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Their name comes from the Guarani or Tupi words Legend has it that a
god planned to marry a beautiful aborigine named Naipí, who fled with
her mortal lover Tarobá in a canoe. In rage, the god sliced the river
creating the waterfalls, condemning the lovers to an eternal fall. The
first European to find the falls was the Spanish Conquistador Álvar
Núñez Cabeza de Vaca in 1541, after whom one of the falls in the
Argentine side is named. The falls were rediscovered by Boselli at the
end of the nineteenth century, and one of the Argentine falls is named
after him.
Iguazu Falls was short-listed as a candidate to be one of the
New7Wonders of Nature by the New Seven Wonders of the World Foundation.
As of February 2009 it was ranking fifth in Group F, the category for
lake, rivers, and waterfalls. |
