Belmond Hotel das Cataratas Review | SUITCASE Magazine


[Brazil](https://suitcasemag.com/category/brazil/) [Places to Stay](https://suitcasemag.com/category/places-to-stay/)

A stay at Belmond Hotel das Cataratas gives you access to one of South America’s great natural wonders – without the crowds

There’s a strict speed limit as you enter Iguaçu National Park. The Atlantic rainforest closes in fast – dense, damp, deeply alive – and slowing down starts to feel less like a rule than a ritual.

The noise of modern life, external and internal, is muted by the green. Somewhere between the park gate and the hotel, I catch my first flash of white water.

Then Belmond Hotel das Cataratas appears: a rose-hued mansion in the middle of the jungle. It’s a substantial property, with 176 rooms, yet it’s dwarfed by the natural wonder thundering just beyond.


_The swimming pool is within striking distance of the world’s largest waterfall system \| Photo by V Rebel Cinema One_

The Iguaçu Falls are a roaring curtain of 275 cascades, stretching nearly three times as wide as Niagara. Standing on the opposite bank of the Iguaçu River, which shapes Brazil’s border with Argentina, Hotel das Cataratas is close enough to feel the spray.

There has been a hotel of sorts beside the falls for more than a century. An early wooden incarnation was lost to fire; construction on the present Portuguese-style property began in 1939, stalled during the Second World War and was finally completed in the 50s.

I was especially intrigued by one character in its early story: Austrian-born Franz Kohlenberger, nicknamed the “Tarzan of the Falls”, who went from guiding adventurous visitors to managing the hotel. As a South Tyrolean, I rather liked the idea of an Alpine native swapping mountains for waterfalls.

But why stay here rather than simply visit? Access. As the only hotel inside the Brazilian side of the park, Cataratas places you at the falls before the tourist buses arrive and long after they leave.


_The hotel’s isolation grants views of nature in every direction \| Photo by Fran Parente_