branded stuff, it had a deli counter, it had basically anything we could have wanted! We chose our lunch for the next couple of days and stocked up on the snack – hopefully enough to get us through the rest of Brazil, before we paid up. It worked out really well for me, because I had taken cash out in the morning, from my STA account and I wanted to clear that card because it’s not a reliable card and the charges are ridiculous, but I couldn’t get the ATM transaction close enough to my balance, so I used the card to pay in the supermarket and that left me with 33p to spare on the STA card – not too bad.

After we had finished in the supermarket, me and Sabrina walked back up the main road slightly, to find a bus stop to get back to the campsite. We didn’t think that there was one on our side of the road, but then I spotted a sign that said ‘onibus’, so I guessed that must be it; when we spotted the bench underneath the sign, we knew for sure. We weren’t sat there long before a bus came along so that was lucky and we kind of knew where we were going on the way back, so we knew where to get off.

Once we got off the bus, we had the same twenty minute walk back to the campsite, only me and Sabrina decided to extend this, accidentally. As we thought we knew what we were doing, we didn’t take full notice of the signs for the campground, so when we saw one of them, we thought it was time to turn right. When we started walking down the road I didn’t think it looked familiar but I didn’t want to say anything too soon. We practically got to the end and almost ended up in someone’s farm before we decided to turn around. When we got back to the sign and checked it, that one was telling us to go straight on, it was the next one that said turn right – the extra exercise might have done me some good if it wasn’t so hot!

Finally, we reached the campground and changed straight into our bikinis so that we could lie by the pool in the sunshine. While I stayed in the shade for a while to cool off and FaceTime, Sabrina jumped straight in the water. We were by the pool for the rest of the afternoon, until the sun set. The others got back from the restaurant much later than us but we were all by the pool eventually.

After the sun had set and it had started to go a little chillier, we all went off to our rooms for a bit. Sat in there, I realised we didn’t know any dinner times and there was no wifi in the rooms, so I went to the kitchen to check with the cook group. I got chatting in there about the difficulty I was having charging my things because of adapters, so Sara suggested we walked to a corner shop because she remembered they had adapters from the last time she was at Foz.

We (me, Sara, Jack and Katie) walked to the shop, which took about ten minutes. When we went inside, his adapters were literally sat in a bucket, out of their packets on a shelf behind the desk. It looked relatively unreliable but at the time I had no other option, so I bought one anyway – it was only 5.50 in Brazilian money, which converts to about £1.30, so I couldn’t moan too much.

Back at the campsite, I went to try my adapter with my new laptop plug but it annoyingly didn’t work. Jack had a look at it for me and messed around with it a bit before also deciding that it didn’t work – he told me to be careful with it all and make sure I only plugged it into the wall if the plugs fit together properly and because he’s an electrician, I trusted his judgement.

Earlier than expected, dinner was ready in the kitchen. It was Char’s group’s turn to cook but as she had been ill for a couple of days, Joe took charge and it was just him and Courtenay. For dinner, we had stir fry and rice and it tasted so good! I loved having proper vegetable again, so much so, that I had a fair few bowls – I couldn’t resist, as they tasted so good and there was so much going spare!

After dinner and clean up, we all ended up back by the pool, in the bar area. We sat around for ages and chatted and listened to music. Most people were drinking but they drank so much that the bar ran out of pretty much every alcoholic drink – they obviously weren’t prepared. The time seemed to pass so quickly and before I knew it, it was almost midnight, so I went to bed. Some people still stayed up drinking but we had a longer day the next day and I wanted to enjoy the Argentinean side of the waterfalls.

When I got in bed, I had to stay awake for ages, which was annoying because Jessie and Courtenay weren’t back and I couldn’t lock the door without locking them out completely.

The girls came back around 1 and I just about managed to stay awake for them. As soon as they came in the door, I rolled over and fell asleep until Jessie’s alarm went off at 7. The only problem with the alarm going off at 7, was that she was in the shower and not there to turn it off, so Courtenay had to get up and do that for her.

After my shower, I got ready and went to breakfast. Breakfast was the same again: cake and watermelon – as much as I love cake, I’m not sure I can keep eating it for breakfast! I had a little time to get my bag ready and chill after breakfast, before we were collected at 9 to head back into Argentina to see the Argentinean side of Iguaçu Falls.

We all loaded on to the same minibus as the previous day, with the same driver and drove back towards the border. On the way, he stopped at a corner shop for people to get water and snacks if they wanted to, as it’s apparently more expensive in Argentina. As me and Sabrina didn’t want anything, and Katie was getting Jack’s, we stayed on the bus. What we didn’t realise was that the driver had to take the bus to a garage to get one of the tyres pumped up – we thought we were being kidnapped at first.

Once everyone was back on the bus, we continued to the border crossing. We handed all of our passports to the front of the bus and the driver just got off and checked us out of Brazil – we didn’t need to get off. We crossed back over the Iguaçu River and into Argentina, where, again, the driver got off and got our passports stamped. I assume it was quicker that way but we were still sat there for about half an hour.

Back in Argentina, we drove to the falls, which was about 20km away from the border. In the bus, Adam gave us our passports back with 500 Argentinean pesos inside (Adam was leading for the day because Lars had to take Char to the doctor as she had been feeling ill for a few days – it was a shame because Char and Joe had only done the last leg of the trip to see the falls and she missed both days). We had to buy our own tickets again because if we went in as a group, they would make us buy a guide apparently.

When we got inside, it was much more like what I expected yesterday’s entrance to be like: it opened up into a big national park with lots of greenery and walkways. Most of the group decided that they wanted to do the boat ride into the falls, so they went to buy tickets straight away but me and Sabrina opted out of that one.

While everyone was getting their tickets, we planned out our routes for the day on the map and wanted to get going because we thought the group was splitting up because we were doing different things. Apparently this wasn’t the case and everyone started following us, which was okay but I didn’t want to have to plan my day around their boat trip.

We started off on the green trail, which kind of lead us to a central place. Annoyingly, we started the trail just after a massive group, so we got stuck behind them for a while but with some dodging and speed walking, we made it through and managed to pass them. On the way, we saw one of the trains, as it drove by us. By the time we had got to the end of the line, we realised that we had lost half of the group to the massive group but we couldn’t stop to wait for them or we would have got caught again too. Just before the end of the route, there were some monkeys playing in the tree; we stopped to look at them very briefly, but we didn’t want to get caught behind the big group again, so moved along quickly.

When we got to the end of the green route, there were two options: one route went around the lower circle and one route went around the upper circle. We decided to do the lower route first and then work our way up. At that point it was only me, Sabrina, Jessie and Courtenay left so we could walk at a reasonable pace, dodging through the crowds. We could see, pretty much straight away, why people prefer the Argentinean side to the Brazilian side – the views were unbelievable and we could get much closer. Towards the end of the route, there was a viewpoint that was pretty much underneath a waterfall. The splash from the water was nice and refreshing and the photos looked pretty cool. It took us about 40 minutes to complete the lower route, including photo stops and battling through the crowds. We ended up back at some picnic tables but it was only just turning 12, so we decided to hold off on lunch a little longer.

Instead of eating lunch, we walked back on ourselves a little bit, to go to do the upper circle route. The upper route was slightly longer and with it approaching the hottest part of the day, it made it very hot and sweaty. The route of the upper circle went over the top of the waterfalls, so you can get a view from above. While it was cool to see the different falls from higher up, it wasn’t as good when looking at the fall that you were stood on, but as the path was so long, it was okay because you got to see them all from different angles. We walked the full loop which probably took about an hour, before going back to the part where the two routes meet, to eat our lunch.

While we were sat at the picnic tables, I had a near miss with losing my GoPro. We had originally sat at one table but there were so many animals around and Sabrina stood in some poo which she said smelt really bad, so we moved tables. When we got to the other table I realised I didn’t have my GoPro, when I stood up I could see it on the first table, so Sabrina ran and got it – losing my GoPro is not what I need after the break in. For lunch, I ate a sandwich that I had bought at the supermarket, but I bought a cold, refreshing drink from the shop by the tables.

After lunch, me and Sabrina split up from Jessie and Courtenay because they had to go for their boat trip. At about 2.15, we got on the train, which pulled up in the station by the picnic tables and went up the ‘Devil’s Throat’ waterfall. The train ride was included with the entry ticket and it took about 15 minutes to get there. When we got off the train, we had another walk over bridges to get to the viewpoint and although we were still hot and very sticky, it was so worth it! We could see the top of the waterfall and look straight down into the plunge pool. It was such a huge waterfall and the rainbows that formed at the bottom made it even more beautiful. We were lucky that it wasn’t that busy, so we managed to get some good photos, before walking back along the bridge to the train station.

When we got back to the station, there was a mass of yellow butterflies just fluttering in one area. It was so pretty to see them all, I have never seen so many butterflies together before. We got back on the train and went back towards the main part. We didn’t get off where we got on, we carried on to the central station, which was closer to the main entrance where we were meeting everyone else. We seemed to have planned our day perfectly, as we got off the train at 4, which gave us 45 minutes to browse the shops before meeting up with everyone else.

There were a few souvenir shops to look in but unfortunately, none of them had any patches, so I couldn’t get one! We wandered slowly through the shops before walking up to the meeting point. We walked into the tourist information office, where there was a weather board. According to that, the temperatures had reached 32 degrees, which didn’t surprise me at all, as I could have probably ringed the sweat out of my top at one point; we were lucky though, as it also said that it was going to thunder the day after we were there.

We arrived at the meeting point slightly early but we weren’t bothered because it meant we could sit in the shade for a while and try and cool off. Most people turned up shortly after we did, but Jessie and Courtenay had gone on the train up to the Devil’s Throat after their boat trip, so they were running late. Everyone was back by 5.05, which was okay, as we should have left at 5, so it wasn’t too late. We got back into the minibus and drove back towards the border.

After about 25 minutes, we were at the Argentinean border, where the driver jumped out with our passports to get them stamped. We drove back over the river into Brazil, where again, the driver sorted our passports out, very quickly, before we drove back to the campsite.

We arrived back at the campsite at about 6 and I went straight for a shower. It felt so good to be clean after such a long and sweaty day! We were originally told that dinner was 7, so all met at 7 but there was a mix up with the communication and it wasn’t ready until 7.30. It was a good job we were all together though because Lars had to brief us about the following day and he had news about Char.

As predicted, Char had appendicitis and had spent the afternoon in surgery. Luckily she was feeling much better, but it meant that she had to leave the truck for a little while to recover. Apparently she wants to re-join when she had recovered but as the falls were a must do for them, I feel like she should see them before she leaves, but I guess that is up to her. Joe arrived back in a taxi just before dinner and reiterated all what Lars had said and the main thing was that she is feeling better.

On the positive side, after spending two days in the workshop, Yana was apparently fixed, so she should hopefully present no more problems for us!

Dinner wasn’t ready until about 7.40 but when it was, it was much better than the first night’s. It was a buffet again, and we had the option of salad, rice, mash, chicken and some other bits – the mash was particularly tasty! I didn’t have as much as I normally do for some reason, I just felt fuller, quicker.

After dinner, I used the rest of the night to catch up with photos and blogs, before going to bed, ready for an early start the next day. It was the warmest night of the trip so far, I think. As we were sat by the pool at the bar, the temperatures were still 25 degrees at 10pm.

When I went back to the room, Jessie and Courtenay were already in there. Because it was so hot outside, they had put the air con on, which gave me such a temperature change as I stepped into the room, from outside. It was needed though because although I woke up with a dry mouth, I was a perfect temperature and slept really well.

Sadly it was a short sleep, as I was woken just before 4.30 by someone’s alarm. As mine was set for 4.30, I turned it off and got up and ready. Breakfast was at 5, and it was the same as always – more cake. We did back locker and left just after 5.30, leaving Char, Joe and Sara behind – it felt strange.

I can see why the trip is organised so that the Brazilian side is visited first; I personally found the Argentinean side more beautiful so it was better to see this second, but would recommend visiting both, if possible. Out of the 250 waterfalls that make up Iguaçu Falls, my favourite was definitely the Devil’s Throat as we got to see it from above and it was so powerful! It was a shame that Char fell ill, but it was better to find out here, rather than her being in pain at a bush camp and at least she might be able to get to see the falls still. The weather was gorgeous, so that always helps things, but the organisation of the trips was also great and I loved every second, it’s a place to see! Next stop, Bonito.

To travel is to live, Katie x