8 Facts About Iguazú Falls

One of the triple crown of epic global waterfalls along with Victoria Falls in Africa and Niagara Falls in North America, Iguazú Falls lies along the border between Argentina and Brazil. But other than that, what do most of us really know about the awesome cascade? Here’s a few facts:

1. The indigenous Guarani people call the falls Chororõ Yguasu or “Big Water”

2. According to Guarani legend, the falls was created when a young woman ran away with her human lover rather than marry a deity. Spotting the lovers fleeing downriver in a canoe, the angry god split the river in half, creating the mighty cascade and cursing the lovers to an eternity of tumbling into the watery abyss.

3. Rather than a single waterfall, Iguazú comprises 275 separate cascades spread across 8,800 feet of basalt rim that began to form when dinosaurs still walked the earth.

4. Despite that tremendous girth, it’s only the third widest waterfall in South American after the Salto Para in Venezuela (18,400 feet) and Guaira Falls in Brazil (15,840 feet).

5. The first European to see Iguazú Falls was 16th-century Spanish explorer Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, who is more remembered for an eight-year “lost” journey from Florida to the Pacific Coast during which only four of his 600-man expedition survived.

6. Besides its 2016 designation as one of the New Seven Wonders of the Natural World, the national parks on either side of the falls are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

7. Iguazú Falls has appeared in more than two dozen movies and TV shows including Moonraker, Black Panther and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

8. Grand Hotels Lux offers two luxurious ways to stay on the Argentine side of the falls: the Iguazú Grand and the Panoramic Grand.