Iguazu Falls – One of the seven wonders of Nature

Our next destination was Foz do Iguazu. When we landed, our car was there to take us to our hotel Recanto, which was a gorgeous hotel with a thermal pool with a huge water park within the hotel. We all were super excited that the next 3 days were going to be awesome, in the lap of luxury, before we head to our next destination that would be rough and wild. More about that in the next blog.

So here we were, all super excited, including the parents of 2 small kids splashing around in the pool and enjoying the water slides. Since this day was just to relax and rejuvenate, we enjoyed the water park till it got dark. I came back to our suite early to get ready for the Christmas Eve dinner. When the 3 water babies - Aan, Aananya and Aakaash came back to the suite, they straight away jumped into the jacuzzi and played around some more!

I was watching them from the bed through the bathroom glass wall and that’s when I gave them the reality check that they had to wash a suitcase full of clothes. Earlier when I came to get ready, I opened the suitcase only to find that a sunscreen bottle had burst and spoilt a lot of our clothes. So, they took all the clothes into the jacuzzi and made a game out of that as well! Anyway, the job was done well in a playful manner and we all headed for - as Aanya says a “fancy-schmancy” dinner.

In the morning, I was so ready for the tour - this was the reason that I had pulled the entire family from one corner of Brazil to the other. I would say that no trip is complete to Brazil without visiting the awe-inspiring sight of the crashing falls of Iguazu. Iguazu Falls is the largest waterfall system in the world, 3 times wider than Niagara Falls, and has a greater width than Victoria Falls. It is one of the seven wonders of nature and has been also a popular spot for many Hollywood movies. Not only were we going to see the most amazing and powerful natural wonder, but we were also going to get up close and personal with it, maneuvering the boat to go as close to the falls and feel the power of it. 

So, we started our tour to the great Iguazu falls, which is situated in a designated UNESCO world heritage national park. Luckily for us, the weather was perfect, bright and sunny, therefore we had a great viewing. After our boat ride where we felt the spray of the fall on us, our driver took us to different vantage and viewpoints so that we could get our perfect clicks of this majestic fall. The falls are divided between 3 countries, so you can view it from Brazil, Argentina or Paraguay However, the viewing is better from Brazil’s side since it has better access to the main falls.

Almost towards the end of our tour, I started feeling really cold, and given that it was a nice sunny day, it was very odd. After a while, I realized I wasn’t feeling so well that I couldn’t even step out of the van to take our last few pics. By the time we reached back to our room and checked my temperature, I was already running 102. I told Aakaash to take the kids to the water park, popped paracetamol and slept, although I was afraid that I will not be able to sleep at night, but I was too tired to stay awake. At night, Aakaash came woke me up since our Christmas dinner was planned and I mustered all my strength to go and have dinner. It was a huge buffet spread and I think they refused to serve food in the room. After coming back to the room, I just crashed.

As a rule, whenever we are traveling, we always carry antibiotics, one set of the adult dose, one set for Aan and one for Aananya because the dosage was different for both of them. When I got up in the morning, I was still burning up, and lo and behold, Aan decided to give me company. We didn’t wait and started antibiotics for both of us. In a foreign country, on a vacation where English is not a spoken language, we didn’t want to take any chances. It was a challenge to buy milk for kids in a supermarket in Rio where there were so many tourists and this place was not a commercial place so the challenges would have been more. I told Aakaash to go ahead with Aananya and continue the tour. I think they went to the bird park but to my surprise, they came back sooner than expected. 

Aakaash reached the park and realized that Aananya had decided to join our gang, so he canceled the program and came back. We started her on antibiotics as well, especially given that the next course of our travel was going to be in a very remote place where normal facilities were not easily accessible. There was another evening tour that was planned for the night, which we had to cancel given that 3 wickets were down out of 4. We were just hoping and praying that we all get better soon. At night we ordered food in the room and just rested since the next day we were to take our flight out. My fever had reduced, and I had started to feel better. Aan had started to look better as well. We were a little concerned for Aananya because throughout the night her fever was not coming down and we were hoping that her body is able to fight through whatever this was. By God’s grace, the next morning Aananya’s fever came down and we were ready to take the flight to our next destination.