Chapter 5: The Iguazú Falls
The south of Brazil meets the north of Argentina at the Iguazú River, called Iguaçu in Brazil. At this meeting place, the land in the north is higher than the land in the south. When the river comes to the end of the higher land, it falls off – like water that falls off the side of a table. But this table is 2.7 kilometres long, and the water falls 82 metres down its side. These waterfalls are called the Iguazú Falls.
They are not the highest waterfalls in the world, but they are some of the biggest. At dry times of the year, about 500 cubic metres of water comes down the waterfalls every second. But at wet times, from November to March, there is much more water – about 6,000 cubic metres of water
every second.
The Iguazú Falls are not special just because they are big. They are special because they are wonderful to see. They are not one fall of water -there are 275 different falls along 2.7 kilometres of the river. The largest and most famous of the falls is called the Devil’s Throat. The water comes into the Devil’s Throat from three sides; from the top, it looks like the letter ‘U’.
The best place to see it is from the Brazilian side of the river. People have built a walkway – a wooden road above the river – at the mouth of the ‘U’, so you can walk near to the middle of the falls. It is often wet on this walkway, and not just from the rain. The falling water makes a wet cloud over the Devil’s Throat for much of the year. (Visitors can borrow raincoats from the Visitor Centre!)
Most of the falls are on the Argentinian side of the river. There are long walkways on this side to many places along the waterfalls. You can take a boat to the island in the middle of the river, San Martin Island, and look up at the falls. Or you can fly over the waterfalls and look down on them.
But it is possible to get away from the noise of the falls. On both sides of the river there are parks with wonderful flowers, trees, and rare animals like the jaguar. There are more than 350 different kinds of bird, too. And when the moon is full, there are special visits to see the waterfalls by moonlight.
But this beautiful, special place is in danger. The parks are in danger, because people want to cut down the trees to build roads, houses, and hotels. The waterfalls are in danger, too, because people want to build dams, using the river to make electricity. The Itaipu Dam – one of the largest in
the world – is below the waterfalls on the Paraná River. But there are five dams above the waterfalls. The nearest, the Salto Caxias Dam, is only 20 kilometres away – and there are soon going to be more. And if we destroy the parks and waterfalls, there will not be a home for the birds and animals of the forest.