A Wonderful View

Saturday 24 February

Most of the group met up at breakfast after all, just Harry and his ladies, and Linda and Mike were missing, as they had had an early flight to Iguazu. It was very difficult to find a clear table, which - if this is the 5* hotel it is purported to be – should be one of the prime concerns at breakfast – everyone has a habit of wanting to eat about the same time! But the strawberries were delicious.

After breakfast I decided I could stand my hair no longer – we had seen a hairdressers close to the hotel on our wanderings yesterday, and the tariff had been in English. So working on the premise that shops do not open here before 10.00, it was a little after that hour when we went looking for the shop. When e found it, at first the steel shutters were still across the door and windows, but having walked up the street and back to pass a few minutes, we found a young man in the shop, who spoke English. He explained that the shop was open, but no staff had yet arrived!! He asked us to call again in half an hour or so. We decided to telephone the parents, but after several aborted attempts to dial through, we gave this us as a hopeless case – Buenos Aires just didn’t seem to recognize English codes – nothing to do with the Falklands was it?!! (many are very anti-British here). We returned to he hotel, said a final goodbye to another five of the group, before booking out, storing our luggage in their cupboard. We retraced our steps back to the hairdressers, where I was told that within about 40 minutes, someone would be able to cut and highlight my hair. Colin returned to the hotel, to read and puzzle and I sat down to wait. Within about five minutes, a young lady arrived and with the help of the young man who spoke English, determined what I was asking for. She collected a bowl of bleach (?) and proceeded to “comb” it through my hair, separating the layers with some bits of cotton wool! At home its foil or a holey cap, never just a comb! I had a conditioner treatment, and then my hair was cut – not nearly so short as I would normally have it (she didn’t want to cut it that short!), but it was now in shape and the colour was a sort of shade of honey– a vast improvement on how I went in – although Colin looked a bit shocked when he came to collect me.

We returned to the hotel and met up with Monica, who was traveling with us to Iguazu this afternoon. We all ordered sandwiches for lunch from the bar, which were enormous – I only ate half of mine, and took the rest with me to munch on the plane! Our courier arrived on time – Monica was on the same flight as us but for some strange reason had a separate courier – but we all met up again at the airport. The plane was only delayed by twenty minutes – really good for Argentinean airlines, which we have already found are always late, so I had a little time to catch up a bit on the blog At Iguazu we were met by Fabiano (again Monica had a different courier) who was to be our guide to the Brazilian side of the Falls. We had been due to do this tour tomorrow, but as it involved crossing the border into Brazil and back again, and then when we left on Monday, we would be crossing over again, we decided to leave this trip till Monday and just cross once into Brazil.

We were allocated a room with a view over the Falls from our balcony – a truly wonderful sight, with a cloud of mist rising above the waterfalls – a really stunning view. The hotel was the Sheriton, and was typical of their chain – a large modern room, with huge windows, a bathroom with all the facilities (including tissues), and a large comfy bed. Plugs were in short supply but we eventually found two that we could use to boost the computer, phones and cameras. We had arranged to meet Monica for dinner, and as we sat in the bar, we met Linda and Mike who had arrived at lunchtime – a much better use of the day. We watched as lightning lit the sky over the Falls and thunder rumbled – lucky we weren’t going out tonight. After a couple of drinks, we made our way down to the restaurant, only to be told that there wasn’t a table for five of us. Eventually the young waitress informed us a table for two was available, so Mile and Linda took that. She told us that another table wouldn’t be free for more than half an hour as there was already a list of more than half a dozen names waiting. So Monica, Colin and I adjourned back to the bar, only to find that the menu there consisted only of sandwiches and panninis – not what we were hoping to eat. I wanted to make a fuss, but Colin wouldn’t let me. We decided that perhaps it was better to wait the extra half an hour or more and eat something we would enjoy, than to order sandwiches now – which would probably take half an hour to arrive – and not enjoy our meal. Colin returned downstairs to make the booking, and while he was there, the young waitress came to find us to say a table had now become available! We found Colin and were seated next to Linda and Mike – it seemed very poor and chaotic organization.

We didn’t want large meals – still being full from lunch – so I ordered salmon fillet and Colin had vegetable cannelloni, but the portions were quite large and we struggled to finish. We had been given “pisco sours” at the start of the meal, which set the tone, for a relaxed meal, now that we had a table. We decided we would book for tomorrow, even though you could only do so for 19.00 and 19,30. We were very tired by the time we climbed into bed after midnight, but at least we didn’t need to be up early in the morning.