Our last day in South America!
Our final view of the Brazilian falls.
After another great breakfast by the pool we finished packing and Dick took some final photos of the falls. We had an 8:00 am pickup at the park gate for our transfer to Iguazu airport and gave ourselves extra time to avoid any backups at either the Brazil or Argentine immigration ports. No worries as we quickly pass though the border.
Raol is our driver again. He’s an interesting guy. Before moving to Iguazu he worked as a farmer in a small village in northern Argentina picking mate leaves. He stopped and showed us some wild mate plants along the route.
Once back in Buenos Aires, Florence and Ariel met us at the domestic airport. Our flight to the US is out of the international airport on the other side of the city but we didn’t have to check in until 6:00. We swung by the Mine Hotel to retrieve a few bags of our expedition gear stowed there prior to our Lake District and Iguazu adventures. Didn’t need that stuff in the tropics of Iguazu, for sure.
Florence took us to the superb ‘Calden de Soho’ restaurant, a traditional Argentine barbeque, in Soho, near the Mine. It is more a local’s place than a tourist place and Florence is well known here. She joined us for lunch and some interesting conversation. It was our last chance for Argentinian cuisine so we ordered big. We began with grilled appetizers – red peppers, a fabulous grilled cheese and local sausage. Dick couldn’t resist and went with the ‘Lomo’ (filet). Way too big! Mary opted for grilled chicken – also huge. We won’t need to eat for a week.
Calden de Soho
Sadly, we left for the airport and said farewell to Florence. She was fantastic. We had a very spirited consolidated packing session in the airport to lighten our carry-on bags. The Argentinians decided to go through Mary’s checked suitcase on our flight from Iguazu and cut off the TSA lock. They also damaged the lock on Dick’s suitcase but at least it still worked. Fortunately, a shopping kiosk at the airport had TSA approved suitcase locks for sale.
After checking in we found a table with a charging station at one of the wine bars near our gate and waited for our departure. Our overnight flight into Atlanta was uneventful – we actually arrived early (5:30-ish) and cleared immigration and customs in little time. We were a little concerned about making our connecting flight from Atlanta to Pittsburgh as our original flight to Pittsburgh was cancelled and we only had 1 ½ hours between landing and the flight home. No worries.
We landed in Pittsburgh right on schedule, very tired.