Feb 24, Buenos Aires - last day

Last entry for this blog as we start for home tomorrow, weather is better today about 27 and no rain. After breakfast decided to have a quieter day and check out a few places near here. First up the Recoleta Cemetery which is where the tomb of Eva Peron is located, it’s located in a little corner of Recoleta and is very impressive with so many ornate mausoleums packed into this cemetery amazing amount of people there.  There is a map of the cemetery just as you enter, and they have her mausoleum marked on it so only took us a few minutes of walking to locate her after taking a few pictures of her’s and some other peoples mausoleums it was time to grab an uber and head to Teatro Colon.  This is the main opera house for Buenos Aires and was opened in 1857 acoustically considered one of the best in the world, unfortunately for us they have the philharmonic orchestra playing Disney tonight so they weren’t doing tours today and hadn’t been for a few days while this show has been on tried to get tickets for tonight but show is sold out,  advised we could come back later in the week. From here decided to go to Café Tortoni when we got there, we had a small wait for a table which apparently is always the case with this restaurant. The café opened in 1858 and is very ornate just like when it opened, Pete had a steak sandwich and I had a cheeseburger, and we both had strawberry milkshakes was lovely.  Time to pack and get ready for home, it’s been an amazing holiday seen and experienced so much,  Antarctica definitely lived up to our expectations and probably more.

 

Feb 23, Buenos Aires - Senor Tango

Woke up to a rainy day not hot just warm for a change but still humid. As it was such a big day yesterday decided to sleep in and take it easy today. Went for a bit of a walk around the hotel area and couldn’t help but notice how many police they have here just walking around you see them on nearly every corner, the driver last night said that they don’t have much trouble in Buenos Aires because of the amount of police they have on the streets it’s a very safe city. Booked tickets for Senor Tango one of the premier Tango shows here for tonight. Pick up and drop off was included and we were informed they would pick us up at 7.30 when they hadn’t arrived by 8 the receptionist at the hotel phoned and they said pickups start at 7.30 but can take a while, we were eventually picked up at 8.35 in a bus with 4 other couples. The theatre was a good 20-minute drive from our hotel, through some extremely busy traffic they have a lot of one way streets here and the boulevards can be up to 10 lanes across most about 6 lanes. The theatre was huge would seat a few hundred people, we were on the ground floor next to the stage great location there were 3 tiers of balconies. It was your typical dinner entrée, spinach pancake then choice of steak chicken or fish for main we chose steak and it was huge cooked perfectly and very juicy, dessert was tiramisu also included was a small bottle of wine each, water and soft drinks was quite enjoyable.  The show was excellent first up they started with two horses on stage then proceeded to do lots of Tango either in couples or as a group, even had one who flew through the sky as part of her routine, they also had singers unfortunately everything was in Spanish so missed out on what they were telling the audience.  Towards the  end of the show the musicians left the stage and a group of 12 very old guys came out they would have been in their late 70’s and 80’s they had to help the conductor to walk, he was so frail but then they started to perform and they were great from what we could understand they are original musicians from this show. Was a very enjoyable night after the show you had to go outside and locate the bus with your number on it which we did only to have the driver tell us we had to get on another bus, explained that this was the bus we came on and he was our driver but he said no need to change buses was a little disconcerting but all ended ok and we finally got back to the hotel about 1am.

No Pictures today not allowed to take photos in the theatre.

Feb 22, Iguazu Falls

Well very early start up at 2.30 for 3.45 pick up didn’t want to chance missing flight to Iguazu. As it was too early for brekky we had a croissant half a donut and a bottle of water that we got from the coffee shop the day before. Flight was excellent one and a half hour flight and the plane was lovely, we were met at the airport by our guide and driver and proceeded to the falls. It was only a short ride out to the park and by the time we arrived it was starting to get very hot, as I don’t normally wear hats I decided today would be the day I would need one, so bought one and so glad I did. I got a ride in what they call an electric bus but it’s just a golf cart to the boarding station for the train that takes you into the park, Pete and our guide had to walk it was quite a distance so pleased I didn’t have to. Once we all met up again we waited for our train to come then off we went, it stops in 2 places depending on which circuit you want to do, we stayed on to the last stop as we decided to do The Devil’s Throat first which is the upper circuit, the train was packed would have been about 150 people, some got off at the first stop most stayed on and more joined the train. It’s 2.2 klm return walk from the station to the falls so I walked part of the way and we had a wheelchair when it was too much for the rest of it. It was a very oppressive day the temperature was in the low 40’s and humidity was 95%. There is a lot of wildlife in the park, and we saw a lot of beautiful plush crested jays which were very pretty with their yellow chests they have about 350 species of birdlife here saw some other birds but not sure what they were also a huge amount of butterflies that just land on you all different sizes and colours, we also saw Capuchin monkeys quite cute and some Coati’s which are Brazillian racoons which are a pest here they attack people for food. The walkways are above the Iguazu River and make up the largest waterfall system in the world with 275 waterfalls and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site listed in 1984. When you reach the Devils Throat which is located on the border of Argentina and Brazil it’s a huge wall of water over 82 metres high, the falls stretch in width for 2,700m and vary in height from 60m to 82m with 80% of the falls on the Argentine side, very impressive site and so glad we did this even if we were exhausted when we got back to the station to take us to get lunch. Decided that Pete would do the lower circuit with our guide as it was another long walk and it was to look at what we had seen but from lower down, and by this stage my ankles and knees had decided enough was enough. After Pete finished the second walk we went back to the airport and had a four hour wait for the plane oh what fun but at least it was cool and we had a drink and dinner while we waited. We laughed about taking our waterproof jackets as they had advised us, little did we realise once we eventually arrived back in Buenos Aires that we would arrive in a thunderstorm and would be stuck on the plane for half an hour as it was too bad to get off, you have to walk down the stairs and on to the tarmac here, then board a bus to the terminal so the jackets ended up coming in handy.  Our driver was waiting for us to bring us back to the hotel and by the time we got back we had been up for just over twenty one hours, very tired but well worth it.