Iguazú Falls

Where it sits. The falls lie on the Iguazú river a few kilometres above its junction with the Paraná, on the border between Misiones province in Argentina and Paraná state in Brazil, with Paraguay a short distance west. The river runs across a basalt plateau laid down by enormous lava flows, and at the falls it drops off the edge of that plateau in a broken crescent almost 2.7 kilometres wide, split by rock islands into something between 150 and 300 separate cascades depending on the water level. The largest, the Garganta del Diablo or Devil's Throat, is a U-shaped chasm about 80 metres deep into which roughly half the river pours. Average flow is around 1,500 cubic metres per second; in flood it has exceeded ten times that. Around the falls, subtropical rainforest is protected in Iguazú National Park on the Argentine side and Iguaçu National Park on the Brazilian, inscribed by UNESCO in 1984 and 1986.

The story behind it. The Guaraní, who have lived in this forest for centuries, tell the falls as the wreckage of a jealous act: the serpent deity M'Boi, denied the woman Naipí, split the river to trap her and her lover Tarobá for eternity, leaving a rainbow between them. The first European account came from Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, who crossed in 1541–42 and called them the Saltos de Santa María. Jesuit missionaries built their reductions upstream in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a system suppressed when the order was expelled from Spanish America in 1767. The Argentine park was created in 1934, and the walkways, viewing platforms and narrow-gauge forest railway that structure a visit today were rebuilt after floods repeatedly destroyed earlier versions.

On screen. The falls' defining film is Roland Joffé's The Mission (1986), which opens with a Jesuit priest lashed to a wooden cross and swept over the lip of the Devil's Throat — filmed here, with additional work around Isla San Martín and with the participation of Guaraní communities from Iguazú and Indigenous communities in Colombia's Chocó. Seven years earlier, the Bond film Moonraker (1979) had ended its "Amazon" river chase at these falls, though the chase itself was shot on Florida's St. Lucie River and only the plunge belongs to Iguazú. Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together (1997) made the falls the emotional destination its Hong Kong couple never quite reach together. Later blockbusters are often credited here in error: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) built its three-tier waterfall plunge from Hawaiian location work and visual effects rather than from filming at Iguazú.

What you actually see today. The two countries offer genuinely different experiences and both are worth a day. Argentina puts you inside the falls: the Circuito Superior runs along the top of the cascade line, the Circuito Inferior descends through forest to the base with spray in your face, a free boat crosses to Isla San Martín when the river is low enough, and the Tren Ecológico de la Selva delivers you to a 1,100-metre catwalk across braided river channels to the rim of the Devil's Throat, where the noise makes conversation impossible. Brazil offers the panorama — a 1.2-kilometre cliff trail facing the whole crescent, ending on a walkway that runs into the spray below the Throat. Zodiac trips on both sides drive boats under the curtains and soak everyone aboard.

The forest around it. The falls are the headline, but the park is a genuine subtropical rainforest reserve holding jaguar, ocelot, tapir and howler monkey, plus more than 400 bird species including the great dusky swifts that nest behind the water curtains and fly straight through them at dusk. Coatis are everywhere on the walkways and will open a bag: feeding them is prohibited and their bites carry real infection risk. Toucans, capuchins and hundreds of butterfly species are routine sightings on the quieter Macuco trail.

Getting there and timing. Puerto Iguazú in Argentina and Foz do Iguaçu in Brazil both have airports with domestic connections, and buses link the two towns across the Tancredo Neves bridge; check visa requirements before crossing. Flow peaks with the summer rains from December to February, when heat and humidity are punishing and paths can close; August to October brings mild weather and reliable water. The main Argentine circuits and the Brazilian trail are largely on level boardwalks with some accessible sections, but stairs on the lower circuit and the boat trips are not. Bring a waterproof layer and a dry bag — spray reaches everything.