The Giorgiani's Return

Within our crazy month of travel we were lucky enough to get my parents to make the trip to see us this year.  They arrived a few days after we returned from Peru, and though they had a few things they wanted to accomplish on this trip, most of the time was spent hanging out with their favorite granddaughter.

During the week we visited Temaiken Biopark, which was a perfect time to visit - the park was empty! Additionally, the day was cool but very sunny, so many of the animals were active.  Gretchen's favorite place in the park continues to be the trash cans, she is an exceptionally environmentally conscious little girl, and she insists on picking up and throwing away garbage.  Luckily, Papa was there to carry her to keep things moving a bit.

We spent time during the week getting a leather jacket made by Bettiza Rizzi and tracking down a vendor from the Feria Francia (Recoleta Market) that my mom met on one of her other visits to Buenos Aires.  It was a good thing that she kept his email address around, the man is an incredible painter!  If you are looking for a nice piece of art, especially a portrait, Andres Echeveste is a great person to work with.

For the weekend, we took the short flight to Iguazu Falls, Argentina.  We took this trip in April, 2010 with Jon's parents and have wanted to show this amazing location to my parents ever since.  I love that we have lived here long enough to do some of these trips twice, they really are worth the time.

Gretchen and Grammy getting ready for a walk.  Gretchen was pleased to be out of the backpack for this trip - but not incredibly excited to be in the stroller.

I was content as soon as we saw our first wild toucan.  What a beauty!

It was not recommended to visit Iguazu Falls in August, supposedly because the water levels can be low and the Brazilian side has the prerogative to reduce the flow of the water over the falls to help with their energy production.  I thought it was a great time to visit, we escaped the cooler Buenos Aires temperatures and avoided the crowds.  There looks to be plenty of water from where I was standing!

Our little ham showing off her beautiful smile:

One experience we had this time around that we didn't last time was the monkeys.  They showed up right around dinner time and walked along the balconies of the hotel rooms searching for food. The next morning I opened our blinds to find a money on our balcony railing - if only I had my camera then too...

I recommend to anyone going to Iguazu to stay at the Sheraton, especially if you are traveling with children.  There is no more convenient place to stay where you can walk to the falls, come back to let the baby nap, and then head out again that afternoon.  It was just the mix of adventure and relaxing that we were looking for.

The only part of the trail that was inconvenient to bring a stroller was the "Lower Circuit".  There are a zillion stairs, it is quite slick in spots, so we put Gretchen back in in the backpack for this hour-or-so hike.

We also went back to the Brazil side of the park, which meant that my parents needed to get their Brazilian visas, which was virtually the same as when Jon and I got our visas in 2010. The only differences this time around were that the Brazilian consulate required a current bank statement (that has a balance of at least $1,000USD) and that the visas returned with only a 90-day tourist visa (as opposed to our 5-year visas).

This also meant that we could return to the Parque das Aves, the best bird park ever in my eyes.  The toucans didn't disappoint, these blue birds were just about posing for our pictures...

And of course, the highlight of my photo-taking experience were these incredible hummingbirds:

  I don't think I'll ever get sick of them.

The Brazil side definitely offers the better view, I just love this panoramic of the waterfalls with my husband and daughter enjoying the view:

It was so nice to have my mom and dad come with us on this trip, it is right up their alley with the wildlife and the fantastic views.  I had to get this photo of the three of us at the end of our last trail:

When we were not hiking the waterfalls, we were at the very cold pool.  Luckily, it was 90 degrees outside so we were able to get in for a little bit.  Gretchen and Papa enjoyed the cold water together for a long time, she giggled like crazy when he would lower her into the water and then come up again.  It was precious!

Daddy and Gretchen swimming at the pool, it was a great way to get her energy out during the day.  We had a fantastic trip all around, and thoroughly enjoyed showing my parents a more tranquilo part of the country.  Thanks so much for coming Mom & Dad, it was pure joy!

Iguazu Falls - Wildlife

When we booked a trip to Iguazu Falls, I expected to see some great waterfalls, what I didn't expect was that abundance of wildlife surrounding the falls. According to the guidebooks, there are over 430 bird and 70 mammal species in the park and I'll bet there is every bit of that. We were only 5 steps into the Sheraton lobby when we saw a flock of toucans fly by the back window. After checking into our room, we looked out over the balcony and got our first glimpse of a coatimundi, this South American cousin to the raccoon. We saw a "herd" of these little scavengers the first day and then Thom ended up face to face with the crew in this photo on our Upper Circuit walk. It turns out that these guys are around almost all of the time. We saw them on the sidewalks, hanging out under tables in the cafe areas and we even saw a really shifty one crawl out of a covered trash can.



My proudest moment came when I got some great pictures of a toucan in the wild. We found this beauty on our way back from visiting the Devil's Throat falls just posing on top of a tree. All afternoon we had seen them fly by, as perfect as if they were carrying Guinness drafts on their little beaks, but to see one sitting stationary was just too perfect. It was much easier than I anticipated to spot them, those beaks stand out like shiny pennies, I just couldn't believe there were so many of them. I'm glad we saw these toucans in the wild first because the next day we spent a couple of hours at the Parque das Aves (Bird Park) in Brazil and came closer than I thought possible to a whole lot of toucans there.



Parque das Aves: This bird park is located just outside the Brazilian Iguazu park entrance. The current entrance fee is US$12.00 per person and in my opinion, worth every penny. The park is a walk through the jungle that has large bird houses for all sorts of birds, focusing on parrots and toucans. There are also 3 or 4 huge walk-through cages that allow you to walk inside with the birds. This was cool. We got so close to the birds that I thought this one was going to take Thom's watch in his beak and fly off. He was reaching for anything shiny.

This video is from a non-zoomed lens, showing just how close you could get to these sweet birds.

Aside from the toucans, which are obviously cool, the bird park also has a large walk through area with butterflies and hummingbirds - my favorite! I was thrilled to get these hummingbird shots, I am not exaggerating when I say that I've been waiting to get these types of photos for years.
Thank goodness for digital cameras because I would have probably spent our life savings on film if I was working with an old-school camera. Additionally, there are plenty of other animals to be seen, we saw a few turtles, lizards and some huge scary looking fish. You cannot walk more than 5 steps into any of these paths without being surrounded by butterflies, which adds a mystical feeling to your trip. I've heard that there are also monkeys in the area, but we missed seeing any of them.

To sum up Iguazu, we had an amazing time and I recommend this vacation to anyone that asks. My only words of caution; if you're planning a trip be sure to consider that it is hot in that part of the world so you may try to avoid the summer months (Jan - March) when the mosquitoes are rampant and the heat is unbearable.

Do you have recommendations from your trip to the Falls? Please share!

In other news, Happy Birthday Mom! See you in a few days!

Iguazu Falls - Brazil

Iguazu Falls are situated in a large U-shape, the majority of the waterfalls are located on the Argentina side, making the best panoramic view available on the Brazil side. Some of our friends that had visited Iguazu before us recommended that we spend a day in Brazil, so we jumped through hoops to get our Brazilian Tourist Visas and spent Day 2 of our vacation hoping that we had made a good choice. To ruin the surprise, at the end of the day we left Brazil agreeing that this was a great decision. The best way to describe it is that on the Argentina trails you are standing on top of waterfalls and on the Brazil trails you are looking at the falls from across the Lower Iguazu River.

Entering the Brazil side of Iguazu National Park requires a separate park entry fee, as of our visit on April 17, 2010 the entry fee was $37.00 pesos per person. (Again, this fee is cheaper if you are an Argentine, Brailian or Paraguayan citizen) Although this fee is less than half the price it takes to enter the Argentine side, the Brazil side of the park looks to be about 30 years more advanced and 3 times as expensive. After paying the entrance fee, you pass a large, fancy souvenir shop on your way to the double-decker air-conditioned tour bus that hand delivers you to a number of designated stops in the park. Our destination was stop #3, the Waterfalls Path. This path takes you along the river's edge and then up to two different tiers of waterfalls on the Brazil side. The views from this path are unbelievable. There are more amazing waterfalls in every direction. If you have an SLR camera, buy a wide angle lens before you visit and bring it. You'll need it. The Brazil side of the park offered a completely different perspective on the falls, if you're willing to put up with the red tape Brazil throws up for Americans (and Canadians, and Australians and citizens of these other countries) it's worth the trip.

After the trail of amazing views, I had to put my camera away and pull the rain shield over my camera case so that we could complete the trail. When you get close to the waterfalls, the trail divides into two paths, one that takes you right up to a waterfall and another that walks out on a second tier so that you are standing in between the two levels of falls. Both paths are impressive. It doesn't look like much from the pictures, but after completing these trails you will be soaking wet. Don't get me wrong, at this point in the day we welcomed getting cooled off by the mist, it was H.O.T. For Jon's birthday he got a new little digital camera from his parents, an amazing gift that allowed us to get these great videos. This video shows the full impact of the falls from the walkway. You also get a great shot of me looking like a hot mess.

I know I've said it before, but I could have spent all day just looking at and listening to the water. It's a sight to be seen and I will gladly go on this trip again with other visitors. My first words to my parents when we got back were "You have to take that trip." It is truly breathtaking, and like Elaine, I don't use that word lightly.

Iguazu Falls - Argentina, Part 2

Ready for the exciting continuation of Iguazu Falls - Argentina? I know I am.

Iguazu Falls is located in the Iguazu National Park which covers land in Argentina and Brazil. As of April 2o10, entry into the Argentina side of the park costs $85 pesos per person for non-Argentine citizens. The charges are less if you can produce a DNI, the national identity card for Argentine citizens. We found this to be the case throughout our visit to Iguazu, it helps to be an Argentine citizen, most fees are cheaper for you. And airline tickets are 50% of the cost. Not that I'm bitter... Anyways...

There are a number of trail circuits that park entry gains you access to, the main ones are the Upper Circuit, the Lower Circuit and the Garganta del Diablo (Devil's Throat). The trail photos I posted in Iguazu Falls - Argentina, Part 1 were from the Upper Circuit. After the soaking boat ride, our boat docked at the end of the Lower Circuit and we hiked back to the hotel from there. As a side note, if you are not interested in the jungle part of the Iguazu Jungle tour, you can hike down the Lower Circuit to the river and pick up the boat tour from there, this also shaves some money off of the tour price ($100 pesos per person - half price - although the ride only lasts 12 minutes vs our hour long tour). This same dock is where the boats to San Martin Island depart. We did not do the San Martin circuit, mainly because we didn't have time. The walk starts with 172 stairs, so it's not for the faint of heart, but the island looks to be home to an amazing number of birds and situated right in the middle of the main strip of waterfalls so I imagine that it's worth the stairmaster training.

We decided that since we were already wet from the boat tour, a little mist wouldn't hurt. Here are Jon and I at arms length of one of the falls on the Lower Circuit:

The Falls seen from here are a little less frightening for those that fear heights, but no less spectacular.

After finishing the Lower Circuit, we stopped by the hotel to get cleaned up and have some lunch. The last big circuit to complete was the Garganta del Diablo, so we walked over to the small passenger train that transports folks from the park entrance and the Sheraton to the beginning of the Devil's Throat path. The train is pretty hilarious, it's similar to the park-touring train you may see at an amusement park, but much older and slower. As slow and uncomfortable as the train is, it is a welcome sight after all of the walking involved in the day. The train drops off at the start of a 1,100 meter trail that ends at Devil's Throat. Devil's Throat is the name of another waterfall, a huge, 2-tiered waterfall that wraps around from the sidewalk end to Brazil. The trail to Devil's Throat is a serene walk, riddled with animals and butterflies, you would never guess that just a few meters away the water drops almost 270 feet. I think this video describes the view better than any photo could.

The trails and scenery throughout the park is remarkable. I could have spent all day just watching and listening to the water. It is unbelievable how much water there is - it just keeps coming. In total, we had a very full day on the Argentina side of the falls and I feel like we accomplished everything that we really needed to, but given another chance, I would spend at least 2 days on this side of the falls. I think it's great to walk the falls with a camera, but given another day I would do all of the trails again but leave the camera at home and just enjoy the view.

More Iguazu Falls coming up next, stay tuned for the Brazil side of the falls!

Iguazu Falls - Argentina Part 1

Iguazu Falls, Wow. This is a must-do trip for anyone that has more than a week in South America. Iguazu Falls are located in the northeast part of Argentina where Argentina meets Brazil and Paraguay. I have broken our trip up into three blog post installments, the Argentina side, the Brazil side and wildlife. I will add that I took over 1,000 photos during our 3 days in Iguazu and I don't feel like any of them really do the waterfalls justice. April was a great time to visit because it's still warm out but not riddled with mosquitoes, the heavy tourism season is over so the park is not crowded and the dry season has not started to the falls have plenty of water to, well, fall.

Let's begin at the beginning. After multiple hours of airport delays discussed in my Jorge Newbery post, we were ready to be at our vacation spot. We arrived at the Argentinian Iguazu Airport in the late afternoon and caught a cab (Andrés Vera, I highly recommend him as a driver and we used him for all of our other travel as well - check the Services page for his information) to our hotel, the Sheraton Iguazu Resort & Spa. There are quite a few hotels to choose from, but if you are able to swing the slightly higher room rate, the Sheraton is worth it. When booking rooms at the Sheraton, there is a choice between a jungle view and falls view room. There is a difference in the price here as well, but the falls view rooms are really spectacular. Even if you don't go for the falls view, the Sheraton is a great location because it is inside Iguazu National Park and the trails surrounding the waterfalls are only a few meters from the hotel doors.

Here is a view of the falls from our hotel room balcony:

The hotel is situated so that you see the falls from the restaurants, bars, reception desk and the pool. It's a pretty awesome backdrop. The park is easy to navigate and it is unnecessary to book anything prior to visiting the falls. I was concerned that we had not booked any tours or activities during our stay, but it turns out that this is completely normal. We were able to book our boat tour through a representative stationed in our hotel and the rest of our sightseeing took place through the amazing walking paths through the park that begin as you walk out of the hotel doors. Lets start with the walking paths.

It was hard to capture pictures of each other during the walk because we were all busy taking pictures of the Falls. This picture of Jon perfectly captures the walkways that line the Argentina side of the Falls. The walkways are secure, but terrifying to anyone with a fear of heights (ie - me). If you look closely at the walkway itself, it is made out of that metal see-through grating, and you are literally standing on top of the waterfalls. The photo to the right is not zoomed, that is how close you are to the falls, pretty cool.

Touring the falls was especially easy because the Iguazu Jungle tour company seems to be the only tour company around. We opted for the Great Adventure tour which includes a 25 minute jeep ride through the jungle and a 20 minute boat ride into the falls for $200 pesos per person. The tours leave every hour and include a bilingual tour guide for the jeep ride to talk about trees and wildlife in the area. The tour has quite a few stairs at the end to get back to the hotel, but nothing too strenuous. You want to wear a bathing suit and bring as few items as possible to the tour because the "shower" they promise is more like a "submerge". The company provides waterproof bags, but many of the bags were damp inside so we wrapped our cameras in our extra clothes and then put them in the bags. The captain takes the boat to two different waterfalls, but keeps his distance at first so that you can take pictures like this one. Rest assured that the captain drove the boat directly into the waterfalls. At first it was a little shower, and then it was a holy-crap-are-we-really-this-close-to-the-rocks drenching. There were a few moments when I was not sure we would get out of the boat alive. Once we did, I viewed the boat ride as a really fun time.

In an attempt to keep my blog posts shortened to a manageable level, I will stop here. Stay tuned for Iguazu Falls - Argentina, Part 2!

Aeroparque Jorge Newbery

Also known as the "other" Buenos Aires airport, Aeroparque Jorge Newbery (airport code: AEP) is the source of most of the domestic flights in Argentina. This airport also offers flights to Argentina's South American neighbors like Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chili and Peru. We first discovered Jorge Newbery when I was booking my flight from the US to Buenos Aires and my heart momentarily stopped when I realized that there were two airports in Bs. As. and I had no idea which one I was supposed to book. This proved to be an unnecessary panic attack. Jorge Newbery does not have any direct flights from the US, and we always use the amazing United Airlines direct overnight flight from Washington, Dulles to Buenos Aires, Ezeiza Airport. Therefore, if we are flying without a connection, we're not flying to Jorge Newbery.

Jorge Newbery is actually a much closer airport for us. Located in Palermo, this airport is only a 15 minute cab ride from our apartment versus Ezeiza, which is close to 22 miles away. It's even more convenient because we can hail a cab outside our apartment instead of hiring a Remis in advance, which involved much more organization and advanced notice. The two major airlines that work out of Jorge Newbery are Aerolineas Argentinas and LAN, both government owned. We have found that Aerolineas Argentinas has better flight times, prices and flight frequency so for the two domestic trips that we've booked so far (Bariloche and Iguazu Falls), this is the airline we've used. Apparently, we are not alone, the ticket lines for AA were packed this morning.

Today we are on our way to Iguazu and we have hit our first hiccup in the Aerolineas Argentinas system. A few weeks ago I received an email that our flight time had changed from 11:30am to 9:20am, and that our tickets were automatically confirmed for the earlier flight. Sounds great. Then we arrive at the airport at our earlier designated time only to find that the flight before ours was canceled leading to a domino effect that left us without seats on the 9:20am flight. We then were rebooked on a 1:30pm flight. Not a huge inconvenience for us, but we would have preferred to sleep in and have a leisurely morning versus spending a few extra hours getting to know Jorge Newbery better. The only redeeming factor was that we were given a "light snack" voucher to spend at the airport for our inconvenience. Wish us luck!

The guys are sad over our airport delay. Lornie doesn't seem to mind.

Brazilian Tourist Visas

We have been compiling a list of places to visit while living in Buenos Aires, and the destination that tops that this list is Iguazu Falls. Iguazu Falls are comprised of a strip of 250 falls over a 2 mile strip nestled between the northeastern tip of Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. With Jon's parents visiting in April, after the major mosquito season is over, we planned a trip to Iguazu while they are in town. Through recommendations from our friends, we were told that the trip could be maximized by spending time on the Brazilian side of the Falls. As we soon learned, as Americans, we need to obtain a tourist visa to step foot in Brazil, even if it's only for a few hours. This is a direct result of America requiring Brazilians to obtain a visa before coming into the USA, including a fee that matches what the US charges - referred to as a "reciprocity fee". As of today, this fee is listed as $130 for a 90-day visa, yikes! We have been assured that this fee is worth it, I'll update you on whether we feel the same way after we return.

The interesting part of this process was the difference between the steps listed on the Brazil Embassy website versus the actual steps that we were required to take, so if you are in the market for a Brazilian visa - Beware! I read a number of blogs on the subject before we started the process, so we were ready to be surprised, but each person has a slightly different version of the process (us included). We spoke to a Canadian couple standing behind us in line for their visas and they had changed all of their reservations based on what they heard from friends, and in the end, this was an unnecessary inconvenience. So, here is how the process for an American obtaining a Brazilian tourist visa in Argentina panned out for us:

• Fill out the online visa application form. Jon's parents were prepared enough to do this ahead of time, I filled out some other form that was expired so I filled the forms out when we got to the Brazilian Consulate. The goal is to have an application number, which is part of your form submission confirmation.
• Go to the Brazilian Consulate building at - Carlos Pellegrini 1363 - Piso 5 from 9:00am to 1:00pm Monday - Friday. We went right at 9:00am and had approximately 6 people ahead of us. Bring with you:

1. Your US passport that has at least 6 months left before it expires. You also need to have at least 2 empty pages in the back "visa" section.
2. A 2x2 passport photo on white background. Neutral facial expression is best.
3. Round trip travel information, they want to make sure that you're not going to stay in Brazil. We are not actually flying into Brazil, but our Iguazu, Argentina flight confirmation did the trick.
4. Address and phone number of your hotel or overnight accommodations. Again, we are not staying in Brazil, but this was of no issue.
5. A bank statement with the name of the account holder that proves you have at least US$1,000 in the bank.  The statement must be from the last 90 days, preferably printed that morning.  
6. Tourist visa application number, if you were smart enough to get this in advance. If not (like me) you are able to get a number on the computers at the consulate, but they are s.l.o.w.

**Note: Some information we read stated that you need proof of a recent yellow fever vaccination,  proof of work in Argentina and various other documents. We did not need any of these items.

• Bring this information up to the teller window. The teller fills out a paper, asks you a few questions, and has you sign your name on the paper (so each person requesting a visa must be present). This is the part where she takes your passport and photo (and I have a mild heart attack thinking that something will happen and she won't return them).
• You will get a deposit slip with the address of a bank that you need to pay your reciprocity fee to. The teller told us to pay the fee and come back after 12:00pm the following day to receive our completed visas.
• We went straight to the bank (approx 4 blocks away) and paid our fee. So far as I can tell, the bank will only accept Argentine pesos. The bank gives you a confirmation of payment slip - guard this with your life.

We returned to the Consulate the following day at noon to turn in our confirmation of payment and collect our passports with shiny new Brazilian visas inside, just like the teller said. We were also pleasantly surprised to find that the visas are good for 5 years, not the 90-days we were expecting. All in all, the process was not nearly as painful as I had expected, save a few extra errands. It was funny to see the same people in line at the Consulate, then the bank, then the Consulate again the following day. We head out to the Falls on Thursday, armed with our entry passes to Brazil!

UPDATE: The Brazilian Consulate has begun requiring appointments for all visa requests. This was only a mild issue for us, who did not have an appointment. The teller gave us a frustrated look and a sign when we told her that we did not have an appointment but she let us process our request that day regardless. I would recommend making an appointment, the next teller may not be so nice: Brazilian Tourist Visa appointment directions.