“The animals have rabies, have a nice tour.”
8 03 2007This one went down in our quotes book. This is an abridged version of the following quote:
Please be careful - do not feed the coatis or touch them. They carry diseases, including rabies. Have a nice tour.
The above quote was from the English version of a trilingual recording that plays on the bus from the visitor center to the observation platform in the National Park on the Brazilian side of the falls. I couldn’t stop laughing about it when I heard it. I imagine the non-anglophones didn’t understand why I was laughing at the safety message.
What are coatis you might ask? A coati (shortened form of coatimundi) is an animal about the size of a small to medium sized dog and related to the raccoon of North America. One of the pictures in the rotation for the banner of this website features a coati that we photographed in Costa Rica (go to the main blog page and keep hitting refresh to see all the banner images). In general, the coatis you encounter are not very shy at all, and apparently have taken a liking to people-food, explaining why there are so many of them in touristy areas near the falls.
OK, about the falls - Iguazu falls, which, according to wikipedia.com, is the second-largest curtain of water (i.e. vertical waterfall) in the world.
The water falling over Iguazu in peak flow has a surface area of about 400,000 square metres (1.3 million square feet) whilst Victoria in peak flow has a surface area of over 550,000 square metres (1.8 million square feet). By comparison, Niagara has a surface area of under 183,000 square metres (600,000 square feet). Victoria’s annual peak flow is also greater than Iguazu’s annual peak—9.1 million litres per second versus 6.5 million—though in times of extreme flood the two have recorded very similar maximum water discharge (well in excess of 12 million litres per second.). Niagara’s annual peak flow is about 2.8 million liters per second, although an all-time peak of 6.8 million has been recorded.
We have now seen the falls from both the Brazilian side and the Argentine side and we even took a boat trip up to a section of the waterfalls on the Argentine side. The tour cashier wasn’t kidding when he said “Have a nice tour and a nice shower”. It takes twin outboards to keep the boat pressed up against the water spray because of the enormous waterflow pushing us downstream. There is so much spray that you can’t even see anything. Pretty intense.
Also, there are butterflies of every color everywhere and they are very tame. They will often land on your clothes or your skin and unroll their proboscises (which are also of various colors) and suck something up (sweat, we’re assuming). Kinda feels weird.
Hey steve,
That’s so funny. I haven’t been able to keep up with you two as much as I’d like, but now that we are pretty much settled in and have internet access at the house I’m going to do much better. Anyway… frikin’ rabies, that’s great.
Marian
By the way, if you ever go to Iguazu Falls on the Argentine side (Puerto Iguazu), you should stay with Maria at her house. Wander into the neighborhood northeast of the bus terminal and ask for Posada a Casa de Maria. There’s no official name for her place but people should know her. She has a house on the corner of two cobbled streets just past the Hostel. Very nice place and it costs 20 pesos per person per night.
I went to Puerto Iguazu on the Argentine side last year and was attacked by a Coati. I had to hop a flight to BA to get rabies shots for the next seven days! I wish I would ave known what that recording had told you, because everyone we spoke with said “Oh no, Coati don’t carry rabies!” Like I was totally off my rocker.