Excursion to Iguazu Falls
Trip Start
Jan 06, 2008
1
17
28
Trip End
Mar 31, 2008
Puerto Iguazu,
Argentina
Saturday, February 23, 2008
I should start with the booking of the taxi to take us to the airport as we have now gone through this several times and it will always be in our memories even if not memorable. Our landlord had given us the phone number of a taxi company, allegedly English speaking, to use whenever we needed a taxi. It was certainly a reliable taxi company, always on time, clean, and with smartly dressed drivers, but not English speaking. My calls to the dispatcher are a study in mutual incomprehension. We have a Spanish phrase book in which there are phrases to be used when booking a taxi. However, my pronunciation is mostly not understood by the dispatcher and, of course, I could not understand most of what he said to me.
The conversation would go something like this - I would start with my carefully rehearsed sentence requesting a taxi for tomorrow at a certain time
Iguazu from Brazil
. He would try to repeat what I said to confirm that he had understood. I would hear something that would lead me to believe that he had not understood what I said and it would go downhill from there. Throw in interjections/suggestions from Joan and confusion reigned. Despite all this, a taxi was always there at the time requested.Now to Aerolineas Argentinas. We were scheduled to leave at 10:35 am from Aeropuerto Jorge Newberry. We arrived at the airport at 9 am to find masses of people milling about and armed airport police standing in front of the check-in desks. The pilots were holding a protest strike against low wages, and no flights were departing. Occasional snippets of information were provided by airline staff as time passed and our flight continued to show 'delayed' on the display. We stood in line for over 3 hours in sweltering heat and were about to go back home (after calling our travel agent and rescheduling for the next day) when a round of applause was heard. The pilots had gone back to work. Our flight eventually left at 4:30 pm and we arrived at our hotel some 12 hours after we left our apartment (it's a 90 minute flight from Buenos Aires to Iguazu Falls).
Some comments from Argentinians included - 'never fly Aerolineas Argentinas', this from a travel guide in the airport, and 'the trouble is it is still government owned', from the receptionist at our hotel
Iguazu from Brazil
.It may be recalled that there was a riot at the International Airport (Ezeiza) in mid January when the pilots went on strike previously.
All this trouble was worth going through to experience the falls. They are very impressive and again I will leave it to Joan's photographs to convey how impressive. I will limit myself to saying that it was worth getting soaking wet to travel in a boat right under the falls (or so it seemed).
The falls sit on the border between Argentina and Brazil and on day two we passed over the border to view the falls from the Brazilian side. The passing over included the first time we have ever paid to leave a country. Because we were using our British passports to enter Brazil (remember Americans are charged $100 to enter Brazil) we presented them on the Argentine side when leaving. Apparently we did not have the correct stamp of entry so we were initially told we could not leave, but again Latin flexibility came to the fore and with the payment of 100 pesos (50 each) we were allowed to leave. Essentially we ended up paying $30 to avoid paying $200 - not a bad deal!
It was interesting to compare the facilities provided on either side of the border to access the falls. Both sides do an impressive job. Walks and footbridges bring you within feet of the falls in places. The Argentines have a train which takes you to the falls from the entrance of the park and the Brazilians have modern open top double decker buses. The Brazilians also have an elevator to take you back up the steep banks, whereas you have to climb up a steep path on the Argentine side.
Our return trip to Buenos Aires was uneventful.
