Cataratas del Iguazú is one of the world’s greatest natural wonders, a system of 275 individual waterfalls stretching for nearly 3km through rainforest on the border between Argentina and Brazil, and where the 2 countries meet Paraguay.

Considered to be even more spectacular than Niagara and Victoria Falls, most travel writers suggest that the Iguazú Falls really need to be experienced from both the Argentinian and Brazilian sides, so we planned to do just that – flying into the Argentinian airport of Puerto Iguazú from Buenos Aires, crossing over to Brazil at the land border, and departing from the Brazilian airport of Foz do Iguaçu for Rio de Janeiro. That made the most sense economically as well as logistically, as both flights were domestic rather than very expensive international routes. It’s easy to get between Argentina and Brazil so most people opt to base themselves on one side and travel to visit the other, but for us the logistics worked better to split our 4 night stay between Argentina and Brazil.

Argentina – Puerto Iguazu

Our Jet Smart flight from Rio took us to the tiny airport at Puerto Iguazú, and just before landing we could see a lone cloud above a river running through dense rainforest – that was actually the spray from the thundering falls. With no Ubers in this remote part of Argentina we had to suck up the relatively extortionate taxi fare (£20) for the 20 minute ride to Hotel Saint George, our home for 2 nights. It was a bargain price for a 4* place and was brilliantly located opposite the bus station and a variety of restaurants and bars. The Patagonia Brewery bar/restaurant just across from the hotel had a big screen and beer tasting paddles, so that was us sorted for watching England’s thrilling, but nerve-wracking, defeat of Mexico.

Tight-wad Steve refused to pay for a taxi to the falls given that the bus station was opposite the hotel, so we hopped onto a bus for the 20 minute journey to the National Park visitor centre and entrance to the Argentinian side of the Falls. Debbie knew that this was a visit that would take most of the day and that entry was expensive, but £30 each to see a waterfall is taking the p*ss surely?! It soon became obvious that those £30s were needed to maintain a massive visitor infrastructure – most of the 275 individual waterfalls are on the Argentinian side and getting to them requires many many miles of walkways and a railway.

First we headed 7 km on a small train to the station for Garganta del Diablo (Devil’s Throat) – apparently the most spectacular part of the Falls, a huge U-shaped chasm where the largest concentration of water from the Iguazu River crashes down in a wall of spray. It will have been this spray that formed the ‘cloud’ that we saw from the plane. but alighting the train was only the start – there was another 1.1km walkway over the river to reach the viewpoint and the crowds were huge. Honestly, it was loud and impressive but not as ‘wow’ as we’d expected. There was just too much spray and too many people to get a really good view. In hindsight we really needed to be at the park for opening time to avoid the tour bus crowds.

We took the train most of the way back and alighted at Estacion Caratas, the stop for Circuito Superior and Inferior (upper and lower circuits) that got very close to some of the 275 individual waterfalls. Now this was more like it – boardwalks through the rainforest, with wildlife spotting along the way and some spectacular views up, down and across the falls. Truly incredible and despite getting very close to the thundering cascades we only needed to don our raincoats once to avoid a soaking.

What makes the Iguazú Falls particularly special, aside from the spectacular waterfalls obviously, is the lush natural setting within the Amazon Rainforest and abundant wildlife. Coatis and monkeys were prolific and in the eating areas were so shameless about stealing food that cages were provided for the tourists to sit and enjoy their snacks in peace and safety!

We marvelled at the brave (mad?) folk taking fast boat rides on the river below, going right up to the base of the thundering waterfalls, and decided that we really didn’t fancy it – or was it the thought of getting back up the steps from the river that we didn’t relish?!

It really was a full day exploring this side of the falls and we got back on the bus to town quite exhausted but exhilarated.

Brazil – Foz do Iguaçu

The second land border crossing of our trip was even easier than the Peru-Chile adventure – we simply took a taxi, crossed the river bridge, pulled up at a window to exit Argentina by flashing our passports, got out of the taxi at the Brazil entry checkpoint to get our passports stamped, and then continued a few miles to our hotel. Pretty much one road and only about 8 miles, but substantially more expensive than the collectivo system used for our last border crossing – in fact the price/distance ratio was possibly more expensive than a London cab!

Foz do Iguaçu is a rather large city, much bigger than the Argentinian town of Puerto Iguazú, and ChatGPT had strongly suggested staying at the Sanma Hotel, outside the city, very close to both the Brazilian entrance to the falls and the airport. ChatGPT was spot on with this recommendation – a recently remodelled hotel, with beautiful grounds, and a delightful pool that we were planning to spend the afternoon lazing next to – but the weather had other ideas and it pissed down all afternoon! No matter, at least the forecast for the following day and our visit to the falls was perfect.

At some point Debbie sneaked in the suggestion that a helicopter ride over the falls might be nice. Steve tutted but gave in when the hotel concierge confirmed that the price was relatively reasonable, the heliport was just a couple of minutes walk from the hotel and on the way to the falls, queues would be short, and the first available entry for the falls was a couple of hours later anyway so we had a bit of time to kill. We had a good 15 minutes in the air, initially flying over the rainforest before making several passes over the Iguazú Falls. Its only from the air that you can truly appreciate the scale and full beauty of this place – utterly breathtaking.

And then into the park and a queue of at least an hour for the shuttle bus to take passengers 8 km down the road to the viewing points for the falls. The Argentinian experience was about getting up close to the cascades, whereas the Brazilian side is famous for the panoramas. Shortly after alighting the bus, next to the ultra-expensive Hotel das Cataratas by Belmond (oh how Debbie wished that we could’ve stayed there), we were immediately greeted with the first stunning panorama – wow! The walkway was less than a mile long but every turn brought another jaw-dropping sight. We’d not brought our raincoats as we’d understood that this side of the falls was all about the overview rather than getting close to the water – ooooops, we got drenched when taking the walkway out towards the base of Garganta del Diablo.

As we’ve said before on our South American travels, words cannot adequately describe and the pictures just don’t seem to do justice to how truly magnificent this place is…