Home Again Home Again Jiggedy Jig

A mere 28 or so hours since my last post we are now home. The first of five loads of laundry is in the machine, the suitcases are unpacked and sitting out in the sunshine, although putting away some of the travel tools is likely to take another couple of days. Tom is headed out to the market for the bread, produce and other fresh foods (OMG...I just have to accept we must start our own cooking and cleaning again). The plants survived in the bathtub, and the orchid even has 7 or 8 buds forming up while we were gone.

Many thanks to our friend Pat for picking us up at the airport and getting us back home, even though the flight was about 30 minutes early.

And now, I am going to take a nap. This cold is hanging on, and I did not get real sleep on the planes, which isn't going to help my immune system to do any fighting. So it's off to catch some zzzz's for me.

Thanks to all of you who followed along with us on this trip. Stay tuned in March for our next adventure!

Our Last Day in Buenos Aires

Across the street from our hotel and directly outside our window is one of the buildings that helped give Buenos Aires the name 'the Paris of South America'.

Of course, right next door to that is a 'modern' apartment building, which has roll-down shutters which are closed whenever people are not at home. These shutters remind me more of garage doors than anything else, but it is (or was) a common design element in many buildings around here. I don't think it is needed so much for security, but is more of a better-safe-than-sorry approach. But it does not look anywhere as classy as its next door neighbor.

This morning we Ubered over to the Recoleta area, about a mile or so from our hotel. Being Saturday, it is a much slower day, and at 11 a.m. vendors at the park were just beginning setting up their tents and stalls selling folk art and trinkets and Erte-esque paintings of tango dancers in red and black.

We stopped by the cemetery where Eva Duarte Peron is buried and wandered amongst the many elaborate tombs. It was easy to find Evita, just follow the line of tour groups:

We didn't feel the need to wait in line, so just meandered to the other side and grabbed this quick photo from the corner.

One other thing the cemetery is known for is it's collection of resident semi-feral cats. Although this one looks completely relaxed and uninterested in us tourists.

The trip is winding down, Jackie has been home for a couple of days and Denny and Kathi just texted me a photo of Lake Erie as they approach Cleveland. Both have told us that the international airport process here in Buenos Aires (EZE) is somewhat of a zoo. You cannot check in when you first arrive, you have to wait until they open the check in gate for your specific flight. And naturally, there is limited space for sitting and waiting until that happens. We took their advice and got late check out at our hotel and will leave for the airport around 5 pm, so hopefully will not have to wait too long to check in and get our bags sent off. Then it is a series of security checks and screenings to actually get to the gate itself, and none of the shopping or other diversionary activities are on that side.

The weather is clouding up, it is supposed to start raining around 6 or so, but we hope to be at the airport before the worst of it starts in. We've had lovely weather for 2 out of three days in BA, as well as a nice day in Iguazu so we are not complaining. The hardest part will be readjusting to winterish weather had home. For the past couple of weeks we have been in summer, and changing back to winter will be an adjustment.

I think that about covers it. We will be heading off to the airport in three hours and tomorrow we will be home!

Not quite a crash and burn moment...

....but wouldn't you know that last night I came down with a cold. Dang it! Was so careful on the ship, but with the rushing off, then flying to Iguazu and back, and waiting for planes in crowded airports with their unique cultural differences in how/when/where one boards an airplane....well, somehow I contracted someone's cold. Which meant that I was too tired last night to write a post, and I slept in this morning and didn't write one then, either. After our morning adventures I am back in the room resting; Denny is downstairs in the lounge catching up on his iPad and Kathi and Tom are wandering around the plaza getting disoriented and/or people watching and/or getting in trouble.

So let's catch up. When I last left you we were still at the falls and the others had taken the train to the path to the Devil's Throat. Yep, they came back drenched and exhausted two hours later and Tom said I made a good choice. But they have photos and I don't, so here is a helicopter view that I borrowed from the Internet. In the upper right corner you can see the walkway crossing the river upstream from the falls...that's what they walked out on to view.

The next morning, I was cautious, perhaps overly so, of pushing my knees too far, so decided not to take the big hike around the park. But Kathi and Tom did, even sneaking into the park early and got photos from many wonderful vantage points. It much of their trip involved stairs like this.

But there are some amazing views to be seen from some of these trails

All around the park there are coatimundi and monkeys. We never saw the monkeys, but did see toucans and coatis.

The monkeys are a particular problem, because they can open the sliding glass doors of the hotel unless you keep them locked. Apparently they cause real havoc if they get into a room, and it's a minimum $250 cleaning fee if you forget and they get in.

In the late morning we spent time at the pool at the hotel, before our driver Omar returned to pick us up promptly at 2:15 to go back to the airport.

Wouldn't you know it, the plane was about 40 minutes late, again. So by the time we got back to Buenos Aires and to our hotel where we had stored luggage and cleaned up and changed for dinner, it was about 7:45. Fortunately we had eaten a big breakfast late in the morning, so we were not ravenous. Also fortunate is the fact that dinner here does not start until 7:00 or 8:00, so we were actually right on time. We headed out to a parilla which is sort of a steakhouse, but also a wine bar and grill. I will let the pictures do the talking:

Probably the best steaks any of us ever ate. Seriously great food. A little lacking on the side dishes, but nobody cared when they bit into the meat. Really, really good. This was a wood charred cooking process, so while it was fire, it was not burned. (I know, bad pun...but I'm sick 😷 and not fully on my game and this is the best I could come up with that keeps with my 'theme').

By the end of dinner we were all very tired and we hit the rack, agreeing to meet for breakfast at 9. Which we did. Another lovely breakfast buffet with meats, cheeses, breads, rolls, pastries, fruits, juices, cereal, scrambled eggs, etc. etc. We ate well, then headed over to the pharmacy across the street looking for some cold remedies. All sudafed type medicines seem to be prescription down here, but I bought some cough drops (Hall's mentholyptus) and something with pine tree resin that stays I can only have three per day. I need to get to Google to translate the rest of the package.....

...well, it is made from local bees and honey and pollen and tree resins. Not sure what else it might do, or not, but at least I don't think it will kill me. Hot soup, tea and water for the afternoon, I think. And a decongestant.

And now back to our morning...we walked down Florida street, which is a main shopping pedestrian near street. Shops and stores of all kinds, even a nice little high-end mall with a great ceiling.

But no golf balls of the souvenir sort for Tom and his boys. We must have stopped in every place that looked sporty or had souvenirs of any kind. Several souvenir vendors looked at us like we were crazy asking for golf balls. One even said "No, of course not. We sell souvenirs." So it looks like we crashed on that one, but there may be hope in the next 24 hours...so not quite burned yet.

At the end of Florida St. is the Plaza de Mayo, home to both the Casa Rosada and the Metropolitan Cathedral, which is where Pope Francis was assigned for many years prior to his becoming Pope.

And that brings me back to now....where I am still resting, but now down in the lounge with a cup of hot tea. And boo-hoo, it is almost time to say goodby to Denny and Kathi, who are heading off to the airport and the long slog back to the US. We don't leave til tomorrow, so at least I have some time to rest and tour.

Iguazu Falls

That's the view from our room! Don't believe me? Try this:

As I sit here typing all I can hear is the roar of the falls. Amazing.

After an early morning and the associated hoo-haw of debarking a ship, dropping bags at the hotel in the city, getting an Uber and going to the domestic airport, we thought it might take more time. We did all that in just a little over an hour, maybe an hour and a half. Then it was a matter of hurry up and wait. You know what it's like in an airport. You don't want to wait too long, but you also don't want to be late. So we talked and waited, talked and waited, talked and waited. Only to find out that our flight was about half an hour late. Nonetheless it was a short flight of only about an hour and a half once we got off the ground.

Tom and I were lucky enough to be seated in row 4, but Denny and Kathi were way back in row 27. Being early off the plane we dashed down to the transportation desk and got ourselves hooked up with a taxi driver to the resort. Then we waited and found Denny and Kathi, we all jumped in the taxi and made it here in about 20 minutes, including stopping to pay for our national park tickets. Omar, our wonderful driver, explained the logistics of seeing the Falls, gave us maps and arranged to meet us tomorrow for our return trip at 2:15.

We quickly checked in, excitedly exclaiming at the views of the falls from the lobby, and dropped bags in the room, intending to go immediately down to the train to head to the furthest point, Devil's Falls. Just then a thunderstorm broke overhead, so instead we sat on the covered outdoor patio and had adult beverages. About 20 minutes later the sky cleared as the storm passed and Kathi and I were snockered. I swear they were double shots. And we had them on empty stomachs since our very early 6 am breakfast. Anyway, I begged off on the long walk to and from the train, and chose to enjoy the patio while the three others headed down the hiking path to the falls. Looking at the mist being thrown up at this moment, I think they will come back drenched anyway.

Couple of (perhaps) interesting mentions. Kathi has taken to calling me the walking GPS, and wants me to lead tours of the various cities we have visited. While I have no interest in any of that, I do enjoy planning our trips, so I feel a little vindicated over the time I spend on the planning. Usually it works out to our advantage. And now Kathi has started poking me in the arm saying things like 'convert 350 pesos to dollars, bzzzzt'. And I spit out the converted number automatically, LOL. I am lucky that these math problems can be done in my head, usually. Except perhaps when I have been drinking.

We'll enjoy a nice dinner here at the hotel, because there is absolutely nothing but jungle surrounding us. At check-in they warn you to keep the doors locked so the monkeys don't get into your room. It's such a wonderful day, it is so nice to see nature's wonders.