Thursday, January 15, 2026 – Recife, Brazil

I decided to skip Recife and try to get caught up.  I have been there at least three times before.  I really need some new clothes, but they will have to wait a bit.  Dee went to the prison market, where I scored last year and she came back with at least one nice dress. 

I worked on my own client stuff, including our tour of Iguazu Falls, coming up, and went to sailaway from Recife around 4:30PM.  It was a beautiful sailaway and we took some lovely pictures.  Then I went to dinner and enjoyed Isabel Commandeur on the World Stage again.

Friday, January 16 – at sea

We were back at the desk and a few people came.  Two of them were old computer programmers, like me, but smarter.  They taught me how to use a cable to transfer photos to my phone, since that game had changed on me.  A German Canadian stopped to chat.  He finds the other Canadians he meets to be standoffish.  I disagreed but his theory is that’s because I’m from Quebec.  I wonder.

Oi Brazil had a huge pool party this night, which I hear was a great success. 

Saturday, January 17  At Sea

Larry Sutton gave his talk and book reading.  He had given us the story of how he became a deep sea diver for the Navy, at a Distinctive Speakers talk on the 2023 World.  That reinforced what his teachers had told him 60 years ago, and he wrote a book.  Larry is a very funny storyteller and amused us with a chapter called “The Condom Conundrum”, just before our venue was to host Saturday evening mass.  Fourteen people came to dinner afterward.  There was a production show on the World Stage and we made the early show for once.

Sunday, January 18 – Rio de Janiero

I didn’t go out in Rio as I had some client work to do, before we left on our trip to Iguazu Falls.  It was a bucket list item and would be fun to compare with Niagara Falls, which I had had occasion to visit last June.  I worked and I packed, had dinner and went to Oi Brazil’s fabulous show on the World Stage.  Pure eye candy.

Monday, January 19 – Rio de Janiero

I left Joanne to mind the store on the ship.  It’s wonderful to have a competent co-host, so I could go play with my friends at Iguazu Falls. 

The trouble with all overland trips is the air travel.  We weren’t flying out until 1:35 pm, but that meant meeting up around 10 am on board.  Our group consisted of two little groups, who had bought our tours from SITA, an Indian Tour company that I had used and liked before in South America.  Go figger.  We processed through the terminal and found ourselves a couple of taxis, one for Dee, Pat and Helen and one for Toya and Bob. Three out of five of us had booked wheelchairs, which was enough that the other two, Toya and Helen, got to enjoy the perks, like quick security processing and early boarding.  We also got to huff and puff a very long run through a couple of terminals. It’s still hurry up and wait, because the plane goes when it goes.  We got airport food to eat, which, in Brazil, were pasteles.  They are empanadas in Argentina.  No difference. Not great quality.

The plane was on time.  It was a three-hour flight and Roberto was at the airport to meet us with a van. We stayed at the Doubletree in Foz do Iguazu, a very nice hotel, with a beautiful pool, and good food. Roberto picked us up at 7:45 for a dinner and Dance show at Rafrain.  This we could have done without.  It was a buffet for about a thousand people, with a dance show.  The food was decent, but buffets for a thousand aren’t my cup or tea, or anything else.  After Oi! Brazil, the dance show wasn’t much either.  It was a disappointing evening but at least Roberto got us out of there before people started running for the twenty tour buses. 

   Tuesday, January 20 – Iguassu Falls – Argentinian side

We gave ourselves a late start.  There were two hikes out to the falls to do, at over a kilometer each way.  We figured we wouldn’t do more than one of them, anyway.  Toya and Bob met Meri around 8:00am.  Dee, Pat and Helen set out at the crack of 9:30 am.  There was a long line at the border crossing into Argentina, so we probably didn’t actually start our trek to the falls until about 11:30am.  I never looked at my watch until hours later.  It was an interesting walk because much of it was over water on aluminum bridges.  About a third of the way in, we met Bob coming out.  Toya was still at the falls, mesmerized.  It was a very long walk, and took all we had, but it was worth it. 

We then had a buffet lunch by weight in the park cafeteria and it was back across the border and home to the Doubletree.  The five of us met for dinner in the hotel’s restaurant, not wanting to take another step.

I was also delighted to have Joanne back on the ship.  When I got an email that told me we had two new cabins,  I just forwarded it to her and asked her to do the necessary to try to get them on to the shore excursion, which was now in just a couple of days.  Hopefully HAL was already on side.

Wednesday, January 21, 2026 – Iguazu Falls – Brazil side

We had a plane to catch this afternoon and the Brazil side of the falls to see first, so we mustered for 8:00am.  The Brazil side was a lot easier on our old bods.  We could use our van, a little choo choo train, a Jeep, an elevator and a golf cart to get us from one viewing platform to the next and lunch.  All good.  The pictures were good, some are Robertos, some are Dee’s. 

Dee took one look at the zodiacs and decided she didn’t want any part of them.  She didn’t want to get soaked.  She just wanted to take pictures.  So, she and Roberto took the “dry boat”, which, he promised, would deliver and it did.  Pat and Helen went for the adventure, suitably clad in the HAL provided poncho.  It looked very professional:

And it let in buckets of water.  The water came straight at us, taking our breath away and running down our chins and necks, straight through the valley between our titties to pool under our butts.  It was nice warm water on an even warmer day, so no great discomfort, just a bit of terror.  Everyone on the boat screamed at the top of their lungs, when the boat banked sharply and the rail went into the water.  Everyone but Pat, that is.  She was laughing her head off.  Sometimes I think Pat’s laugh is like a cat’s purr – all purpose.  She sure sounded like she was having fun, though. 

We came out of that soaked to the skin, and we had a plane to catch after lunch. So we ate outside at the weigh-it cafeteria in this park, and kept presenting our wettest part to the sun.  Miraculously, by the time it was time to set out for the airport, we were dry enough. 

The border was easier in the afternoon, and we made it with plenty of time.  Dinner was another empanada affair, and this one wasn’t as good as Rio’s.  Oh well.  Another bucket list item checked off.

By the time we checked in to the Alvear Palace Hotel, it was past our bed time but we had lovely, luxurious beds to get into. 

Thursday, January 22, 2026 – Buenos Aires

While I caught up with my emails, Pat and Dee had the $65 breakfast in the Orangerie of the Alvear Palace.  I was informed it looked better than it tasted but the surroundings were worth the price of admission.  The Orangerie is a natural atrium and the morning sun was pouring into it.  I collected them there at 9:45 am to meet Soledad at 10.  Solé had been our tour guide in 2018. She’s a friend if Eilat’s, and now, of mine.  Dee passed on the tour in favor of a massage at the hotel.

Solé’s sister Inez was our driver and we were just going for a very relaxed tour.  Pat and Toya were all destroyed from yesterday’s boat ride, aching in every joint.  I am trying to figure out why it didn’t happen to me, too, and I am crediting Miranda Esmond-White’s Essentrics exercise program.  We drove around a bunch, poked around an antiques market, and had a typical Argentine pastry and a submarino in a café.  That’s a bar of chocolate that you melt in a cup of hot milk, DIY hot chocolate.

When we got back to the hotel around two, Pat went to rest her achy body.  Dee and I went to Rambla, a bar about a block from the hotel, tucked away on a side street.  We ate on the street, because the weather was perfect.  The food was good and generous and the large beer I ordered, sure was.

I am used to a small beer being a 10 oz glass, and a large beer being a pint.  This puppy was a litre.  I thought I’d never finish it, but Dee and I got talking and by and by, the beer was gone.  When I got back to the room, Pat had gone off exploring.  I lay down for a few minutes and woke up an hour and a half later.  Pat was beginning to worry about me.  I don’t usually do that sort of thing.  Then I told her about the beer.

We had a wonderful dinner with Eilat at Elena, the grill in the Four Seasons Hotel.  Toya and Bob got there early and had the best time in the Pony Bar, where the waiters wear livery and everything has a horsey theme.  The food was excellent and the price wasn’t over the top.  I would highly recommend it to you, if you are looking for a place to eat in Buenos Aires.  Eilat is good company, too.  It’s always great to see her.

Friday, January 23, 2026 – Buenos Aires

We were up at the crack of dawn, because we had a bus to meet, not to mention a ship, later.  The bus was for our DV Shore Excursion, and we really could not miss it.  It had become two buses, with the addition of the four new people, and that was very fine with me and all the participants.  They love the luxury of spreading out in a bus.

It was a nice, though unexceptional city tour.  Only the last two stops in la Boca, were actually worth stopping at.  A walk through a park to see an unexceptional rose garden doesn’t cut it.  We all have roses in our gardens at home.  I didn’t make that up.  I heard it from a guest.  The Opera House stop was boring, too.  It would have been great if we could have got in.  Evita’s grave would have been nice, too.  People are still talking about that.  Lunch was good but there were serious logistics problems.  There weren’t enough waiters and they didn’t speak English.  Neither did the menu.  The tour guides acted as interpreters, but when you have 43 people arriving at once and the menu is in Spanish only, you have a serious bottleneck.  A few people figured out how to do it with Google translate on their phones, and I was glad of the lesson for the future, but I would have preferred our tour to go more smoothly.  The last stop in La Boca, was the best:

 It was interesting to walk around and had a nice shop, where we felt safe. We got back to the terminal, went through customs & immigration and were glad to be back home aboard the Volendam.