Iguazu Falls -- Day 2

The Brazilian side, Cataratas do Iguacu, provides a better panorama of the falls than the Argentinian side, but there's much less hiking.  For some reason, the Brazilian side was also much less crowded.

We took the local bus out to the park and spent a relaxing couple of hours checking out everything.  It was overcast and a bit chilly, so we decided to forego the expensive speedboat ride.  It still felt very special to be there, close to the roaring water.

Itaipu Dam, a joint project of Brazil and Paraguay

Amazingly, the waterfall destroyed by the Itaipu Dam, which we had visited the day before, was many times the size of Iguazu.

Local transport in Foz do Iguacu

The highlight of the day was spending the afternoon at Parque das Aves, a bird rescue park founded 20 years ago.  About half of the birds in the park were bred in captivity, and thus do not fear people.  We had a chance to interact with them up close.  My favorite was the enormous macaw area, where people can enter the cage and hang out while hundreds of macaws fly around and scream.  The parque reminded us of the condor park in Otavalo, Ecuador, but this was larger and contained a larger variety of bird species.