I was up relatively early and dressed for the Breakfast Buffet which
was quite nice, then it was back downstairs to meet Leonardo who then
drove me out the National Park and organised the tickets for entrance
as well as for the Jungle and River tour. First off, the Jungle and
River tour started out with a drive down a muddy dirt road for 5 or 6
kms through the jungle sitting in the back of a truck with rows of
seats bolted in. The only wildlife we saw was lots of butterflies and
one snake sitting up in the trees branches hanging over the road. The
rain forest reminds me a bit of Cape York as it is a similar sort of
sub-tropical rain forest.
At the end of the road we took a longish set of stairs down to the
river where there were several high powered boats waiting to take us
on a trip up the river to the falls. First we were issued with a dry
bag to put our packs and personal effects in and fitted with a life
jacket. We were also warned that we were going to get very wet. The
trip up the river was quite pleasant with many smaller waterfalls
along the way, but we didn't really get wet at all. Then when we got
to the falls we stopped for photos of two different sections and while
this was happening we noticed the crew had put on some very serious
looking water proof protection and we realised that we were about to
get very wet. Most of the rest of the passengers seemed to be more
interested in taking selfies than looking at the scenery.
Then the boat nudged in closer and closer to the falls and we got
wetter and wetter, I was taking movies with my underwater camera at
this stage and it got so bad you couldn't see anything for the spray
and water. This happened a few times and was very invigorating with
the water being a very pleasant temperature. Then it was a hig speed
run back down the river to the landing area where we got out of the
boat and tried to dry off a bit. We piled back into the trucks and
they drove us back to the central staging area of the park. This was a
great experience and a lot of fun.
I was going to take the small train up to the Devil's Mouth but the
queue was very long so I decided to walk the upper falls section. This
was very spectacular with some great views out over the many falls.
Back at the central area I had some lunch and watched the Coati (?)
trying to scavenge food from the visitors when a small herd of monkeys
arrived and stole the odd sandwich or two from the unwary tourists.
The lower falls walk was next and I was starting to dry out but got
wet again from the spray from the falls but once again it was very
spectacular and worth getting a bit wet. I finally headed back to the
train station where the queue was a little bit shorter, so I stood in
line and tried to keep cool as the temperature was up around 35 deg C
and the humidity was close to 100 %.
The little train trip was quite pleasant and a coolish breeze helped
dry me out a bit. A one km walk out over metal bridges to the Hell's
Mouth was interesting and hot as there was not much shade and then
seeing the amount of water and power of it as it flows over the top of
the falls was incredible. Once again everyone seemed to be trying to
take selfies making it hard to get into position for a good view and
photograph.
Then it was another one km walk back to the train and another very
long queue. I finally made it back to the park entrance and while my
shirt had dried out nicely my jeans and shoes were still damp.
Leonardo picked me up and he took me back to the hotel where I had a
relaxing shower and hung up my clothes so they could dry out a bit.
After a visit to the hotel restaurant buffet for dinner and then an
ibuprofen desert, I downloaded and started organising my photos and
then had an early night to bed after all the walking of the day.
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