South America's Iguazu Falls is higher than Niagara Falls and wider than Victoria Falls. Photo / Belmond
South America's Iguazu Falls is higher than Niagara Falls and wider than Victoria Falls. Photo / Belmond
“When it rains, we hear the water increasing. Sometimes the windows begin to shake.”
Checking in with guest relations agent Leticia Busatto on the terrace of Brazil’s historic Hotel das Cataratas, we’re in no doubt how close we are to one of the world’s most powerful natural wonders. Just beyond the hotel’s blush-pink Portuguese-colonial facade and manicured lawns – trimmed with towering palms enlivened by feasting toucans with impressive DayGlo beaks – shapeshifting clouds of spray are slowly parting to reveal a silvery sliver of Iguazu Falls’ world-beating grandeur.
A nearby lookout offers views across the Iguazu River to Argentina – we’ve also got waterfall and sunset vistas from our room – but negotiating a 1.6km clifftop walking path bordered by jungle is the best way to experience Iguazu’s astounding kinetic spectacle.
Luxury meets nature at Brazil’s historic Hotel das Cataratas. Photo / Belmond
It’s a journey we take the following morning with Andre, an experienced local guide born and bred in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil’s gateway to the falls. Just after 8am, South American sunshine is peeking cautiously above Argentina to the east, and on one of the hotel’s exclusive First Light experiences we’re the first ones on the trail. From around 9.30am, buses will deposit visitors at Iguazu’s main Brazilian lookout, but courtesy of Belmond’s location as the only hotel in Iguacu National Park, we’ve got a 90-minute window with the falls almost all to ourselves.
On the morning’s meandering and undulating stroll, Iguazu’s power and scale are revealed methodically and cinematically. Wooden steps descend to compact lookouts, with jungle foliage teasingly and temporarily obscuring even more impressive views further along the trail. Andre confirms Iguazu is both “higher than Niagara Falls” and “wider than Victoria Falls”, and along the walk, local wildlife is also out and about before the morning’s influx of visitors.
Birdlife includes the hoatzin, topped with a scruffy crown of perpetually dishevelled feathers, while cotia are revealed as the compact rodents scurrying across the path a few seconds before us. After dark, Andre’s even seen one of the 40 or so jaguars roaming the national park’s World Heritage-listed 1700sq km, but on a crisp May morning, there’s no need for big cat thrills to maximise today’s experience.
The cool of the morning is further amplified as we descend down a series of zig zags to approach the river. Higher up, insulated by the forest, Iguazu’s sensory overload is largely visual, with its natural amphitheatre of cascades offering sublime views. Down by the river, we continue across a wooden walkway with Iguazu’s surging waters just a couple of metres below us.
Morning sunshine struggles to offset the cooling spray now enveloping us but does produce a perfectly sublime rainbow arcing across the riverine border with Argentina. At the walkway’s abrupt end, a viewing platform is right above Iguazu’s famed Garganta do Diabo (Devil’s Throat), squeezing the river’s flow into an improbably narrow chasm. A trio of senses is completed by the visceral roar of water making it difficult to hear each other.
Ascending back to the trail in a nearby lift, Andre confirms today’s water level is “slightly below average”, and shows us a spectacular video from October 2022. The walkway we’ve just negotiated is virtually covered in a raging torrent of water, made caramel-coloured with the infusion of terracotta soil from the surrounding jungle. Andre’s visited the falls “‘thousands of times” over “more than 10 years”, and reckons the ever-changing combination of sunshine, rain and misty spray makes every time different.
After lunch in the hotel’s poolside restaurant, we embark on Iguazu’s most exciting thrill ride later in the afternoon. Following the morning’s easygoing walk, an experience with Macuco Safari actually begins in an equally relaxed manner, riding for 2km on an electric-powered train along a forest trail, before embarking on a 600m shaded jungle walk to where a funicular tram descends down to the Iguazu River. Essential rain ponchos and life jackets hint at what’s to come as we board one of Macuco’s purpose-built inflatable boats. Securing a place at the front of the boat – simultaneously wisely and foolishly in retrospect – we head off on a careering course upstream, zipping through tight on the water turns and wild chicanes that would give New Zealand’s Shotover River experience a run for its money.
A calming stop in a sheltered bay is an opportunity to view the falls from below, before the boat continues upriver to extend its bow under a duo of cascades. Compared to the massive waterfalls further upstream, they’re actually much smaller, but it’s still almost impossible to open our eyes and look directly up at the surging flow of water. A few metres downstream, another waterfall emerges almost horizontally from Iguazu’s ancient rocks like a giant celestial bath tap, and we make sure we heed the advice we’d received just before leaving the hotel.
Brazil's historic Hotel das Cataratas is located close to Iguazu Falls and is the only hotel in Iguacu National Park, Photo / Belmond
“Don’t forget to hold your breath under the waterfalls.”
Who knew that last-minute guidance served with caipirinha cocktails and ceviche could be so accurate?
Checklist:
Getting There:
LATAM has direct flights from Auckland to Santiago, Chile, with frequent connections to Brazil’s Foz do Iguacu via Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paolo.
First opened in 1958 and surrounded by jungle, Belmond Hotel das Cataratas is the only hotel within Brazil’s Iguacu National Park. Room rates at the luxury hotel start at around NZ$1100. The hotel can also arrange 10-minute helicopter rides, leaving from just outside the national park in Foz do Iguacu, and offering spectacular views of the infamous Devil’s Throat.
