Back to Buenos Aires - and Home

Our flight from Iguazu got us back to Buenos Aires in mid-afternoon, and we made our way back to the Claridge Hotel where we retrieved our stored luggage and got a new room assignment.  As evening approached, we walked down Calle Florida to the Marriott Hotel where our friends were staying.  From there we took a small bus to a restaurant for dinner and a tango show.  We enjoyed a similar evening three years ago in BA, but this time the show had a theme; tango throughout the years.  A small band, two singers and six dancers presented musical numbers representing the tango as it began at the turn of the 20^th century, the extremely popular tango of the 1920’s, the modernization of the dance in the 1950’s, and the tango as it is performed today.  It was a most entertaining and informative evening, and the food was also excellent.

The following day was our departure day from BA, but our flight back to the US was not until 10:30 PM.  So, we decided on some more sightseeing during the day.  After breakfast, we finished packing and checked out of our room; the front desk again storing our luggage until it was time to depart for the airport.  Then we walked the Calle Florida in the opposite direction from the Marriott.  We planned to meet our friends for lunch at a café that has been in operation since 1858.  It was a several block walk, and while on that walk we had a very disturbing occurrence.  We had stopped on a street corner to check our location on a map, when Debbie felt someone touching her shoulder.  At first she thought it was Tom, but suddenly fingernails scraped the back of her neck, and her gold necklaces were jerked.  She screamed louder than I’ve ever heard and we turned just in time to see a man running down the street.  Fortunately, she still had both of her necklaces, although the clasp on one was broken, and the chain was stretched out of shape.  After making sure she was okay, we continued to our destination, looking furtively around us as we walked.

National Cathedral

We arrived at Café Tortoni ahead of our friends, so we got a table and ordered a coffee to help calm us down.  Soon our friends arrived and we had a nice lunch.  After finishing lunch, the six of us walked a few blocks to the National Cathedral and Presidential Palace, then back to Calle Florida toward our hotel.  Once there, we all sat in the bar and had a beer.  Soon it was time to leave for the airport for our long flight home.

 

In most ways, airport security in other countries is not as strict as in the US, but on flights ending in the US, security is sometimes even more strict than here at home.  We checked our luggage with no problem and made it through passport control and the carry-on and body scanners and proceeded to the gate area.  Once there, our carry-on luggage was opened and visually scanned by airline employees.  If we left the gate area, to use a restroom or get a bottle of water, we had to be rescanned to get back in the gate area, and the water was confiscated.  HUH?  At 10:30 PM we took off for Houston, arriving at about 6:30 AM.  We had to pass through Immigration, retrieve our luggage, pass through customs, recheck our luggage and make our way to the departure gate for SFO.  We only had an hour and 20 minutes for all that; even with a golf cart ride to our gate, we were among the last passengers to board the plane.  We took off on time and touched down shortly after 9:30 AM.  Including time zone changes, our total time from departure in BA to arrival in San Francisco was about 16 hours.   We caught the Airport Express bus about 30 minutes later and got back to Santa Rosa about 12:15 PM, where we were met by our wonderful neighbor, Patty, who took us home.  Although tired, we made it through the rest of the day and stayed up until 9 PM when we fell into our own bed for the night.

It was a wonderful trip in every way.  For us, the highlight was our trip to Iguazu, followed closely by Carnaval in Rio.  We have no definite travel plans for the future yet, but I’m sure that we’ll find some more travel to share with you.

Iguazu Falls

After a two-hour flight, we landed in Puerto Iguazu, on the Argentine side of the falls.  The falls are located in both Brazil and Argentina and to get the best experience, the falls must be viewed from both countries.  Since we had already stopped in several Brazilian ports on the cruise, we had our visas for Brazil so we could visit both sides.  We were met at the airport by our guide, Giovanni, a Brazilian with an Italian heritage, who took us to the Iguazu Grand Hotel & Spa, a fabulous resort hotel on the edge of town.   Our room was a “Junior Suite”, a very large room that overlooked the hotel gardens. We had a king size bed and a spacious bathroom with a Jacuzzi tub and an immense shower with a rainfall shower head.  After getting settled, we met at the lobby bar for refreshments, and then retired to the hotel’s high-end restaurant for a wonderful, if fairly expensive dinner.

The next morning Giovanni met us in the lobby for the short trip to Iguazu National Park.  Once there, we walked about ½ mile to a station where we boarded a small tram which took us to a spot near the falls.  From there we walked on an elevated metal trail over the top of the falls until we reached “Devil’s Throat”, a thundering cataract that filled the air with mist that soon had everyone soaked to the skin.  Since February is mid-summer in South America the weather was quite warm and the spray felt good.  While Devil’s Throat is the main cataract, sending about half of the total river flow over a 270 foot cliff, the complete falls system stretches over 1.7 miles and 275 separate waterfalls.  Argentina has about 80% of the falls, while Brazil has the other 20%.  Comparing Iguazu to other famous falls shows that Iguazu has the second highest fall at 270 feet while Victoria Falls in Africa falls over 320 feet, and Niagara is a third shorter at 165 feet.  Niagara has the highest average water flow at 85,000 cu.ft/s, Iguazu averages 61,000 cu.ft/s and Victoria averages about 38,000 cu.ft/s.  So, any way you look at it, Iguazu is an impressive sight.  After about 5 hours of sightseeing on the Argentine side of the falls, we returned to our hotel for an afternoon at leisure. 

Devil's Throat

Giovanni met us again the next morning for a journey to the Brazilian side of the falls.  Surprisingly, the Brazilian border was only about a quarter mile from our hotel.  Once at the border, Giovanni took our passports and got us processed out of Argentina and into Brazil, a fairly time-consuming process.  From there we stopped at a helipad for a sightseeing flight over the falls.  John joined us for the flight, but Judy, Nancy and Chris stayed behind.  The flight was short, only about 15 minutes, but the views were spectacular, particularly over Devil’s Throat.  Once safely back on the ground, we rejoined the others and entered Iguaçu National Park (notice the spelling difference between Argentina and Brazil).  Our van was able to park very close to the top of the falls, and we took a trail that ended at the base of the falls.  Since 80% of the falls are in Argentina, we had great views from across the canyon on our walk to the bottom.  After viewing the falls from the base and getting wet from the spray again, we took an elevator ride back to the top of the cliff and our van.

Since it was only mid-day, Giovanni took us into the Brazilian city of Foz du Iguaçu for lunch.  The restaurant served a buffet, but unlike a typical buffet, the price was based on the weight of the food on each plate.  It was very good, however, and we ate all we’d paid for.  After lunch, Giovanni suggested a tour of Itaipu Dam on the Paraná River which forms the border between Brazil and Paraguay.  We took that opportunity and, along with Chris and John, traveled to the dam.  Nancy and Judy were more interested in shopping, so Giovanni dropped them off at a large shopping mall in town.  Once at the dam, we hopped aboard a bus with a bilingual guide for the tour.  Itaipu dam is almost 4.5 miles long and over 700 feet high.  The power plant has the second largest installed capacity of hydroelectric power in the world, behind the Three Gorges Dam in China.  Construction began in 1970 and the dam was completed in 1982.  To build the dam, the Paraná River was diverted to allow the riverbed to dry and the dam constructed.  That diversion was closed in 1982 to allow the reservoir to fill.  Engineers estimated that it would take 90 days to fill, but due to heavy rainfall and flooding, the reservoir filled to the spillway gates in only 15 days!!  The reservoir capacity is 24 million acre feet, the surface area is 520 square miles and the reservoir length is 110 miles.  Half of the work force that built the dam was from Paraguay and half from Brazil.  Today the workforce is still evenly divided between citizens of the two countries and the power generation is likewise shared equally.  The power plant provides 90% of the energy needs of Paraguay and almost 20% of that of Brazil.  Once the tour was finished we traveled back to Foz du Iguaçu to rejoin the shoppers.  On the way back to our hotel, we encountered one of the heaviest rainstorms we’ve ever seen, but, safely inside our van, we stayed dry.

The next morning Giovanni escorted us to the airport for our flight back to Buenos Aires. 

Buenos Aires

After two more days at sea, we docked in Buenos Aires, Argentina, our port of departure from the ship.  In contrast to the hectic embarkation in Fort Lauderdale, getting off the ship was a breeze.  In the first place, only 500 of the 2,600 passengers left the ship in BA; the rest were staying on while the ship went around Cape Horn and up the pacific side of South and Central America.  The final stop for this trip is in San Francisco.  We booked the first leg only; we had previously sailed to Cape Horn on our voyage to Antarctica three years ago, and before that, we had sailed from Valparaiso, Chile to San Francisco.

The "White House" of Argentina

Buenos Aires is located on the Rio de la Plata, or Silver River.  It is actually a huge estuary, part of South America’s third largest river system.  The capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires, was founded in 1536 in a malarial, swampy area alongside the river.  The present city of eleven million people was not developed until the 19^th century; much of the construction was based on French models and the city is reminiscent of Paris.

We caught a taxi to our hotel, the Claridge, where we stayed on our previous visit to BA.  It’s not new but it’s very comfortable and the staff is great.  It’s only a half block from Calle Florida, a major pedestrian shopping street with many fine shops.  After getting settled in the hotel, we set off to explore the area.  Work crews are installing a new storm drain system in the center of Calle Florida, so it’s much noisier and more congested than three years ago.  Goods and services are more expensive, also.  Inflation is high; the government says that the Argentine peso is worth about 20¢ US, but exchanging dollars for pesos at one of the many street cambios or money changers results in 7 pesos to the dollar instead of 5.

Provoleta on right side of grill

Argentina is known for its large quantities and high quality beef, so we decided to have dinner at a ‘Parilla’ or grill.  A ship’s passenger had recommended ‘La Estancia’ as the best parilla close to our hotel, so off we went with John.  Judy wasn’t feeling well, so she decided to stay in her hotel. La Estancia is a large restaurant with wood-fired grills in the front window.   On one side was a flat grill for cooking steak; on the other was a circular ring around a central fire.  A number of spits were mounted on the ring; each spit held beef ribs, whole baby goats, whole suckling pigs or other large cuts of meat.  When we arrived at about 8 PM, the restaurant was mostly empty; just three or four tables were occupied.  By the time we were finished eating at about 10:30, there wasn’t an empty table to be seen; they eat late in BA.  Debbie ordered a filet, Tom had a t-bone, which actually was a porterhouse, about 1 ½ inches thick and as large as the dinner plate.  We also each ordered a salad, which was a mistake; one salad would have been more than enough for both of us.  We tried an appetizer that we enjoyed on our previous stay in BA; ‘provoleta’ or grilled provolone cheese.  They cut a 1” slice of provolone and put it over a cool part of the grill.  They flip it over and baste it with olive oil and oregano until the outside has a firm skin and the inside is almost liquid.  Yum!  After completing this sumptuous meal, we waddled back to our hotel for the night.

The next day we accompanied John, Judy was still not feeling well, to the Palermo district of BA, in search of a restaurant they discovered on the last trip.  It was about a 20 minute taxi ride to the district where we began walking and found the restaurant.  It was not yet open for the day, so we walked a couple more blocks and stopped at a coffee house for lattes and medialunas, a small, sweet croissant.  After that break, we continued walking through the neighborhood of small shops and residences.  Eventually it was time to head back to the hotel, so we caught another taxi that dropped us off at John & Judy’s hotel, which was about 5 blocks from ours.  Later that afternoon, Chris and Nancy, longtime friends of John & Judy, joined us for the rest of the stay in South America.  We walked a short distance to an excellent pizzeria for dinner before retiring for the night.  ‘Pizzeria’ you say?  BA has a large settlement from Italy left from after WWII.

The next morning we checked out of our hotel and went to the airport to catch an early afternoon flight to Iguazu Falls on the border of Argentina and Brazil.  We were able to store the majority of our luggage at our hotel since we were coming back for another night before flying home.