The walkway extends to a viewing platform near the middle of the river from Brazil. The Devil’s Throat is to the left. (All photos: Lee Yu Kit)
Fouad, my guide and driver, pointed in the distance, at a white plume rising above the jungle canopy some dozen kilometres away.
“Do you see that?” he asked. “That’s the falls.”
The Iguazu (alternately “Iguacu”) Falls is one of the world’s most famous waterfalls, and the preview heightened the sense of anticipation at seeing it. It took a 15-minute drive from the airport to reach the park entrance to the Brazilian Iguazu National Park.
We drove along a well-surfaced road that ran for 11km inside the park in Fouad’s Ford sedan. The road was bordered by low rainforest on either side, so dense as to be almost impenetrable at ground level, unlike the Malaysian rainforest with its tall, tiered tree canopy and a relatively open understorey.
Towards the end of the road was an expansive, low, pink-and-white colonial-style building set a little way back, with a wide, manicured lawn. It was designed as a throwback to when Brazil was a Portuguese colony, and it oozed luxury. This was the Belmond Hotel das Cataratas, the only hotel in the park, where the elegant lifestyle amid the rainforest, with a magnificent view of the falls in front, could be had for a choke-worthy price.
Fouad dropped me off at a cluster of park buildings a kilometre further on. Restaurants served casual food at open seating areas. Beyond the lawn and a line of trees flowed the Iguazu River — wide, swift-flowing and shallow — with little islets in the stream of water. On the opposite bank was Argentina.
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After a sandwich lunch, I followed the trail beside the river. The air was crisp and clean, the river ran beside me, the ground was dappled with the shade from overhead foliage, and in the background was the dull roar of the approaching falls.
The trail led to an outdoor viewing deck, just where the river began its suicidal plunge, in an abrupt drop to the fractured river bed some 80m below. The transition from calm forest to the nearside view of a sheer, raging curtain of thundering water just a few metres away was staggering. A fine spray and the draught bathed me in moisture.
An elevator led down to a lower level near the base of the massive fall of water, with a balcony extension leading almost to within touching distance. The roar, the spray, the sight of millions of litres of falling water were overpowering. A white cloud of spray obscured where the tonnes of falling water erupted against the bedrock.
The walkway led onto a vantage point from which the sheer scale of Iguazu Falls could be seen. The gargantuan cascade of water I encountered was the Devil’s Throat, the largest and most prominent of the more than 200 waterfalls — the number varying with the seasonal river water flow — that collectively make up Iguazu Falls, where the river plummets into a J-shaped chasm with an extended arm on the Argentinian side.
The evocatively named Devil’s Throat accounts for half the water flow. The view before me, in scale and majesty, was dumbfounding. Churning water frothed and seethed towards a second tier of falls into an unseen gorge below. Across the river, multiple streams of white water coursed down the precipice where the river bed fell suddenly away.
This is the largest waterfall system in the world, spanning some 2.7km, with forested islands and rocks breaking up the flow into multiple falls. The falls present an insurmountable barrier to fish migration between the upper and lower river, so that fish species above and below the falls are different.
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A spindly arm of the walkway extended some 250m into the middle of the turmoil and churn of the river flow below the Devil’s Throat. Most people donned raincoats against the wash of spray and wind propelled by the Devil’s Throat for the short passage.
From the viewing platform at the end of the walkway, one stands in the middle of the mid-tier, the Devil’s Throat forming a backdrop of cascading water shot through by a rainbow arcing through the fine spray. Just below the deck is the thrashing water and, a little farther forward, the river plunges down the second tier into the unseen gorge.
Returning from the viewing deck, it seemed quiet and serene after the fury and tumult at the viewing platform. The trail ran alongside the falls below, the view across the river unfolding into one awesome spectacle after another of nature’s power.
Eventually, the trail led back to the car park opposite the Hotel das Cataratas, where Fouad was waiting for the short drive back towards Foz de Iguazu, the small town on the Brazilian side of the falls. Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet at the river junction where the Iguazu River joins the Parana River, some distance downriver from the Iguazu Falls.
The next morning, Fouad turned up at the hotel to pick me up for the short drive to Argentina. We drove on a bridge across the Iguazu River. The railings on the bridge were painted yellow and green of the Brazilian flag and, halfway across, the colour scheme changed to blue and white, the colours of the Argentinian flag, to mark the boundary between the two countries mid-river.
Fouad said Immigration formalities could take hours during the peak period, but we had started early and it took less than 30 minutes before we were in Argentina. Notices and signboards were in Spanish, being Portuguese on the Brazilian side.
We drove past the Argentinian town of Puerto Iguazu, the counterpart to Foz de Iguazu on the Brazilian side, and on for another 20 minutes or so to the Argentinian Iguazu National Park headquarters. We joined a crowd of people at the waiting area and, presently, a train with bench seats and open sides rolled in, disgorging disembarking passengers.
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The train ran for some 15 minutes with glimpses of the river beyond, before stopping at the beginning of a walkway that led for 1,100m over the river. On the walkway, I was in the middle of the river, with the shimmering, flowing water surface just below. There were islets along the way, and places to stop to take in the view of the broad river rushing beneath the wire-mesh walkway.
The walkway led to a viewing platform built, daringly and improbably, just metres away from the precipice of the U-shaped funnel of the Devil’s Throat in the middle of the falls, unseen from the Brazilian side. The river fell with irresistible force into the huge gaping maw, from which a fine white mist erupted. Small swift-like birds darted into and out of the white mist — for the sheer adrenaline of it?
To be so close to the chasm, with the thunder of falling water and the constant wind, invoked a visceral tingle of terror and exhilaration, for just ahead was inarguably extinction. I stood transfixed to the spot, temporarily wordless in the presence of such a colossal spectacle.
The river flow was rapid and irresistible as it accelerated towards the fatal fall; yet, here at the precipice, there were delicate flowering plants fluttering in the backwash. On small rocky islets, a white water bird perched daintily and attentively, seeking the telltale silvery flash of a fish in the flow.
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I retraced my steps from the viewing platform to the train station to catch the train back, not to the park headquarters but to an intermediate stop. Two trails branched away from this stop. The Lower Trail was closed for maintenance, and the Upper Trail ran for 1.5km, partially along a walkway, along the edge of the falls where it described the straight arm of the “J” extending from the Devil’s Throat.
Less intimidating but no less scenic, the walkway ran over the river close to where it fell over the edge in hundreds of smaller falls. Far below were rocky islets and the river flowing in the gorge below the falls. Some of the larger falls had names such as Bossetti, Adam and Eve, and San Martin.
The trail looped back on itself through the jungle, eventually leading to an open area with restaurants where Fouad was waiting in his car. We drove out of the park, passing the Grand Melia Iguazu hotel, the only one in the Argentinian Iguazu National Park.
We made a short detour into Puerto Iguazu, stopping at a restaurant. Outside, big chunks of meat were sizzling on a griddle. I had grilled fillet of surubi, a local river fish heavier than me and longer than I am tall. It was a white fish, meaty and succulent, served with vegetables and grilled tubers — an excellent late lunch before we drove back to Brazil.
This article first appeared on Dec 23, 2024 in The Edge Malaysia.
