Iguaçu National Park (Brazil)

On Friday, March 24th, we got on a Brazilian bus, with a Brazilian driver, and crossed the Iguazú River into Brazil.  Border formalities weren't long or difficult, so soon we were entering Iguaçu National Park.  While Argentina has 80% of Iguazú's (or Iguaçu's, depending on whether you're speaking Spanish or Portuguese) 280+ waterfalls, Brazil has the best viewpoints for seeing many at once.  Of the three greatest waterfalls in the world, Niagara is shortest and narrowest, but has by far the highest volume of flow; Victoria is highest, but has the least flow; Iguazú is by far the widest (more than a mile and a half in width) and in the middle as to flow and height.  

Our local guide, Manu, said that each of the national parks was allowed to have only one hotel inside its boundaries, and while the Brazilian hotel was beautiful but had no views of the falls, the Argentine hotel had views but was ugly.  We stopped in front of the beautiful pink hotel, and walked down a short flight of stairs to where the was, indeed, a view.  We had 45 minutes to walk down the path toward the Garganta del Diablo ("Devil's Throat"), the central fall with the heaviest volume of water.

Along the trail were some coatis, relatives of raccoons, aggressively looking for handouts.  One of the people in our group was carrying a banana in his backpack.  The coatis kept trying to get at it, climbing onto railings and reaching for the backpack.  When someone threw something on the path, there was a loud, multivoiced scream and six or seven of them converged on it from nowhere.  There were signs all over, warning against feeding coatis or monkeys.  We never saw any monkeys, and were surprised that we didn't see any coatis on the Argentinean side, the next day.

We went on, eventually going down to the boardwalk that goes out into the Devil's Throat.

We took the elevator up to where the guides were waiting, and, after lunch at the food court (using dollars), rode back across the border to the hotel.

That evening, our group tried something new for OAT.  Instead of eating at the hotel, we went out to a newer part of town, where a local tour guide had built a house, bordering on a park.  She took us for a walk in the woods, then we learned how to make the Brazilian national drink, caipirinha.  Afterwards we had a wonderful meal, the best meal of the trip, with a chicken-and-vegetable dish cooked by her neighbor.