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The rich brown river splits in two like a victory sign, parceling the land on its banks into three sections - one triangle for Argentina, another for Brazil and the third for sleepy Paraguay.

Standing at the junction of the three countries, slapping mosquitoes and fending off small sales children, it’s hard not to be awed by the River Iguazu; it is the ultimate border. So broad and so fast, the ferocious current is driven by a monstrous powerhouse further upstream on the Argentine-Brazilian border, namely the Iguazu Falls.

Around 275 individual cascades make up Iguazu Falls, which were relatively unknown until The Mission, a story of a Jesuit settlement featuring a deliciously brooding Jeremy Irons, Robert de Niro and Aiden Quinn, was filmed here in 1985. Within two years the number of visitors from South America and abroad had spiked to 1.3 million, all looking for that remote jungle and the brooding Irons. Today it is one of the region’s top tourist stops.

The horseshoe-shaped falls span 2.7 kilometres and are said to have been first navigated by boat in 1896. Nothwithstanding, of course, the fact that Guarani Indians had been living here for about seven centuries already – their final destination in a quest for the Land Without Evil – before missionaries and European chancers dropped in with their booze, bibles and bugs in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The most spectacular of the falls is Devil’s Throat (Gargaunta del Diablo), a 78-meter plunge that thrashes Niagara’s wimpy 51-meter effort. “Poor Niagara,” said Eleanor Roosevelt, when she visited these falls, which are also three or four times the width of their northern cousin, depending on who you’re talking to. The photogenic drop sends thick, brown water spewing down its rock-face, where rainbows and tiny swifts weave in and out of the permanent heavy mists. These same mists drench us all on the jutting platform that marks the end of the walking trail on the Argentinean side.

Set in a national park, the falls can be accessed in either Brazil or Argentina - you can chopper over them, take a jet boat beneath them and even sleep by them. Each side has a hotel perched as close to the waters as possible; the Sheraton on the Argentinean side and the candy-pink Hotel Cataras in Brazil stare each other down in a hospitality face-off over the top of Iguazu’s roar.

The sound that the waterfall makes is astounding. The closer to the falls we walk, the louder the din, till we’re shrieking our touristy banalities at the top of our lungs. The only thing worth doing is screaming, a guaranteed activity on the jet boats that tear into the base of the waterfalls to drench us passengers. Later the staff flog the resultant videos of our open mouths and wet t-shirts.

When choosing the best time to visit, you have to accept that it rains all year round and only the temperature changes. But here’s a hint – avoid high summer. Temperatures reach as much as 48 degrees, which, combined with the heavy-hitting 70+ per cent humidity, puts it just short of a mild day in Hades.

Spring, on the other hand, is when the 400 species of ‘flying flowers’ or butterflies, come out to play and the temperature drops to around a more manageable 30 degrees. Mind you, you’re still in for a moveable sauna, as the deeper the tracks wind down into the foot of the falls, the more wildly tropical the foliage and the more your face glistens, slick with sweat. Goodbye hangover, hello budget detox.

To say the national park is teeming with wildlife is on par with saying Argentineans like their steak so rare it answers back. These animals are weirder than a platypus, with names that won’t mean much to most Australians. There’s the crati, cibu, tegu and coatis, for instance. We don’t know what a coatis is, but the warning signs tell us to please beware of it. “They can and will bite. Hide food items in their presence,“ say the warning signs along the jungle paths to the falls. We guard our ice-creams carefully.

When one shows its long nose, it turns out to look like...well, a long-nosed, long-tailed possumy creature with big black claws, while the gentler agouti is a tubby mouse-coloured wombat-like rodent celebrated for its fine-tasting flesh.

If you’re lucky, you’ll spot one of five species of toucan in early morning or at dusk, while vultures circle for prey to the soundtrack provided by the river’s roar and the call of an unknown but surely-soon-to-be-extinct bird whose late-afternoon screech sounds exactly like an irate car alarm.

There are also howler and brown capuchine monkeys and dark, mysterious hunters that once caused an unsuspecting American tourist to ask our guide, Isabelle, “What kind of dog is that?” Isabelle looked at the puma, the puma looked at her, and both slunk off into the shadows, each unsure who was the more dangerous.

The virgin jungle hums and throbs with life. Now a protected UNESCO site, it is rampant with vines, palms, bamboo and 85 species of orchid, while the waters are rich with the freshwater dorrado, suribaya and the extremely tasty pacu, which turns up regularly on the excellent lunchtime buffet at the Sheraton.

Essential souvenirs include hippyish beads and brightly woven bags sold by calm Paraguay Indians in Man U shirts just near the entrance to the park on the Argentinean side, while the wooden toucan and puma carvings are cute, but untouchable for Aussie visitors.

What do you wear to such a place, we hear you ask. Benefit from my discomfort; the recipe of sartorial success is swimming shorts for men or bikinis for women (South America so doesn’t do one-pieces), a cotton shirt over the top, walking sandals, a thick veneer of sunscreen with inbuilt mosquito repellent, waterproof camera and, of course, waterproof mascara. It might be hot, it might be wet, but South America does have its standards, even in the jungle.

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