Hotel das Cataratas

Every morning before the park gates open, a small group of people walks out of a pink building onto the path that leads to the Iguaçu falls, and for an hour they have the view to themselves. Hotel das Cataratas, A Belmond Hotel in Foz do Iguaçu is the only hotel inside the Brazilian national park, and that access is the reason to stay. The building has stood here since 1958.

History

The hotel was built by the Brazilian state as a Hotel de Turismo at the end of the 1950s and opened in 1958, in the colonial style the government favoured for its park hotels. The park itself had been created in 1939, and UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage Site in 1986, which secured the hotel's position as the only building of its kind inside the boundary. Orient-Express Hotels took over management in 2007 and closed the hotel for a renovation that restored the facade, rebuilt the rooms and added the spa, reopening in 2009 as a luxury hotel in Foz do Iguaçu of a standard the region had not had. The company became Belmond in 2014 and the hotel took the brand name.

Architecture and design

The design borrows from Portuguese colonial houses: a long, low pink facade with white detailing, arcades along the ground floor, a tiled roof and a tower at the centre. Inside, the public rooms have dark wood, azulejo tiles and ceiling fans, and the restoration kept the proportions while replacing the services. The gardens around the building are planted with native trees that draw coatis and toucans onto the lawns, and the pool sits in the middle of them.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has around 190 rooms and suites in several categories, from standard rooms in the main building to suites with a terrace. The best rooms face the falls, though the view is of the forest canopy and the mist rather than the water itself, which is reached on foot. Decoration follows the colonial theme, with wooden furniture, white walls and shutters.

Dining

The Itaipu Restaurant, in the main building, serves Brazilian dishes and a long breakfast, with fish from the Paraná basin and churrasco on some evenings. The Ipê Grill by the pool handles lunch and lighter dinners under the trees. The Tarobá Bar takes its name from a Guarani legend about the falls and is the place for a caipirinha after the evening walk.

Wellness

The pool is the centre of the garden, and the spa, added in the 2009 renovation, offers treatments using Brazilian ingredients. The real exercise is the trail: the Brazilian path runs along the gorge for about a kilometre to the walkway at the Devil's Throat, and guests can take it at dawn or dusk when the park is closed to day visitors.

Weddings and events

The hotel hosts weddings on the lawns and in its function rooms, and corporate groups use the meeting rooms for conferences tied to the Itaipu dam and the tri-border region. Capacities depend on the configuration, and a wedding here comes with the falls as a backdrop before the park opens. Exact room names and capacities are best confirmed with the hotel.

Location

Foz do Iguaçu airport is about ten kilometres from the park entrance, with flights from São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba. The hotel is 18 kilometres from the centre of Foz do Iguaçu. The Argentine side of the falls, in Puerto Iguazú, is about 40 minutes away by road across the Tancredo Neves bridge, and the Itaipu dam is 30 minutes north. There is no railway.