Water, Water everywhere and nary a drop to drink

Iguazu Falls

When Eleanor Roosevelt first saw Iguazu Falls she exclaimed Poor Niagara. What an amazing site. Straddling the border between Brazil and Argentina there are 275 falls that make up the area. At certain points you can be surrounded by 280 degrees of fall. The “Devil’s Throat” in my opinion being the most spectacular. I went one day to visit the Argentinean side and the next day to see the Brazilian side. I always wanted to see the Falls and finally made it here on my 3rd trip to South America. Well worth the long bus ride to get here.

The waterfall system consists of 275 falls along 2.7 kilometers (1.67 miles) of the Iguazu River. Some of the individual falls are up to 82 meters (269 ft) in height, though the majority are about 64 metres (210 ft). The Devil's Throat (Garganta del Diablo in Spanish or Garganta do Diabo in Portuguese), a U-shaped, 82-meter-high, 150-meter-wide and 700-meter-long (490 by 2300 feet) cataract, is the most impressive of all, and marks the border between Argentina and Brazil. Two thirds of the falls are within Argentine territory.

About 900 metres of the 2.7-kilometer length does not have water flowing over it. The edge of the basalt cap recedes only 3 mm per year. The water of the lower Iguazu collects in a canyon that drains into the Paraná River at Argentina, shortly downstream from the Itaipu dam.