Sunday 13th December:

The forecast was not good, rain was promised, and rain it did, in stair rods between 10.00 and 14.00. By 10.00 we had completed our tour for the day, a walk of the Brazilian side of the falls. When we booked, Dave at Savvi told us that the Brazilian side was best for viewing the falls (not sure), and had the best hotel, the Belmond (almost certainly true, a beautiful hotel). Sue & Dennis we find have a tour that takes them to both the Brazilian side and the Argentinian side.

We hook up with Neto our guide, and decide that at $160 for him and the car to take us to the other side, is not worth it, and given the oncoming rain, probably the right decision. Sue & Dennis enjoyed the tour, but were continually soaked, in the rain complete with thunder and lightening, and unable to get their camera out.

We sit by the poolside, under a large umbrella, with a cappuccino, and watch the rain hammer down. We lunch on the veranda and sit there most of the afternoon. As I forecast the cloud clears and the sun comes out again, and I do this morning's walk in reverse. This time I ensure I stay dry, unlike earlier when we found the places where the spray drenched you in seconds, all to record the visit appropriately.

By any measure, Iguazu Falls is a monster.It spans an area 2.7 kilometers wide. It's made up of a system of 275 waterfalls or cataracts, with the exact number depending on the season. The tallest of these waterfalls, called the Devil's Throat, drops by more than 80 meters into a milky abyss that creates a permanent cloud of mist.

To put that in perspective, Iguazu Falls is nearly twice as tall as Niagara Falls and rivaled only by Zambia and Zimbabwe's Victoria Falls, which is taller at 108 meters. It's nearly three times as wide as Niagara Falls and significantly wider still than Victoria Falls.

The amount of water pouring from these falls to the Iguazu River is equally staggering. On average, about 1,500 cubic meters of water flows every second. Depending on the time of the year, the rate of water flow can be as much as 13,000 cubic meters per second, enough to fill five Olympic swimming pools, especially during the rainy months of November to March.

It's little surprise then that the river that the water flows into, as well as the waterfalls, are both named Iguazu, which literally means "big water" in native Guarani Indian language.