Walking in Wakanda

February 21-22, 2024

“won·der

/ˈwəndər/

noun: wonder - a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable."

-Oxford Dictionary

“Oh my poor Niagara”

-Eleanor Roosevelt upon seeing Igauzu Falls for the first time

You have seen this place before. It has formed the scenery of numerous films including “The Mission”, “Moonraker”, “Miami Vice”, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, and more recently “Black Panther”.

How do you put into words a wonder? The thing about wonders is that they are inexplicable. Your brain is so overwhelmed by the beauty of what you see, that it is difficult to speak. You just stare at it the marvel and are lost in the astonishment of the spectacle.

The Falls lie on the border between Brazil and Argentina, with Paraguay close by. Both sides have declared the area a national park and both share the area as an UNESCO world heritage site, The falls are surrounded by tropical rain forest, but are not part of the Amazon rainforest system.

The jungle is thick with Mango trees, Rose Timber, Guava, Poinsettia, Wild Orchids and more than 2,000 species of animals.

South American Coati, a relative of the raccoon, are very common and show no fear of humans. In fact they will attack patrons at lunch for food on the plate and as such guests have to sit in cages like this one.

They ran between the legs of travelers as we walked into the park.

Overhead, you can hear the calls of Capuchin monkeys. These guys were outside our hostel room.

Deeper in the surrounding jungle you can find Toucans, Tapirs, Caimans, Panthers, Jaguars, and much more.

The air is hot and sticky with humidity as you can imagine it might be. Bugs can be an issue. There is currently a Dengue Fever epidemic in Brazil. Thankfully, we were not bothered much. The quarts of “Off” we lathered on may have been the reason.

“There is too much to take in. You can’t capture it” - Colleen Dobbs

She is right of course. Still, you want to share what you have seen and create a record of where you have been. Even if, for some, it may be too much.

I am about to show you way too many pictures. This is actually about 1/5 of the number of shots I captured.

This is Iguazu Falls. Iguazu is considered one of the seven natural wonders of the world and rightly so. As mentioned previously, It is an Unesco World heritage site and despite being longer than any other waterfall in the world and twice as high as Niagara Falls, it is not the largest sheet of continuous flowing water. That honor belongs to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, Africa.

No, Igauzu is over 270 distinct waterfalls formed by the 820 mile long Igauzu River as it tumbles down into a canyon between Argentina, Brazil, and part of Paraguay.

This is one of the reasons for so many pictures. Each one of the more than 270 identified waterfalls would be a showpiece at a natural park. There are so many here, that you could study the light, sound, and motion of the mass of water and never take in all of it. It is a jaw dropping scene.

It begins here. This is the wide Igauzu River just before it plunges into Garganta del Diablo (Devil ‘s Throat). Although the river spreads wide and has many falls, here at the apex of the valley lies the main source of power. The water crashes and falls 14 different steps to the hard basalt rock below and a rate of 1.5 liters per second.

River just before "Devils Throat - Seen at center right

When we arrived we learned the viewing platforms for “The Devil’s Throat” were closed.

This was the reason why.

In October 2023, rains were heavy in Southern Brazil leading to the Igauzu to swell 10x it’s normal size. The great torrent smashed into the viewing platforms destroying them and filling the valley below 1/2 way up from it’s normal depth. Fortunately no one was injured.

Although at times uncomfortably hot, the walkways on both sides of the canyon allowed us glorious views. Here are some of the many images from the visit.