Travels with My Hart: And It's a Big Brazilian World out there!

Our last two days in Buenos Aires were just as the rest; lovely and warm. We threw in one more treadmill run although short, it was better than the extra humid conditions of the B.A. summer..We said goodbye to "Leandro" the spin instructor..he was such a great teacher! Our last spin class was the hottest and hardest yet. We did meet two Americans though, a first for us in the little gym. It was nice to have a short and sweet conversation in English, to be honest. I think I have been craving some good ole' country convo..I have found it takes extra energy to communicate in my extremely poor Spanich and sign language! This is my fault, I chose to not be better prepared! After eating dinner in our apartment for the last time last evening, we watched a pirated version of the DVD "J. Edgar". A very good movie and new release. The picture was oddly less than perfect. This we understood once we saw a shadow of a person in front of the camera getting up (in the movie theater). We then understood that this was a video of a movie in a theater. Subtitles and all! Oh well, what do you expect from a DVD purchased from a subway vendor for $2.50?

In the AM of our departure, we set our alarm for the first time in awhile. Packing up all our s#%t took about 2 days. They have weird baggage restrictions for national airplane flights. We actually flew from B.A. To Iguazu Falls, to the Argentinian side. Then were picked up by a driver who took us to the Brazilian side of the Falls(more about this later). The restrictions were basically "we needed to pare down our stuff". Or pay more. We planned for both. We got to the airport without incident in plenty of time. We checked in at the "Economy Upgraded" counter. With the upgrade, we got more luggage allowance. All went smoothly. So good, so far! We were told that we needed to sit in the general area to see what gate our flight was going out of. So we sat in the food court and waited, feeling quite relaxed. Shortly I started getting a bit nervous and uneasy with the lack of direction to a gate.

The flight to Iguazu still did not have a gate listed so we waited and waited. Finally, we decided to walk towards some of the gates and see what was going on. With 20 minutes to spare from the scheduled boarding time, we saw the very long security line. Oh, crap! Then the gate showed up on the screen and the flight was on time..more craps! I asked if we could cut the line in my broken English and my best pitiful American face. They took pity and we cut to the front. As we are use to American security at American airports. No liquids, shoes off, computers out, etc..the security in Argentina is WAY more different I must say. We could have brought our full cups of coffe, full water bottles and everything! They didn't hassle us at all about our heavy carry-ons, as I thought they might. We took a very crowded bus to our plane and on we got. I breathed a sigh of relief on the plane. Then went on to enjoy my Premium Economy seats for a very smooth 2 hour flight..:)

We arrived in Iguazu Airport and found the driver there to pick us up. We were on the Argentine side and quickly passed through customs after a 20 minute drive. We arrived to our Casa for the next 2 nights, the Hotel Catarasas, directly in front of Iguazu Falls here in Brazil-all I can say is WOW!! I am not sure where but I read that this natural wonder is in competition to be one of the 7 wonders of the world..I can see why!

View from our hotel