After our Bird Park visit, we headed back to the B&B and checked out. We still had 7 hours until our flight left Foz do Iguaçu, so the B&B employees were nice enough to hold our bags while we spent the afternoon walking around Centro / city center / downtown Foz do Iguaçu. In case you are curious where we stayed in Foz do Iguaçu, we stayed at
Iguassu Charm Suites / Pousada Caroline. Paul selected it mostly based on the name, Caroline. It was listed as a B&B, but was more like a motel. It had everything we needed, clean room, private bathroom, air conditioning, and breakfast included. Safe to say we were the only US Americans staying there at the time, and the only English speakers, so we didn't have any interaction with the other guests.
Foz do Iguaçu is so close to Argentina and Paraguay, you can take a public bus across the border. For US Citizens, there is a visa fee that is paid online. Argentina has a computer at the border so that US Citizens who have not already paid the visa fee can do so on the computer at the border station.
We met an American from Houston, Texas who visited both Paraguay and Argentina. She mentioned Paraguay did not even look at her passport when she crossed the border, so she did not pay the visa fee for Paraguay.
Foz do Iguaçu Centro was not nearly as touristed as Iguaçu National Park. There were only a few souvenir shops we encountered along our walk in the city. One of the few places we found was a combination souvenir and fabric supplies shop,
Bazar Setti.
I purchased a patch of the Brazilian flag which I later sewed into a Christmas ornament for my mother-in-law (left).
We spent the afternoon walking around the city, snacking at little cafes and drinking açai beverages.
After our stroll, we headed back to our B&B and they allowed us to use their common shower for R$5 per person. The price was actually R$10 per person, but we brought our own towels, so they gave us a R$5 discount. After our shower, it was time to head to the airport. The B&B offered us a lift for R$45, so we decided to take our chances flagging down a cab. Almost immediately, a cab pulled up and whisked us to the airport. We paid R$35 (including tip) for our taxi ride to the airport. The
Foz do Iguaçu airport is fairly small. So small, that our flight was never assigned a gate number as it was the only flight arriving or leaving the airport within a 2 hour time frame. We flew
GOL Airlines back to Rio, then we had a 1-hour layover before our direct flight back to Atlanta. This seemed like a good idea when we booked it; I would not recommend having such a short layover in
GIG as we literally ran from the baggage claim of one terminal to the Delta check-in desk at another terminal. Delta just moved locations in the airport, so we had to ask for directions from airport personnel to get us there. Fortunately, we made our flight back to Atlanta and arrived in Atlanta safe and sound. There were very few tourists (if any) on our flight back to ATL. Everyone was either visiting family (in US or Brazil), or US citizens working in Brazil. The funniest part was when we got off the plane in ATL. We looked ridiculous as we were all wearing summer clothes (shorts and t-shirts) in 34º F weather. All in all, it was a wonderful trip to Brazil and we can't wait to go back!
As a summary to this blog, here is our 7 day itinerary of our trip to Brazil.
After our Bird Park visit, we headed back to the B&B and checked out. We still had 7 hours until our flight left Foz do Iguaçu, so the B&B employees were nice enough to hold our bags while we spent the afternoon walking around Centro / city center / downtown Foz do Iguaçu. In case you are curious where we stayed in Foz do Iguaçu, we stayed at Iguassu Charm Suites / Pousada Caroline. Paul selected it mostly based on the name, Caroline. It was listed as a B&B, but was more like a motel. It had everything we needed, clean room, private bathroom, air conditioning, and breakfast included. Safe to say we were the only US Americans staying there at the time, and the only English speakers, so we didn't have any interaction with the other guests. 
Foz do Iguaçu Centro was not nearly as touristed as Iguaçu National Park. There were only a few souvenir shops we encountered along our walk in the city. One of the few places we found was a combination souvenir and fabric supplies shop, Bazar Setti.
After getting mugged by a coati and drenched in Devil's Throat we stopped for lunch in the park. The park provides multiple food options from a full-service restaurant, fast food option, to snack bars. There are many options for additional activities at Iguaçu National Park including hiking, boat rides, rappel, etc. We decided rappel which entailed a leisurely stroll back to where the bus dropped us off, and purchasing tickets (R$70/person) at the gift shop near the rappel platform. For me, the scariest part of rappel was walking out on the platform. The platform was a bit shaky. Once we were out on the platform, we put on all of the proper gear (harness, gloves, helmet), and received instructions. After that, it was pretty simple to enjoy the view of the falls while lowering ourselves (slowly) into the canyon.
Here I am getting drenched in Devil's Throat.
After breakfast at our B&B, we walked out to the main street in Foz do Iguaçu and took public bus 120 to Iguaçu National Park. We found taking the public bus in Foz to be just as easy and almost as cheap as Rio. You don't need bus card or exact change to ride the public bus here. There is a cashier on board to make change and the cost was a flat fee of R$2.90 per person. The bus dropped us off at the Iguaçu National Park welcome center. There were plenty of ticket booths open with no line. We exchanged our pre-paid vouchers for entry tickets. Iguaçu National Park has a website where you can prepay your entry fee with your credit card in advance. From the welcome center we boarded a bus into the park. The first 2-3 stops were for excursions (hiking, rafting, etc..), we stayed on the bus until it let us off at the first lookout point for the falls.
Our last stop on our tour with Alex was Vista Chinesa. This was another gorgeous lookout point for more panoramic views of Rio. The oriental style gazebo itself was a bit disappointing as it was run down, had no amenities, and there was a construction barricade around most of it. Thankfully the views made up for the appearance of the gazebo.
The trip down was slightly harder,
requiring us to step down backwards to descend the peak the first 300 yards
back down. From start to finish, we
hiked for about two and a half hours.
