The first stop was - Wait, let me just tell you that the pictures I post do not do the Falls justice. At all. They are absolutely amazing. There is SO MUCH POWER...makes you wonder how they just keep going and going and going.
Ok, so back to the first stop. They call this the Devil's Throat. This is the biggest section of the falls and as we were walking up to it and I saw the people coming back from it, I thought there must be a place to swim. Nope...the people were just wet from the spray. Thank goodness we got the tip about bringing a waterproof camera.
Approaching the Devil's Throat (see the spray)
Approaching the Devil's Throat (the drop is just behind Tre to his left)
The Devil's Throat
The Devil's Throat
The Devil's Throat
After we saw the Devil's Throat, we saw this spider (while waiting for the train). Again, this picture does not do it justice. This thing was HUGE and looked like it had a metal plate on it's back. We saw a whole bunch of them, but this one was SO big. We later found out during our ride through the jungle to the boat that the thread made by this spider is very strong and scientists are trying to duplicate it.
BIG spider...it's just above the 2nd screw. Actually pretty hard to see here, but it was frighteningly large.
After the train picked us up, we broke for lunch. There were a couple of different options to choose from and Tre and I decided to go to a sit down restaurant. Or so that's what we thought it was. It was actually a buffet (similar to the one on New Year's Eve) with fresh cooked meat from the grill and a whole host of other stuff. Not like any other National Park food we've ever eaten. Anyway, after we ate, we headed down for the boat tour. Our tour guide told us we be as wet as if we got in the shower with all of our clothes on after the ride. We were ready!
The way the falls were arranged, the Devil's Throat was at the head and then there were all these smaller (yet still quite huge and powerful) falls that came down the side. This attraction is right on the Brazil/Argentina border, but I think most of the smaller falls were on the Argentina side, which worked out well for us. Anyway, we got on the boat, took off our shoes and socks, emptied our pockets, strapped on a life jacket and away we went up the river. They drove us right into the falls. As Tre describes it..."it was kind of like taking a shower with a fire hose". It was incredible.
They were nice enough to stop and let people take pictures before we got drenched.
Before we got wet...we're getting ready to head straight in there.
Yep, that's where we're going!
And we're in..
Cheese...oops, don't get that river water in your mouth - ha!
Again, again!
Freshly "showered".
Man, that was fun!After we got doused, we finished the rest of the walking tour. We saw a family of monkeys and our guide told us that we were very lucky since there is only the one family living there that they are aware of. There are thousands and thousands of butterflies of all different vibrant colors. At any given time you probably have at least one on you. The Coati are wild and I was totally taken by them and couldn't believe how trusting they were to come out and around the people, but they are no dummies, they get stupid tourists to feed them. I just kept going on and on about them and finally Tre compared them to squirrels and/or raccoons... yeah, I guess that's true. They were just so darn cute.
Scavenging Coati
A final picture of the falls. The water you see below on the left side of the picture is where our boat was. The falls in the right of the picture are the falls we went into. Totally awesome...we were both really glad to have added the boat ride to our tour.
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