Friday 16 April 2010

Iguazú: the wood for the trees

If ever one needed a lesson in the benefit of different perspectives, Iguazú Falls is it. On the Argentinian side you are in amongst them. Up close in a boat getting drenched, hovering over the tops of the Saltos falls . Looking up into the spray from the lower trail or teetering on the precipice of the Devil's Throat as the world slips away from you.

Over the Rio Iguazú in Brasil, things are very different. The first glimpse of the falls here is wide and clear. Suddenly you realise just how big these things are. The white lines stretch for what seem like miles. And you start to appreciate the layers, how so many separate falls meld together into one great spectacle.






I've got jeans on today so I'm not planning on getting wet. You can walk out into the middle and be engulfed in spray if you want. I don't. That was yesterday. Up close and personal, you can't see the wood for the trees. Or the waterfalls for the water. Today I'm sitting back and looking at the whole damn forest.




When you do get close, it's from a new angle, and you can almost see through the water. You notice each droplet of water, the colour and the light.






At the top of the observation tower, one more chance to survey the breathtaking scene before we head back to Argentina. A last glimpse of the whole vista. But something else catches my eye and I spend a few minutes trying to get a photo. No one else is doing this. Some of them are looking at me, they probably think I'm mad. I guess it's just a question of perspective.


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