The Iguazú Falls are located within the National Park of the same name, about 20 kilometers from the city of Puerto Iguazú, north of the province of Misiones, Argentina. The river that forms them, also called Iguazú, is born in the state of Paraná, in Brazil, and after traveling about 1200 kilometers on a plateau, absorbing the flow of the tributaries that meet on its way, it reaches a point where Geological fault forms a crack in the plain. As if a giant shovel had sunk into the earth separating its sides.
Only in this cut, it coincides with the passage of a river.
A river that has been crossing a calm geography, without too many surprises, that little by little it finds in its passage a series of jumps. And suddenly, about 80 meters of unevenness that turn into a violent sensation of vertigo: the Devil's Throat, the main waterfall of the Falls, combined with a constant deafening thunder that is submerged in the deepest, then meekly, end a few kilometers on the Paraná river.
In the Guaraní language, the term Iguazú translates as Aguas grandes. They were discovered by European explorers in the year 1541, by the advance Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. In 1984, UNESCO declared them as the natural heritage of humanity and in 2011 an international contest nominated the Iguazu Falls as one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World.
One of the several legends tells of the existence of a giant snake, "Boi", which lived inside the river. To appease their ferocity, the aborigines sacrificed a lady once a year, throwing her into the waters as an offering to the beast. On one of those occasions a brave Guaraní kidnapped the chosen maid, to save her from the traditional ritual, escaping with her in a canoe on the river.
Upon learning of the audacity, Boi went into a rage and stooping his back broke the course of the river, thus creating the falls and thus separating both Indians.
