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| Lighthouse, Punta Ninfa |
Sunday, 1 Mar 2020 – We awoke to our alarm at
6:15 AM for an early breakfast in the Terrace Café. The staff was surprised to see us since they
were accustomed to us arriving just before closing time. After breakfast, we finished our last minute
packing and proceeded to the Insignia Lounge to meet for our excursion,
“Overland - Patagonia Penguins and Thundering Iguazu Falls.” Iguazú
Falls are waterfalls of the Iguazu River on the border of Argentina and Brazil.
Together, they make up the largest waterfall in the world. The falls divide the river into the upper and
lower Iguazu. For most of its course,
the river flows through Brazil; however,
most of the falls are on the Argentina side.
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| Shoreline, Punta Ninfas |
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| Penguin Rookery, El Pedral |
The 73-passenger group loaded into five small
buses and started our one-hour drive through Puerto Madryn and Patagonia to
Punta Ninfas. Our first stop was at a
lighthouse; we walked to the shore where we could see the steep banks descending
down to the ocean. Next was El Pedral
Penguin Rookery. As the bus stopped
quite a distance from the penguin colony, it was a 2.5 mile roundtrip walk to
the ocean where the penguin colony was located, though some smaller groups were
sitting in shady spots near our path. Although these penguins were
smaller than those on the Falkland Islands, we did get close to some of
them. We also saw a few flightless rhea
birds in the distance. Jesse found a
rhea egg near the path, and as he was trying to photograph it, the guide picked
it up and handed it to him for the photo.
This made Jesse a little uncomfortable because he was concerned that the
rhea bird might abandon the egg after it was touched by a human, but the guide
wasn’t concerned and just told him to be careful and place it back where he
found it. We returned to the bus
exhausted and were the last ones to get back, although a few of the passengers
had chosen not to participate in the walk.
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| Rhea Egg, El Pedra |
We
then enjoyed lunch at the El Pedral Lodge, where we sat at a long table across
from Roselyn and Roger from Brisbane, Australia. Several dishes were served, including lettuce,
shredded carrots, meat pies, and Patagonian lamb that had been roasted outside
over an open fire for four hours. We
were also served wine, beer, or nonalcoholic beverages, and fruit cocktail for
dessert.
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| Ranch House, El Pedral |
In the late afternoon, the buses
returned us briefly to the ship, just to freshen up and pick up our luggage. The road that our buses took to El Pedral and
back was extremely rough, and the noise was very loud from rocks hitting the
sides of the bus; however, on our return trip, Sally turned down her hearing
aids and actually slept for a while on the bus – almost unheard of for
her! The Insignia staff had been kind enough to leave sandwiches in
our stateroom, since the ship’s restaurants were not open. Although we had only about 45 minutes in our stateroom,
Jesse took a shower.
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| Trelew Airport |
The tour group met in the Insignia
Lounge where we picked up our passports, and then boarded two large buses to
take us quite a long way to Trelew Airport. At about 9:00 PM we boarded the
plane, and at about 11:00 the plane landed in Buenos Aires. There, we
stayed in a very nice Sofitel hotel, though Jesse had to stand in a long line
for 20 or 30 minutes to get our room assignment. It was about 2:00 AM by
the time we got to sleep.
Monday, 2 Mar 2020 – We awoke to our alarm at
7:15 AM, had breakfast, and left the hotel at about 9:30 AM for the 30 minute
ride back to the Buenos Aries Airport,
Aeroparque Jorge Newbery. After a long wait, our plane left at about
11:45 AM for the 1 hour 45 minute flight to Iguazu, Argentina.
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| Entrance, Iguazu National Park |
After picking up our luggage, we
loaded onto one of the two awaiting buses, which drove us to the entrance of
the Iguazu Falls National Park where we enjoyed lunch at the park’s La Selva
Restaurant. Afterwards, we were given
the option of either a walking tour of the falls or a zodiac (motorized boat)
cruise which allows passengers to view the falls from water level and get close
enough to feel the spray and energy created by this great mass of falling
water. According to the brochure, there
would be approximately 100 steps down to reach the boats, with no ramps, and
100 steps back up from the zodiacs along the same route. But once there, we were told that there were actually
200 steps, and that park personnel would be screen passengers before allowing
them to descend the steps. Passengers appearing
to have trouble walking, unassisted, would not be allowed to participate; and
neither would passengers with hearing aids, unless they could hear relatively
well without them. Sally’s hearing
problem alone would have prevented us from participating in the zodiac ride,
but in addition, Jesse was still having problems with his Achilles’ tendon and
Sally with her sciatica. Also we had
only slept a few hours in Buenos Aires and were still tired from the long walk
to see the penguins yesterday. At any
rate, we both opted for the walking tour.
Before starting that tour, we
boarded a small train at the Estacion Central for a short 10-minute ride to the
Estacion Cataratas (Waterfalls Station). The temperature was in the 90’s and
the humidity was very high, as we walked on a path through the jungle.
Eventually, we stopped along the path and were given a choice of continuing to walk
for another hour to the Iguazu Falls or to take a shorter walk to the
air-conditioned Gran Meliá Iguazú Hotel. Since by then, we felt pretty exhausted,
we and a few others opted to follow a different guide to the hotel, while the
others (presumably) got their first view of the falls. After reaching the
hotel, we enjoyed sitting in air conditioning – and we also had a distant view
of the falls. Eventually, the other members of the walking group arrived
at the hotel. One of them had tracked
their walk to the falls with a pedometer and told us that they had walked a
total of about 5 miles! Soon, we loaded onto
a bus which took us back to the park entrance, where we picked up the zodiac
group. Most were soaking wet, but all were
still excited and in very good spirits.
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| Hotel Bridge, Iguazu Falls |
The ride to the Loi Suites Iguazu
Hotel was about 20 minutes. Check-in was
very well organized and only took a few minutes. This was a very rustic
hotel, having several separate buildings. To get to our building, we had
to walk across a wooden footbridge, which Sally thought was very scary because
it creaked and the individual boards moved as we stepped on them. The view
from our window was close-up jungle! But we had a comfortable bed and a
huge bathtub. Our TV channels were all in Spanish except for one channel:
“CNN – ingles.”
Soon after we arrived in our room,
it rained; however, it stopped in a few minutes before we walked back for
dinner. The dining room was set up in
tables for eight, and the dinner was buffet style. We sat at a table with Tom & Ruth, Brian
& Jean, George & Porter, and Tom & Mary. Jean had joined Brian on the cruise in San
Antonio and would be cruising to Rio de Janerio. They had attended high school together and
recently became reacquainted and are now an item. (Brian was in our group last year that went
to Ayer’s Rock.) George & Porter are
from Louisville, KY. George is a retired
actuary and Porter is a retired attorney.
Tom & Mary are from Chicago.
Back in our room, we saw on CNN that
six people had died from the coronavirus in Seattle. Sally fell asleep soon afterwards, but Jesse
watched a WWII movie in Spanish about a tank crew, starring Brad Pitt! (He said no English words were given, but the
actions made the movie relatively easy to follow.)
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| Lookout Point, Iguazu Falls |
Tuesday, 3 Mar 2020 –
We awoke
to our alarm at 6:00 AM, had breakfast, and boarded the bus at 8:00 AM for the
20-minute ride back into the park. We were scheduled to visit the upper
circuit and ride the eco-train. From the
park entrance, we all walked to the Estacion Central, and rode the train for
about 20 minutes to the Estacion Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat Station). Then we walked for about 30
minutes on a metal grate catwalk to the observation platform. However, to
Sally, it didn’t seem like very long because much of the time we were walking
above water and rocks, which was shallow and still. The walk seemed much
longer for Jesse since he fears both water and heights. Along the way, sometimes we saw animals
(raccoons, toucans, and one turtle in the water). When we arrived at the observation
platform, the water spray from the roaring falls soon covered us. Our view was just about level with the top of
the falls. Photography was difficult
because the water spray kept accumulating on the camera lens. After a few minutes of admiration, we started
our walk back to the catwalk entrance.
Next, we took the train back to the Estacion Cataratas. Then,
we started walking toward the Gran Meliá Iguazú Hotel, that we visited
yesterday. We soon stopped along the
path and were given three options: (1)
walk the lower circuit to see a lower view of the falls (about an hour
roundtrip), (2) take a shortcut to the lower view of the falls (about 20
minutes round trip, but very few passengers would be allowed on this one), or
(3) continue the walk to the hotel.
Already exhausted, we chose option 3 and continued our walk to the
air-conditioned hotel! At the hotel, we
sat with Tom & Ruth. Tom purchased a
beer for himself and lemonades for the rest of us. (He used his charge card and had no idea how
much he paid.)
Once the entire group had arrived at the hotel, the doors
were opened to a large room where we enjoyed a buffet lunch. Again, only non-alcoholic beverages were
served with lunch.
After lunch, we were given the option
for a third walk to the catwalk near the top of
Devil’s Throat, which affords a wonderful view of the falls at their most
powerful; but we didn’t go on that one (and quite a few others didn’t,
either). We lounged in the lobby until the others returned from the third
walk. While lounging, we talked a little
with Charles from Toronto whom we met on our 2018 cruise. Amelia & Al had introduced him to us one
night before dinner. Amelia always joked
that Charles was royalty and called him “Sir Charles.” Charles uses a cane and has trouble walking,
but he doesn’t let that stop him from participating in activities. (In fact, he sometimes “bites off more than
he can chew.") He was traveling
alone as he was in 2018. Charles
confirmed to us that he is definitely not royalty!
After the others returned from the
third walk, our bus returned us to our hotel.
We were back in our room by 4:30 pm and watched CNN until dinner at 7:30
PM, when we sat at the same table with the same group as last night. We were
asleep by 11:00, after watching more CNN on the TV.
Wednesday, 4 Mar 2020 – We went to breakfast at
about 9:00 AM. Several passengers had
gotten up early and taken an optional trip to Brazil to see the falls from the
other side, but the rest of the group was able to sleep in. (Sally would have liked to see the falls from
Brazil; it is supposed to be the best view, and we were told that elevators
take people up to the top. However, we
were tired, and Sally felt that we had seen enough!) We had to pack up and check out of our room
by 11:00 AM. As we took our time
packing, we watched CNN on the TV.
After checking out of our room, we
joined Tom & Ruth, and talked until the others got back from Brazil; then
we all went to the dining room for lunch.
We sat at the same table again with the same group we had sat with for
dinner for two nights, except Tonya sat in one of the seats that Tom & Mary
had occupied. (They weren’t very happy
that Tonya had taken their one of their seats!)
Tonya had sat at another table for dinner with her friend who had
boarded the ship in San Antonio and was flying home from Buenos Aires.
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| Saying Goodbye to Santiana at the Iguazu Airport |
At 2:30 PM, we boarded our bus back
to the Iguazu International Airport. Before going
through security to our departure gate, we said our goodbyes to our Iguazu
Falls tour guide, Santiana. The flight
back to the Buenos Aires Airport, Aeroparque Jorge Newbery, was a little less
than two hours.
After landing in Buenos Aires, we walked quite a distance
to our buses. Our Buenos Aires tour
guide, Diego, narrated the 45-minute drive to the cruise terminal. Buenos Aires is the capital and
largest city of Argentina. "Buenos Aires" can be translated as
"fair winds" or "good air."
The Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area, which also includes several
Buenos Aires Province districts, constitutes the fourth-most populous
metropolitan area in the Americas, with a population of around 15.6 million. In 2012, Buenos Aires was the most visited
city in South America, and the second-most visited city of Latin America behind
Mexico City. A very popular tourist
attraction is the Recoleta Cemetery, the final resting place for Argentina’s
wealthy and powerful, including Eva Peron (which we visited in 2011).
At the
cruise terminal, we had to go through Buenos Aires security and immigration
before boarding a shuttle to the ship. Since
the MSC Poesia and Costa Fascinosa cruise ships were also docked at Buenos Aries, our
tour guides warned us to make sure that we boarded the Oceania Insignia shuttle! We re-boarded the ship at about 7:30 PM and
went to the Terrace Café for dinner, where we joined Tom & Ruth at a table
for four. We had a great time on our
overland excursion to Iguazu Falls, but we are very tired and it was great to
back in familiar settings!
