Up early this morning for our 06:30 pick-up. Luckily for us, the driver and man at our hotel picked up our heavy bags onto their shoulders and carried them to the van, so we just had to carry our overnight bags. The driver drove us to the station and asked us to wait. A Condor Travel rep came down and explained to us that we were suppose to leave the bags at the hotel as they were being picked up from the hotel, which meant the driver had to take our bags back! We felt really bad about that but looking at our instructions, it was ambiguous and wasn’t stated clearly that we were to leave our luggage at the hotel. We had a 45 minute wait for our train so I ate some of the ... read more

This morning we were woken by large explosions. I decided to just ignore them but Daisy was worried and got up to see what was happening but couldn’t see anything. The explosions occurred at random intervals for about 30 minutes and we managed to get back to sleep before getting up at 07:00 to shower and have breakfast. I asked the lady at the reception what the explosions were and she told us it was just to signify the start of the day’s festival. I asked why so early and she just said they want to wake everybody early to join in. She also said that many stay up and drink until 06:00. We arranged to meet Julio at 08:00 at the main road to save him walking up to get us and he called the ... read more

Woke up at 7:00 to shower, pack and have breakfast before our scheduled 08:45 pick-up for the airport. They actually came a little early but better early than late. The guide Sapa, was the same one who had picked us up and this time they drove via the coast road which was great as we hadn’t had the chance to walk along the beach as we had planned. Sapa gave us a running commentary as well so it was like a mini-tour. We also got into a political discussion and it seems all Latin American countries have very similar problems with corruption and too many parties and candidates. She also said that they are trying to bring in a law that all candidates have a certain level of education. Sapa accompanied us into the airport to ... read more

Up at 06:15 to check out as Reggie and Luis the driver were picking us up at 07:30 and taking our bags along as they will take us straight to the airport after today’s excursions. Took almost an hour to cross the border back into Argentina to see the Falls from the other side. First we had to check-out of Brazil at the Federal Police office then drive over the bridge to check-in to Argentina. Half of the inside walls of the bridge are painted in gold and green for Brazil, then changed to the sky blue and white of Argentina. The Argentinian Parque Nacional Iguazu is well set-out with large paths and nicely maintained jungle (if you maintain jungle that is) and the walkways over the river are made of metal grates similar to the ... read more

Left the hotel today at 11:00 on the first uber we have ordered ourselves using the hotels wifi. The driver couldn’t speak English at all but it didn’t matter. Our first destination today was Brazil’s version of The National Museum of Fine Arts. Mainly Brazilian artists but we enjoyed our visit and we both got Seniors 50% discounts this time for just being over 60, so cost was only 4 Real each ($AUS 1.52). Once again, a marvelous grand old building. It was 13:05 by the time we left for the short walk to the Cathedral of Rio de Janeiro and it’s quite a spectacular modern building. We spent a short time walking through and taking photos before walking to the Lapa area where we had dinner last night with Pierre. Just around the corner from ... read more