So long working life...: Iguazu Falls - straight out of a Phantom comic

Apologies in advance - there's a lot of photos in this post. And there are thousands more on the internet of Iguazu Falls. But as good as my photos are (!!), even the professionals' photos, they just will never be the same as seeing this place in person. I was blown away by the beauty, peacefulness, raw power and (dare I say it) serenity of this natural wonder. Yes all those different adjectives were apt in describing this special place on the border of north-east Argentina and southern Brazil.

It was hot and steamy while we were there, but it was totally fitting for the tropical jungle setting and it would have been almost disappointing if otherwise. I felt like this is what Lee Falk was picturing when he created the Bengali jungle, the home of the Phantom. An intense tropical jungle paradise full of exotic flora and fauna, and a huge powerful series of waterfalls to endlessly gaze at.

Most people that have visited other famous falls such as Niagara or southern Africa's Victoria falls comment that these are by far the most spectacular. Unlike the others, Iguazu is split into about 275 discrete falls across a wide area, which affords better access and walkways with spectacular panoramic views. The walkway at the garganta del diablo (devil's throat) was literally hovering over the precipice while millions of cubic metres of water gushed by all around you. Luckily both the Argentine and Brazilian governments have not ruined this place with over-development (but I wondered if they would be interested in my idea of an extreme tourist attraction there - waterfall bungee jumping?).

I came up with the idea of the freefall-over-the-edge-then-saved-by-bungee-rope (copyright) adventure business because it was so damn hot there and you're constantly looking at/surrounded by/walking over beautiful, clear and clean water - but there's nowhere to swim! I was dying to just jump off the walkway and float down the river for a while, and was kind of curious to also know what the feeling would be like to actually fall off the edge of the waterfall... am I crazy? Surely with the thousands of tourists who flock there each day there would be a few likeminded adventurists who would pay big money for that adrenalin kick? I sure would.

Anyway, aside from that stroke of genius business idea, I was intrigued by the advertisements of the boat trips that claimed to go "under" the waterfalls. I loved the sound of that, but when I watched one boat, it turned around when it got to here:

... but the salesman was assuring us that it went under the fall in the background of the above picture, and that we would "certainly get wet". Hmmm, I was doubtful for sure but went ahead and joined the Danish friends in our group who had already paid up.

Well, I was "certainly wet" - from head to toe and every orifice in between was absolutely saturated. We went in, around, up and down the lower part of the river, and then under some smallish waterfalls before the big climax of driving the oversized rubber ducky directly into the maelstrom of whitewater under the big waterfall. The above pic shows another boat doing the same thing that we did (you can hardly see the boat through the mist and whitewater). And although I obeyed their orders of putting cameras into the waterproof bags supplied (sceptically too I might add), somehow my camera still got wet and to this day the screen still does not work. Ah well, I got wet and that was what I wanted!!

The group for the 4 day, 1400km road trip from Corrientes to Iguazu was myself and Marcela, Marcela's parents, Marcela's host family from Denmark who were here for a 2 week vacation, and a friend of Marcela's mum. L to R: Tim, Henrik, Bjorn, Marcela, Ruth, Quique and Silvia (Marcela's parents).