Saturday, April 4, 2009

Iguazu Falls


translated from Spanish

Iguazu Falls – (cataratas del Iguazú)


Since Posadas, Misiones province, Route 12 is the most popular way to get to the famous Iguazu Falls, 310 km. Cataracts are a goal for foreign tourists soon get to the Argentina. Normally move by air to Puerto Iguazu, but it is advisable, even once, arriving by land. The stretch of Route 12 between Posadas and Puerto Iguazú is dotted with beautiful villages in which they should stop, eg, the ruins of Candelaria, Santa Ana and Loreto. Of the dozens of ruins of the Jesuit missions that have been in the province of Misiones in Paraguay and the San Ignacio Mini, which are located in San Ignacio, 55 km from the capital, are the most spectacular and unique were subjected to a process of restoration. We need to know to see what he could only attempt to achieve the indigenous settlement was not made with blood and fire. In San Ignacio keeps the house where he lived Horacio Quiroga, one of the great writers rioplatense and one of the most unique literary history of these latitudes. Uruguayan and Argentine origin for adoption, Quiroga lived long years in the jungle, where she wrote stories about the master and the man who is able to resist. The house and furnishings were built with their own hands. The landscape is different from missionary everything you can imagine. The soil is red because of the large foundations that contains iron. Therefore, it is extremely fertile. If you are encouraged to explore, find, and side to side of the road, streams and small waterfalls erupt amid the tangled vegetation. Despite the rich indigenous forest have been cleared so huge and replaced by pine trees, there are parts where it is still something. It should be a high Tobaya breaks, a few miles from Puerto Rico, also in Monte Carlo to visit the provincial orchid, and to see native trees in the region Schelm Provincial Park, near Eldorado, one of the most important missionary of the interior, surrounded by an aura of legend of the famous kingdom of gold sought by the conquistadors. Hence, it is less than an hour by car to get to Puerto Iguazu. This small town grew as a center for tourism that comes to admire the walls of water more than 70 m in height, forming the Iguazu River. There are several inns and a simple pair of chain hotels, campsites. Cataracts are a kind of giant crescent in the middle of the jungle. The river produces more than 1,500 m3 per second with over 250 jumps of different sizes. The most famous: Two sisters, Mbiguá, Saint Martin, Two Musketeers, Three Musketeers, and the Garganta del Diablo, which forms the border with Brazil. The whole system falls within the Iguazú National Park, home to native vegetation and rich fauna - unfortunately not very neat and with some species in grave danger, and hundreds of bird species. There are a number of gateways through which they have different angles of the jumps, only for the very bold in the tour is reserved rubber boats. For ecological reasons are not recommended for helicopter rides over the area, but can do the least apprehensive. The park is the natural border separating Argentina from Brazil and Paraguay. You can cross to Foz de Iguazu on the Brazilian side-by-the Tancredo Neves International Bridge, only 500 m in length. From Foz has a panoramic view of the entire set of waterfalls on the Argentine side that can not be achieved because it is within them.