Iguazu Falls Argentina

Legendary

This massive two-stage waterfall is the largest waterfall system in the world.

Photo by Bruno Soares dos Santos

When Eleanor Roosevelt, the American First Lady, saw these falls in 1944, she reportedly took one look and said, "Poor Niagara."

She had a point. Niagara is about 50 metres tall. The tallest part of Iguazu drops 82 metres.

Iguazu isn't one waterfall at all. It's a system of roughly 275 separate cascades spread across 2.7 kilometres of cliff edge, split up by rocky, tree-covered islands.

The falls sit on the Iguazu River, right on the border between Argentina and Brazil. Argentina has about 80 percent of the actual waterfalls, while Brazil has the wider view.

The name comes from the Guaraní language and means "big water." The Guaraní people knew these falls for thousands of years.

Their legend explains how the falls formed. A serpent god named Mboi wanted to marry a young woman called Naipí, and when she fled downriver with a warrior named Tarobá, the furious god split the river in two.

The first European to see them was the Spanish conquistador Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, who arrived in 1541. He called them the Falls of Santa María, but that name didn't stick.

The real story is older and stranger. The falls formed about 20 million years ago, when volcanic activity forced the river to change course.

Roughly half the river's water pours into one place: a U-shaped chasm called the Devil's Throat. It's 82 metres high, 150 metres wide, and 700 metres long.

Both national parks around the falls are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Toucans, coatis, monkeys, and jaguars live in the rainforest surrounding them.

Walk the kilometre-long boardwalk on the Argentine side that ends right at the lip of the Devil's Throat. Cross to the Brazilian side for the wide panorama of the whole system at once. Take a boat trip beneath the falls if you don't mind getting completely soaked.