Wednesday 1 November 2017

The Iguazu Falls from the Brazilian side

A view of part of Iguazu Falls as seen from the Brazilian side

The weather in the Iguazu region can be quite fickle. We experienced it during our day at the Argentine side when the skies opened up and dumped a torrent on in the early afternoon. Fortunately we were about to have lunch and took cover, along with nearly everyone else in the park, in the eateries. Fortunately the rain cleared after a 30 minute deluge.

In the evening the rain returned. Trevor and I had ventured out and discovered that a restaurant quite near our hotel was actually open. It overlooked the junction of the rivers forming the three frontiers. As we watched the light fading the storm came in. It was a fantastic light and sound show with sheet lightning followed by thunder. It was quite spectacular. 

Fortunately there was a break in the storm just as we finished dinner and we managed to get back to our accommodation without getting soaked. The break was short lived and the lightning, thunder and torrential rain continued throughout the night and it was still raining when we left the hotel at 10 o'clock.

Going from Argentina to Brazil required two border activities. We had to officially leave Argentina and enter Brazil. With a bus load of foreigners this took quite some time. Fortunately for us our tour guide handled the formalities for us. We just had to sit on the bus and wait and wait and wait.

Once into Brazil we stopped for lunch, along with every other tour bus that was doing the crossing, at a place that served typical local food.

By the time we got to the Brazilian park that houses the falls it was just on 3 o'clock. Fortunately, access to the viewing trails was much easier on the Brazilian side. We were able to bus it to the trail head which saved quite a lot of time. 

By the time we got to the falls the rain had stopped. While the sky was still grey at least we only had to contend with the mist rising from the falls and not rain as well.

Here is a selection of photos of the falls as seen from the Brazilian side.













Unfortunately, it was not possible to capture the full grandeur of the falls using my camera.

If you ever get the chance to visit the Iguazu Falls I'm sure that you will be impressed. The sheer size of the falls is mind boggling.






Tuesday 31 October 2017

Argentine Iguazu

The first real day of our tour had us up early for breakfast and a 5am departure for the Buenos Aires domestic airport. The drive through the darkened street was pretty with lights picking out features.

Getting through the formalities was straightforward however there was a very long trek to our gate.

View from our gate lounge toward the city
Once up in the air it was apparent that there had been a lot of recent rain. Rivers were running full, a brown, and lots of areas were covered in water.






Approaching Iguazu was announced by a plume of spray rising above the falls.






Down on the ground the large party took some time to be organised onto buses and transported to our hotels. The 140 odd people were spread over two hotels. We ended up at the Amerian Portal which was pretty comfortable and fairly well located.

Our guide from the airport gave us a wonderful briefing about getting a taxi to take us into town and also to visit the point where the three countries, Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, meet.  We were later to discover that we were only a km from the centre of town and less than 100m to the three frontiers. Just as well we forewent the taxi! No points for Elizabeth the ignorant guide.

Trevor and I walked into town and eventually found an ATM that was willing to give us cash. It was good to have some local currency.

Later I went for a walk and discovered that our hotel was right next door to the 3 frontiers.

The reddish river was the one coming in through Argentina. The colour caused by high iron levels. The blue river was from Brazil, I think


Trevor and I took advantage of the hotel spa and we joined a large group of our fellow travellers, all Aussies, for dinner at the hotel.

With such an early start to the day and still adjusting to the time shift we dropped into bed early.

Our start to our Argentine Iguazu day was early with our bus scheduled to leave at 7:15am. After another early breakfast it was out the door.

At least our guide today was knowledgeable and Veronica took good care of our large group of 50 or so.

A number of trails loop through the national park to take visitors to view points for the array of falls that make up the Iguazu complex. Fortunately for us there was a train to take us out to the furtherest trail head and to return us to the middle of the park.

The sheer number of falls, volume of water and breadth of the falls is hard to describe. Capturing them in photos does not do them justice so bear in min that the following photos just give a feel for Iguazu.

 Note: the water was a reddish brown



















Spray was an ever present hazzard. We all managed to get quite wet as the misty spray drifted over us







































That is enough for this posting.

All up we walked over 9kms during our waterfall meanderings.

The next post will look at the Brazilian side of the falls as well as some of the birds and animals that were encountered in the parks.



Monday 30 October 2017

Off to South America

Back in late January Trevor received an email about a trip to South America. While we had spent much of the summer of 1985-6 in South America what was on offer included a cruise which would take us to places that we had not visited on our earlier excursion. Needing to make a decision within 48 hours we decided to go for it. It was surprising just how quickly the months flew past and all of a sudden it was time to leave.

Micahel dropped us at the airport just after 6:30am for our 7:20am flight to Sydney. A quick cup of coffee was the order of the day ahead of much sitting on planes.






An announcement came over the PA stating that our flight was delayed due to an technical issue and an update would be issued shortly. This was not unduly concerning as we had a 3 hour window between our scheduled arrival in Sydney and our departure.

Our flight kept getting delayed and a mild panic set in.

When Trevor had made the booking he was told to book our travel from Canberra to Sydney himself as it would be cheaper than the travel agent doing it. With that adive I had made the flight bookings between Canberra and Sydney. This was a very bad move. Our Canberra-Sydney flight was not on the same ticket as the Sysdney to Buenos Aires. Qantas was not responsible for ensuring that we made our connection. Great. We finally left 2 1/2 hours late. When we arrived in Sydney we needed to collect our bags and get over to the International terminal. We did this in almost record time but alas the flight was closed and we were no shows.

After hanging around the airline offices until the LAN Chile staff returned from seeing our flight off we did learn that it would be possible to get seats on the flight the next day. We needed to get our travel agent to do the necessary booking change.

Many phone calls followed. If the travel agent had been more astute they could have got us on a flight through Melbourne, leaving Sydney at 5pm and arriving in to Buenos Aires at 3am on The Friday morning. All that we would then have needed was the name of the hotel (the tour group was spread across two hotels and our documentation did not indicate which one we were at) and a taxi ride to the hotel would have meant that we could hve done all the things scheduled for the first real day of the tour.

The travel agent was not overly helpful and in the end we were booked on the same flight that we had missed but the following day. Oh, yes, we had to pay the full fare for the new flight, too.

Late in the day we were informed that we would be met on arrival in Buenos Aires and transferred to our hotel. At least that was one less thing to worry about.

In the meantime we had checked in to a hotel near the airport, yet another additional expense.

After a frustrating day we hit the sack with an early get up time so that we would have time to have a decent breakfast before fronting up at the airport to check in.

We awoke to a miserable day.



It was a relief to check in and know that we would be on our way ... a day late but at least we had not missed too much.

Without too much fuss and bother we got through all the formalities and were off. The first hop was to Auckland where we had a leg stretch before the long haul to Santiago.

I did manage to see the sun rise. My only photo was a disaster.

Approaching Santiago we were presented with great views of the Andes ringing the city.






On the leg from Santiago to Buenos Aires we were allocated seats in the middle of the plane.  The seating configuration was 2-3-2. A family with a nursed infant were in a pair of outer seats. The problem was that there were only two oxygen masks for the pair of seats. There were four masks for the 3 centre seats. We were asked if we would mind swapping. Not at all ... so I ended up with a window seat.

On leaving Santiago we had more great views of the snow capped mountains.






On arrival in Buenos got through immigration and customs fairly quickly. We duly found the travel agent who had come to greet us and take us to our hotel. Great. Then came the next bomb shell. The meet and transfer was not covered by what we had paid for the trip. Cost US$125 thanks.

So, less than happy we set off to the centre of the city and our hotel. To add to our general state of misery there had been an accident on the autopista and the traffic heading towards the city was a crawl.

By the time we finally reached the hotel we were pretty tired but it was too early to eat in any of teh restaurants so we ended up grabbing a Subway and ate it in our room which overlooked the central cemetery ... definitely a sight to behold.





As we had to leave the hotel at 5am the next morning, fortunately the hotel had organised breakfast to be available from 4:30am, we collapsed into bed and were dead to the world by the time our heads hit the pillows.

This was not how we had expected the trip to start. Still, we had made it to Buenos Aires and we were now on track.

Next up: the Argentine side of Iguazu.