Combining a brief land tour and a few days post-cruise, this entire trip will be nearly a month long, but we’re packing a lot of sightseeing into it. In the past. we’ve explored a few countries in South America – Colombia and Ecuador along with the Galapagos islands off of Ecuador. This will be our first time really exploring some of the other southern countries that we’ve only heard about.

Our flight from San Diego to Houston was just fine and from Houston to Buenos Aires was also great. At this point in our lives, flying business class is financially manageable and feels quite necessary on the longer flights. It was a blessing this time – both of us got to sleep on a longer flight, but I still maintain that airplane food can never be considered great even in the upscale sections. The reality is that we don’t fly for the food!

The first part of our trip included a night in Buenos Aires, then a few nights while touring Iguazú Falls, then back to Buenos Aires. The hotel in Buenos Aires – called the. Alvear Art Hotel – is really lovely and very centrally located in a good part of the city. We got a recommendation from the front desk concierge for a more casual and authentic Argentinian steakhouse called Huacho, Despite being two people who don’t eat much red meat, this sent us to the moon and back. Argentina is known for its steaks and what we each ordered was wonderful. In fact, there was so much of it we ended up bringing a whole side of skirt steak back to our friends at the front desk, which they seem to appreciate.

After a short flight the next morning, we were picked up by a local guide. On the way to our Iguazu hotel, we stopped at an amazing overlook. The Triple Frontier is the tri-border area where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet at the confluence of the Iguazú and Paraná rivers, near the renowned 2.7-kilometer-long Iguazú Falls. Key cities at this juncture include Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil), Puerto Iguazú (Argentina), and Ciudad del Este (Paraguay), which are connected by their shared border, culture, and proximity to the falls and the Itaipu Dam. 

Our first day touring Iguazú  Falls was with a group of about 22 people. Unfortunately, the guide was a nice guy but very clueless about how to move a group this size along. Our first obstacle was when the cashier for buying tickets would not accept VISA cards nor US dollars despite many signs saying that VISA is accepted. Luckily there was a young couple from the States who offered to buy our tickets with their accepted credit card and we Venmoed them back. Keeping track of our guide during the day of walking proved challenging, and his crowd and time management left something to be desired. Without the gory details, we did opt for a private tour the next day.

The Argentinian side of the falls is spectacular – there is an upper and lower track that you walk to get differing perspectives of the numerous individual falls.  We walked both tracks that amounted to about 14,000 steps! The falls are at the intersection of the Iguazú and Paraná rivers. We were told that they are over 200 individual falls that make up this world heritage site. Some of the individual falls can be seen from the Argentina side and still others only from the Brazilian side. The days we were there, the volume of water was said to be at about 50%, but I can tell you I saw pictures of when the water was much higher and places that we walked we could not have accessed.

We got lucky and the first day. It was overcast and didn’t rain. By the end, we were a little sweaty because it’s subtropical summertime. We got to see a bit of the local wildlife that included choatis, various colorful birds, and lovely butterflies. We were told, though that there are many other large species such as jaguars and cougars that live in the jungle area.

Our second day we had a wonderful private guide and driver and the pace was much more relaxed. We had the chance to really take in the beauty from the Brazilian side, catch a rainbow, and learn a bit about the history of this part of the world.

We opted to try a typical and low-key Brazilian lunch at a local outdoor stand with picnic tables. Our meal consisted of local amazing steak, rice, and black beans, french fries, some small salad, with a garnish made of cassava and corn flour that was great.

In the evening, we attended Madero Tango, a performance by a wonderfully talented troop of dancers. Tango is not an easy dance to learn and involves many complex coordinated moves between couples and the women do all of this.in very high heels. It’s a very sensual art form. and this group was extremely creative in doing interpretive scenarios with incredible costumes and using digital visuals as background. Food was fine, nothing to write home about. Show totally worth it!

At the dinner show, we met and sat with a lovely woman from Tarzana, a solo world traveler, Brenda. We found we had many interests in common – travel, theatre, and music. Her husband was a musician who toured with Juice Newton. Brenda taught at risk youth in LA public schools for many years. She was headed the very next day to tour Antarctica. We hope to keep in touch back home.