THE
ROAD TO IGUASSU FALLS
BRAZIL TRAVELOGUE - DAY
1 - IGUASSU FALLS NATIONAL PARK
Boarding Varig at the Rio de Janeiro Airport. |
THE JOURNEY BEGINS
We're
set to embark on our long-awaited journey to Brazil
for this, our 10th anniversary. We'll be travelling
to mighty Iguassu Falls, romantic Rio de Janeiro, and
the tiny island paradise, Fernando de Noronha.
In Rio de Janeiro, where we'll spend our anniversary,
we'll be meeting Sandra's mom, Kicki, and her beau of
seven years, Bertil, who will be flying in from Sweden
to meet us.
Our flight
schedule will be a brutal one - Leaving from our native
Portland, Oregon at 9:15AM, flying to San Francisco
then to Miami, on to Rio de Janeiro, and finally Foz
de Iguassu on the Argentina-Brazil border, arriving
at 5:30PM the NEXT afternoon.
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We'll
spend the next day at Iguassu Falls, then flying out
at 6:00AM the next morning to Chinchilla, followed
by Sao Paulo and Recife before finally landing on
Fernando de Noronha. Three nights on the
island will be followed by flights to Recife and
back to Rio de Janeiro, where we'll spend 9 nights.
Then it's back home - from Rio to Miami to Seattle
to Portland. All told, 16 flight legs in two
weeks - Quite an agenda - we can't wait! |
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THE FLIGHT
A relatively
mundane flight - no huge problems, despite the most
active hurricane season on record, with Hurricane
Beta threatening our trip and Hurricane Wilma just
wreaking devastation to South Florida, including
the Miami Airport where we had to fly through.
Just long - oh so long. We flew Horizon Air
to San Francisco, then American Airlines to Miami
and on to Rio de Janeiro, followed by Varig to Iguassu
Falls via our Brazil Air Pass.
WE ARRIVE AT IGUASSU FALLS
As we left the Foz de Iguacu airport, we were
greeted by our guide for this portion of the
trip, Eddie. Eddie was holding a sign with
our name on it - easy to spot. He helped
us with our bags and it was on to our hotel, the
San Martin Hotel.
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Itupu Dam in Foz do
Iguacu - World's Largest |
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San Martin Hotel in Foz do Iguacu, Brazil. |
THE HOTEL
The
San Martin Hotel is about 500m from the entrance
to Iguassu Falls National Park, right next to the Bird
Park. The grounds are beautiful, and the facilities
include a restaurant and two bars - one by the pool
and one inside. The rooms are tiny and old, but
functional. There is only one 110V outlet - in
the bathroom - so it's interesting trying to keep everything
charged as well as plug in our alarm clock. There
is a television, but CNN is the only channel in English
and there are no subtitles - all English-language programs
are dubbed in Portuguese.
The beds
are twins and are hard - you can feel the springs big
time. There is air conditioning, but no clock,
iron, or additional outlets.
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Luckily we'd brought these items along. The
shower is slippery, and there is no exhaust fan, but
it works fine. The room is well serviced and
clean. There is an internet kiosk in the gift
shop and a tour desk in the lobby. |
THE EVENING
We sampled the
hotel bar and had a couple of Capirinha's (Brazil's most popular
cocktail) and some others as well. Suffering from allergies
beyond control, I have to take a dive before we can eat - we
order room service (some quite good tenderloin) and I crash
in the room almost immediately...
Back
Next
Continue to
Day 2 - Iguassu Falls National Park
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