Puerto Iguazu Back to Buenos Aires

Saturday, February 23

Weather: Still hot 😓

Not quite so early of a start today as yesterday. Time to get what little we had repacked and have breakfast in the lobby. I was so disappointed to find out the fresh mango that was on the buffet yesterday was not to be seen today. I knew pretty soon we would be back to Minnesota's version of fresh fruit in the middle of winter...hard and no flavor. 😒

Our transportation to the airport was a van and we only had a stop or two to pick up other travelers. The drive took us back through the national park.

Loved this sign. (I magnified it in the photo.)

The shuttle dropped us off at the airport at 10 am for a noon flight. In such a small airport I assumed we would zip through security and be waiting at the gate for a long time. But...I would be wrong. When we walked through the airport door we were greeted with an unorganized crowd with lines from two different airlines mixing together. We went to what we thought was the back of the line for Aerolineas Argentinas flights and waited...and waited. Only one person was checking people in and they were at a desk designated for VIP's or some special category of people. Our line didn't move an inch and we watched as the crowd behind us kept growing.

Bob's opinion of the airport situation.

I was constantly looking at my watch wondering if we would make the flight. But then I wondered if no one was getting checked in who would even be on the flight?! 😒 Finally a second person showed up and we started inching our way to the desk to get checked in. V-E-R-Y slowly.

Things were looking up until...the power went out. I mean the whole airport was dark. Knowing what a power outage does to computers I was afraid we were doomed. After a couple of minutes the lights came back on and all was well for a little while and then it happened again. The whole crowd let out a uniform gasp.

After the second outage, the power stayed on and we made it to the front of the line. After dropping off our bags, we went upstairs to our gate. It wasn't hard to find because there were only two gates. The doors were right next to each other. There was some confusion when boarding started. The announcements were garbled and hard to understand. From the construction going on it appears that this airport is being enlarged. Hopefully they get some of these logistics worked out in the meantime!

After the frustrating time in the airport, the flight went just fine. Back in Buenos Aires we waited awhile until our drivers showed up. Again...two separate cars and two drivers.

The drive from the airport into Buenos Aires goes by some run-down neighborhoods.

When we arrived at our hotel, the Dazzler Hotel Maipu, we retrieved the luggage we had left there two days earlier. From the amount of luggage they had in their storage area, quite a few others must have left luggage while doing trips to Iguazu.

The couch and tables you can see through the window was pretty much all there was to the lobby of the hotel.

The business center.

If we didn't have to leave so early, this is where we could have enjoyed a free breakfast.

Our room was perfectly adequate for our one night stay and even had one American style plug where we could charge our phones. The view from our window was less than desirable.

The room also had a nice desk area and closet.

Our view. The rooms on the front side of the hotel had the better view.

It took some time to re-shuffle all of our stuff to make our luggage "airline ready". I always swear I am going to scale back on the amount of stuff I take when I travel but like always I was pushing the 50-pound limit by the time I finished. Kent had a luggage scale so I was hopeful there would not be any more rearranging necessary once we got to the airport.

Dinner was at a pizza place at the corner of the block. Because we were eating much earlier than the locals, the restaurant was almost empty. The pizza we ordered was bigger than we imagined, but good tasting. We took the leftovers back and stuck them in the fridge in our hotel room.

The pizza place where we had dinner.

No problem finding a table. 😏

Bob and Laurel enjoying our "last supper."

Our yummy pizza!

Multiple alarms were set before we went to bed. We had an early pick up the next morning and I was worried we would oversleep. Our last night in South America...tomorrow we fly home.