The girl in Ipanema goes ahhhhh

We had an early start. The alarm went off at 3.20am for a 4.20am pick up to go to the airport for a 7am flight to Rio. We arrived at the Ipanema Hotel around 10.30 and our rooms were not ready so Fernanda whisked us off to town. On the way we glanced at the Havianna shop it is close to the hotel and we pleaded with her for coffee as breakfast was at 4am so were thirsty and hungry. Craig and I followed Fernanda's lead and had frappe coffee as it has warmed up now and lemon meringue pie and tiramisu. The coffee was very sweet and so was the lemon but tiramisu was lovely. Next time we will stick to savoury but it was good to try. I went lustfully past some $3 Raybans genuine I am sure but no time to stop. We caught the very modern underground to Central City. The metro was upgraded for the World Cup. The Olympic venues are nowhere near ready. 

Landmark to help her back to the hotel. 

This is the opera house painted with real gold. 

The 19th Century building in the square by the Opera House. 

Owners of buildings did not have to pay tax for a year if they renovated their buildings in the Portuguese style. 

Gorgeous cafes in the Portuguese style. 

It was important to have your slaves well dressed and painted in the French style. 

Brazil was the last country in the world to abolish slavery. 

There are two Cathedrals in town. One for white people and one for black. Interestingly the one for balaclava is beautiful but dark inside. 

Brazilian people are now a hotchpotch of many cultures and nationalities including indigenous people Portuguese, African, Italian and Jewish. Fernanda is Italian Portuguese and African. Everyone is like her a mix of several cultures. 

One of the things people talk about is Brazil used to have a king. He came out from Portugal assisted by the British when Napoleon invaded Portugal. Napoleon wanted to take over Britain but couldn't as their army was too strong so Portugal aligned with Britain and the result was The King lived in Brazil until he abolished slavery and had to flee the country. 

These pictures are replicas painted on the hallway of a restaurant in the Portuguese style. 

We had lunch in a19th century restaurant that Fernanda introduced us to. 

Lunch wit Ashleigh, Fernanda, Craig and I. 

Ashleigh and Fernanda at cafe. 

The empanadas are not the same as Argentina. 

In the way back to the hotel we met lots of helpful locals and some of our group. We called into the Havianna Dhop and I bought these 

We sorted our room. Wrote our blogs got ready for dinner at 8pm. The worms will be getting Craig. Tell you about dinner tomorrow. 

Musings when I was offline with no pictures

Written in the cafe at the Argentina side of Iguazu Falls.

I have been longing for the tour to arrive because we have booked two tours and the first one felt like it wasn't really a tour we were booked into a hotel in Santiago and Patricia picked us up and took us sightseeing twice. In the morning we had one guy join us for the tour of the city but the afternoon tour it was just Craig and me to the winery with Patricia and the driver. Then we were in Buenos Aires for four days before joined the tour we had 2 sightseeing tours on day 2 but that was it. Anyway it is now Day 2 of the tour and I am exhausted. I was so tired after posting on Facebook and dealing with my gazillion photos I didn't get to writing my blog or all of my blog

So Here is Day 2 at Argentina side of Iguazu Falls. We walked from 8.30 am to about midday. We have looked at the falls from all angles and taken even more photos and walked about 5 kms. Robyn Sadgrove will be very relieved to know that by the time we get to Europe we will be used to walking between 3-5kms each day. 

Travelling is very tiring. Concentrating when you don't know the lingo is hard effort and walking huge kms when usually I am so dependent on a car! We have planned to do so much. 

Today after walking all morning we didn't do the optional boat ride through the falls for several reasons really! One is Craig was not allowed to do it,it cost $80US each to do it and we are tired. Usually in South America they are kind to Craig around his disability but in this reason they said too dangerous for you!

So that was that and it is nice to be in the cafe away from the Pesky raccoons who steal food and fight with each other over people's food. They are protected in the National reserve so they don't exterminate them. 

I have noticed my blog has turned into a caption explaining narrative. It is hard to keep up with it, sort photos,publish photos on Facebook and write an entertaining blog when my day is full. All I can say the photos are great and on not so busy days I will be more entertaining. 

Iguazu Falls

We had an early start this morning with a pick up time of 7.30am. It was goodbye Buenos Aires and we flew to Iguazu. 

We were collected by Eduardo who speaks excellent English and we went to the Brazil side of Iguazu Falls. Fernanda was enthusiastic about being in her country. I took loads of photos because the day was so beautiful. 

One of the seven wonders of the world. 

I loved visiting the Brazil side of Iguazu Falls it was a slightly more leisurely day and it was lovely being amongst the rainbows. I am only going to put in a few of my favourite pictures as there are so many. 

Such a gorgeous phot of us falls and rainbows. 

Angela and Willa posing at the elevator with Fernanda taking pictures. 

The end of the Brazil side track. 

One of my faves. 

We also went to the Bird Sanctuary which was beautiful the colours are amazing. I got some good shots. 

Posing toucan 

Please take my photo. 

I have loads more but 3 is enough to save you from boredom. 

We went back To Argentina to our lovely hotel and went out for more beautifully cooked steak and I had onion risotto. We are missing our vegetables. The meal was delicious and we enjoyed a lovely bottle of Chardonnay with Karen and David. 

Sunday in Buenos Aires

We Woke up quite tired after the toilet exploding in the night. Everyone knew about it. We had a tour on a bus today around Argentina with the lovely Jessica sharing her city with us. South Americans are all politically very await is great. Dictatorships create political activism.

The tour means we have some new friends so we had breakfast with some of the people on the tour. 

We set off on the bus at 10am and our first stop was at the mechanical flower that now only stays open

I also took a picture on the bus. 

We carried on through Buenos Aires admiring the city of monuments. The British and Spanish monuments that they were not so fond of having them from them. We saw the zoo and the Japanese garden. We heard about when the obelisk had the red Condom made for it. Google it. Looks very funny. 

We stopped and looked at St Martin's House. He was the father of the nation. 

We then went to Reclette the posh people's cemetery which was grandiose and Eva Perin is buried there. 

The alleyways are full of mausoleums

And more

Then Eva Peron

Her great uncle owns the mausoleum 

And then this one is of a lady who died at child birth. 

Then this one died in an avalanche and her dog missed her

Next we went to lunch at a cooperative. A group of women got together to make cakes and cater. They also run an after school group too. 

We had pizza and empanadas. Here is the tour group and art. 

Lunch was yum! 

 

The art was beautiful 

We bought some mini cakes and a little art board. 

We had lots of talk about the coop and how to make empanadas. 

Next we went to the dangerous area of La Boka where the hotel staff had said it was too dangerous to visit unaccompanied. 

Today was the football game between La Boca and Riverside. La Boca won. The away team were not allowed supporters there as it is too dangerous. The area was cordoned off from midday and was crawling with police. 

It is the lower class area and the artists reside there too. We went to a tourist shop area and then to visit Beatrice an artist in a tennament building. Her and her partners work from there and live nearby 

They bought the building from a family with ten children and it was previously a convent. 

The family lived in Austria and in Argentina

The art was amazing 

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Beatrice and Jessica

Last one

After that we returned to the hotel sorted our new upgraded room and went out to the San Telmo market and bought a gorgeous new handbag. 

Then we had a lovely bottle of cab/sav Malbec with chees and crackers. We turned down paying $US200 to go and tango. We are tired from a busy day and exploding toilets etc and tomorrow we are off to Iguaza Falls at 7.30am. 

Saturday in Buenos Aires

We were feeling tired so we were going to have a quiet day doing our washing which meant gathering it up and taking it to the Chinese lady in the laundrette in the next block. We were late going out because it poured with rain. In fact it was lunch time so we walked 3 block away to La Continental for empanadas. 

The empanadas are yum

They were watching football 

Then Craig had an afternoon nap and I checked out the news. 

When we got our laundry we went to the supermarket and picked up a good bottle of Malbec for $5 and some cheese and crackers. Happy hour in our hotel. 

Craig he loves his red wine and cheeses. 

We met our tour at 6pm and went for dinner at Buenos Aires for an Argentinian steak. We got the taxi out for the evening. 

The lights in focus on the restaurant this time after seeing name of restaurant in focus first. 

While we were waiting for the others to arrive we went next door to the best book shop in the world. El Atemeo, initially it was a theatre but no one had the money to go to the theatre so it was sold and a guy turned it into a bookshop. 

It has a theatre full of books 

Stalls full of books 

Amazing ceilings 

But wait there's more

There's more still 

Those ceilings are amazing 

Anyway we took a taxi back to the hotel and my slowly improving Spanish got us there. 

When we got there we quickly hopped into bed still quite tired and instantly went to sleep. 

At 1.15am, I woke to this terribly loud noise of gushing water and I jumped out of bed and went to the ensuite to see water gushing everywhere and I shouted at Craig and he got up and went into the ensuite and got soaked as the toilet plumbing exploded everywhere. At this point I threw on my clothes and ran to reception  and the guy came up to the room and ended up soaked and turned the water off to the room which meant no toilet or shower. Meanwhile Craig and I had got back into bed and said we would sleep. The receptionist said that the hotel was full so we would have to use the toilet downstairs and he would change our room tomorrow. All that drama and tomorrow is another day.