We started on a little tour through the rainforest.
It included frequent sitings of scary spiders. This photo is thanks to Samosa and his zoom lens and bravery for looking up and admitting that there were tons of spiderwebs overhead.
The guide said that we shouldn't worry about these guys, sure they'd bite and it'd hurt (like a mosquito), but they weren't poisonous. No big deal. Still, I'm not sure I'd be so rational if one landed on me. Apparently though they are the masters of strong web weaving and fisherman have used their gossamer threads when fishing. So I've been told. By a tour guide. On this tour.
So a car tour. Then a walking tour. Then...
...an American, a Finn and an Indian get photographed by a Pakistani as they suit up for the boat ride.
And we get close to some of the waterfalls.
They hand around a waterproof bag and we drop our cameras inside. Then we get really close to the waterfalls. Like, really close. We go right underneath them. Water, water, everywhere. Shouts and laughter. You try to look around you but you can hardly see. Then they're gearing up and they take you under the falls again. And again. And again. They almost look placid from a distance, but feel a little more intense when they're raining down upon you. Kinda amazing. Definitely fun.
I was pleased I'd had the foresight to leave my shoes on the dock. Though that felt like kind of an after-thought considering all my clothes and underclothes were soaking with waterfall water. But, luckily I'd brought more clothes. Actually, due to some crazy-running-to-get-to-the-tour-on-time, I hadn't changed into my bathing suit and old t-shirt on time. But, I was grateful for the dry bathing suit to put on.
So, after this whole-body drenching experience, we followed the signs to more waterfalls!
Ah, look, these are our waterfalls-viewing-smiles-of-contentment!
Yup, this is the kind of thing we're looking at:
Then for the fun of it, we got misted again when we went out past the End Polio Now sign onto the walkway and got even closer to it all (as close as you can get on the Brazilian side, I'd say). This time I was happy for this "raincoat" and keeping my bathing suit dry(ish).
It was lovely. If you want to see more, I've been posting photos less discriminately on
my flickr site.
And luckily we didn't get hit on the head by any falling rocks at any point during the day's activities.
We left the park that Friday afternoon completely thrilled to devote our entire Saturday to more time with the waterfalls.
Except when we awoke the next morning, there was a torrential rain storm outside our window...
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