Pat and Norm's World Cruises and other adventures

My readers know I love photographing children from their native countries. With permission of course. Here’s a little cutie at the Falls in a raincoat that was much too big!

The butterflies were all over the place and beautiful.

Our dinner and tango show was wonderful, a real taste of Buenos Aires. The history of the tango dates back to the late 19th century where the tango expressed the apprehensions and anxieties of the local people about a disappearing way of life. The melancholy songs and the music of the gaucho symbolized their lives. Pablo said that when we go to Uruguay that they will claim ownership of the tango but that we should strenuously object – it is originally Argentinian.

It was a fun night with wonderful dancing, music and fun with new friends. There were 25 of us on this pre cruise adventure. We were not allowed to take pictures during the show but here is the theater and one of the dancers with a guest after the show.

March 19 and 20

After a nice dinner and walk in Buenos Aires on Sunday after our arrival, we got up early yesterday for the flight to Iguazu Falls. Just under 2 hour flight, and we didn’t even go to our hotel first. Our guide for the whole time here in Argentina is Pablo and at the Falls, we were joined by Rodrigo, one of the National Park guides.

What an adventure! First, lunch at the restaurant at we park, then on to our Great Adventure experience. We went on a safari truck through the subtropical forest and heard about the many bird, animal and reptile species that live here. The park itself is huge and resembles a cross between a rainforest and a jungle. There are endangered jaguar here but it was hot in the afternoon and we didn’t see any. We did see amazing spiderweb that go all across the roads and according to our guide they are the strongest webs in the world. Too fast to get some shots of the web and spiders. We did see the Argentine raccoon – the coati.

The Falls are at the intersection of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay.

After the truck tour, we went on a large zodiac boat/raft to see the Tres Mosqueteros Fall, the Gargantua del Diablo and the San Martin Fall, we went directly under that one…twice!. We were soaked to the skin. Amazing! We saw this sign, wonder what it meant! Scary enough to have brown pants?

1.5 million liters per second goes over the Garganta. There are 275 different waterfalls here and all are spectacular. You might ask (and we did) if these are the biggest because they were named one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. But it is a complicated answer. Niagara has the highest volume of water, Iguazu is the largest and Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe is the highest. Guess which we haven’t yet visited?. Niagara. So we want to go in the fall.

After our boat adventure we were soaked but it didn’t matter much as we now walked on the lower trail to view the Falls and it poured rain the rest of the day!

Hope this video works, shows the Falls in slow motion and also the rain with some of our fellow travelers.

After a fabulous and wet day, we went to our hotel right in the jungle- the Loi Suites. A simply gorgeous place that was designed to fit right into nature. These photos are from this morning since it was too dark to take them when we arrived.

Lovely dinner and today we did the two other trails after taking the eco train which travels on a 1000 meter footbridge to the Garganta del Diablo. We walked on the catwalks above the Falls. Simply spectacular and pictures cannot do it justice. Again, lots of rain and we broke down and bought ponchos.

We had a box lunch on the bus on the way to the airport, a steak on a huge roll with a brownie and some type of ham pastry.

Flight back was smooth.

Will post about the tango show when we get on the ship. Tomorrow!

We traveled on Latam Airlines from Miami to Buenos Aires via Sao Paulo. Normally I wouldn’t write about flights but this was unusual. We never heard of an airline letting you bid on upgrades, but we got an email about a week ago letting us know about it. So we put bids in for bombardments, more for the first since it was an 8 hour flight – the second one was only 3 hours.

Here’s the outcome- we got upgrades for both. And access to the VIP lounge before takeoff! Nice sleeping in those first class seats that go flat.

Second flight seats. They gave us comfy comforters and pillows too.

When we got to Buenos Aires, we had to wait in lines for 2 hours for immigration then customs. It was apparently because of bad storms with lightning that came through before we arrived which held up taking baggage off many planes.

Here is a view of the crowds.

Tomorrow we fly to Iguazu Falls!