Dateline – Millahue Valley, Chile

There’s no cure like travel wrote Cole Porter once upon a time. But then travel in Cole Porter’s day for the well heeled included a leisurely process of well appointed suites on ocean liners, private rail cars, and a small army of porters, bell boys, maids. valets and others to smooth all of the rough edges. Nowadays, even with a high end tour group such as this, a travel day involves hurry up and wait and endless standing in line. Up early for a 7 am luggage pull. Down for breakfast at the buffet where, after having eaten lighter yesterday, I gave the bacon and eggs another go, and on the bus by 8 am. The trip to the airport (the small one on the river as it’s a relatively short flight) was uneventful and it was actually possible to see some of Rio de la Plata as the weather was overcast and not pouring rain as it had been for our arrival.

Multiple lines: Lines for baggage check. Lines for security. Lines for boarding but we eventually made it on board our flight from Buenos Aires to Santiago, Chile with a minimum of fuss and an on time departure. Santiago is hosting some sort of religious convention this week and so the flight was very full of excited conventioneers. I was having none of it and slept most of the way. Off the plane in Santiago for more lines for customs, baggage claim, agricultural check, and eventually free to begin to get my bearings in the C of the ABC countries of this vacation. I have a bit of a recurring nightmare when I travel. I dream that I’m pulled out of line by uniformed police speaking a language I do not know into a Kafkaesque nightmare of detention and dehumanization. I’ve never had any issues and my life footprint is such that I am unlikely to be picked up for any sort of international skullduggery but I still keep having the dream. And I’m in Latin America, not North Korea. I can think of one country where I might be stopped at the border due to comments I made about the then ruler to a news organization (stating that his broken hip in the hospital was not a good prognostic sign). But it’s not high up on my list of places to go and as that was more than thirty years ago, they may have forgotten about it.

After getting out of the terminal, we got on yet another bus (this one exceedingly luxurious and painted in a rather astonishing combination of chartreuse and tangerine. MNM would be delighted. And a two plus hour road trip out of the city and into Chilean wine country. Santiago is built in a large flat valley between the Andes and the Chilean Coast mountain range. It’s rather like Seattle – mountains everywhere you look. We didn’t get the best view today as it was quite overcast.

The bus went whizzing south along the highway – which looks a lot like highways anywhere. A brief pit stop at a gas station cum rest area which was most notable for the flocks of golden California poppies growing amongst the grass. I was a bit bemused as it’s entirely the wrong time of year until I remembered that here it’s mid spring as the seasons are opposite. Eventually, we turned off the highway onto a bunch of two lane roads heading up into the foothills. Small towns and rural homes along the highway, all with the Chilean flag out front. (We are just past Chilean independence day which was on the 18th). Eventually we got to a dirt road and the luxury bus could go no further. Quick switch over to a much smaller and cramped oversize van and then up the dirt road cum goat track that switchbacked up a steep hill to our destination, the Hotel Vik. Positive energy prevailed and the clouds parted and the sun came out as we were making the transfer into the van.

The Hotel Vik is a small luxury hilltop hotel deep in Chilean wine country. It’s sort of like being dropped into an Architectural Digest photo layout. It was built by a Norwegian couple, the Viks, about fifteen years ago to indulge their passions for wine and art. Each hotel room is unique, designed by a different artist, and named rather than numbered. I am in ‘Hollywood’ (arranged by Wendy our motherly but efficient tour director who thought it suited my personality). It is adorned with large silk screened canvas prints of classic movie stills. Sean Connery as James Bond is looking down over my bed tonight and Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief are on the side wall. One whole wall is glass giving lovely views of the hills and a lake at the bottom of the one on which the hotel sits.

We had a lovely dinner in the dining room (I had poached fish for the appetizer and lamb stuffed ravioli for the entree) and I think most of us are retiring early after the 9 hour process of getting here. Tomorrow promises to be good weather for doing some outdoorsy type things around this rather stunning place. It’s as if Frank Gehry had designed Edoras for The Lord of the Rings.

Dateline – Buenos Aires –

Last night it was my neighborhood. While I was sound asleep here in Buenos Aires, someone turned a semiautomatic weapon on a crowd in Birmingham outside a club in the 5 Points South neighborhood and fired more than one hundred shots in just a few seconds killing four and injuring eighteen others. I don’t do a lot of clubbing these days but I am well aware of the location. It’s less than three blocks from my academic office. A block or so from some on my favorite restaurants. Close to the office of my travel agent. Less than a mile from my condo. There’s scarcely a day that goes by when I’m not either driving through or patronizing some establishment in the area. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about this. To my knowledge, no friends or acquaintances were among the victims but I have seen the names of friends of friends on social media as survivors. I think I need to do a deep dive into politics spurred by this and other events but I’m going to wait until after I get back to the US. I really don’t want to have to turn on that part of my brain while on vacation.

Today was a fairly low key day. The temperature dropped some and it clouded over, threatening another cloudburst which never appeared. As tomorrow is another travel day with an international flight, I’m not sad that there wasn’t all that much on the agenda for the last full day in Argentina. After breakfast (back in its usual location now that the society wedding has decamped and the guests gone back to their elegant apartments in the better districts), we headed over to the Recoleta cemetery which is only a few blocks from the hotel. I had wandered by the outside a few days ago but did not go in as I knew we had a tour visit today. I love old important cemeteries, the kind where lots of money and familial obligation leads to a sort of keeping up with the Jones’ in terms of mausoleum building and funerary sculpture. My favorite is Pere Lachaise in Paris where anyone who was anyone and died in the environs of Paris ended up from Peter Abelard to Oscar Wilde to Jim Morrison. Like New Orleans, Buenos Aires is built on the riverbank of a major river as it turns into an estuary and sea. This means high chance of flooding. (No longer a major issue but when the cemetery was plotted a couple hundred years ago it was very definitely a problem). And so, like the cemeteries of New Orleans, the graves were originally established above ground in family mausoleums. Due to space constraints, the mausoleums all sit cheek by jowl in blocks giving the place the feel of a miniature city of the dead. The mausolea run the gambit from simple plastered brick to huge gothic fantasies. The inhabitants are mainly from prominent Argentine families and not people with whom most North Americans would be familiar.

The exception is, of course Eva Duarte Peron. She does not have her own mausoleum, politics having seen to that. Nor is she buried with Juan Peron (Juan’s later wife, Isabel who is still alive at 91 saw to that). Instead, she is buried with her mother and siblings in the Duarte family crypt. Despite being deceased for over seventy years, she is sill getting offerings of fresh flowers from her people. Eva was a complicated person (and much of the complication was excised from the musical Evita – there is a non-musical film with Faye Dunaway which actually gets somewhat closer to the actual truth). The family tomb is a severe black granite with bronze memorial plaques attached. Would Eva be satisfied with this? Probably not. Her tastes were a bit more grandiose. I thought about going to the Evita museum but I just didn’t feel like it. Later in the afternoon when I could have. And it gives me an excuse to come back.

The next stop was the famous Teatro Colon opera house. They’re in the middle of tech for an opera that opens next week which is why there were no performances of note on the nights I could have gone. We did get a tour of the building with all of its spectacular marble foyers and the 3000 seat house with its boxes and frescoes and enormous chandelier suspended over it all. (Cue Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D major on the organ). Like most 19th century opera houses (although this one is technically 20th century having been dedicated in 1908), it has great acoustics and a huge system of boxes best suited to displaying the occupants to each other rather than giving them appropriate sight lines to the stage. Opera audiences of that day were familiar with the plots and music from repeated viewings and hearings so they need not keep full attention on the stage. They knew what was coming next.

With that, our official tours ceased. I returned to the hotel, fortified myself with some ice cream (when in Italian or Spanish influenced cities, ice cream is a must), and then took a walk through some of the parks over to the museum quarter. First stop was the national museum. Not as large as the great museums of Europe and with a mission to give prominence to Argentine artists, it never the less was a pleasant hour or two basking in the reflected light of creativity. The Argentine artists weren’t particularly inspired as, until about World War II, they seemed to spend most of their time copying European styles and schools so there was kind of a Monet and kind of a Corot etc. The last half of the 20th century Argentine works were more separated from progenitors. There were a few inspired by the terrible period of dictatorship in the 70s and early 80s and I expect there’s a lot more that can be mined from that experience I expected a lot more than there was. The works by artists you have heard of are mainly inferior work although there are some rather good Goya’s from his black period, and a couple of very nice Picassos. Then a little further down the road to the museum of Latin American art. I did not spend as much time as I should have as i didn’t want to be caught in the rain walking back. A lot of pieces by artists of whom I had never heard, many of them with good reason. I did make it back to the hotel without getting wet and with many steps on my pedometer.

I stayed in for the evening and worked a bit on a couple of essays for the new book but kept falling asleep so that’s a task that will have to wait until later. Going to just relax the rest of the night as there’s an early luggage pull in the morning and we have been told that the bus leaves at 8 am sharp with or without us and if we are not on the bus, we’re expected to take a taxi to the airport and catch up with the group. (apparently there’s been issues with missed connections at this juncture in the past). One way or the other, we’re due to arrive in Santiago, Chile mid afternoon tomorrow where we’ll be for a couple of days before returning home.

Dateline – Buenos Aires and San Antonio de Areco

Yesterday was city mouse day and today was country mouse day. The hotel was in hysterical preparations for a society wedding tonight with 400 guests expected so the usual breakfast buffet had to be relocated. The food was the same, even if it was on a makeshift series of tables in the lobby of the main restaurant one floor down. I have a feeling this was not the first time the hotel staff had been to this particular rodeo. After more than a week of overeating, I’ve decided to keep my breakfasts a bit lighter so it was coffee and pastry and fruit and let someone else explore the hot bar and this hotel’s version of scrambled eggs.

Then it was on the bus for a trip out into the pampas to the little town of San Antonio de Areco (on the Areco river) about thirty some miles northwest of Buenos Aires. A stop at a local crafts store to break up the bus ride (I bought a new belt as my current one is rather the worse for wear) and then into the town. The first stop was at a business located on the main market square – a working family silver smithy currently run by Mariano Draghi, the second generation to live and work at the location. His father, who started the business, was the child of Italian immigrants to Argentina. The Draghis have made a name for themselves by designing and making the fine silver accoutrements worn by the gauchos of the pampas on ceremonial occasions – gaucho knives, bridle and saddle tackle ornamentation, trophies, mate cups, and the like. The old family home is now part boutique, part museum, and part working smithy where Mr. Draghi was happy to talk about the art of creating the intricate silver engravings and lovely relief patterns for which he is known. There was nothing that caught my eye in my price range (a single hand done piece can take months to complete and is priced accordingly – he does a lot of commissions for wealthy collectors).

Then, a little further out into the countryside to another family owned business, Estancia de Rosario de San Antonio de Areco which is part horse farm for the training of polo ponies and gaucho rides, part event space, part polo club, and part family home. The weather could not have been lovelier with a breeze off the Areco river and we were treated to demonstrations of gaucho trick riding, horse training techniques, and then yet another three course meal, this one served al fresco on tables under the trees. Several members of the family whose home and business it is were there as hosts and were quite charming folks. I again ate too much and had maybe one too many glasses of wine. It was enough to convince me that a large dinner was not in the cards.

We got back to the hotel around 5:30 and I spent some time walking through Recoleta at dusk. I must confess I did stop for some ice cream. The hotel lobby was filled with Buenos Aires society awaiting the nuptials. The men in dark suits and ties, the women in gorgeous long formal dresses, more than one of which I recognized as major designer. I don’t know who was getting married but someone was obviously dropping a few shekels on the proceedings. There was a bunch of extra security buzzing around and it was pretty clear that, even as a guest of the hotel, you weren’t going to get more than a peek at the festivities. As I watched them all going on about their ways, admiring their get ups, all I could think of was the aristocrats chorus in the original Hal Prince staging of Evita and I kept expecting them to move as a single unit. I was slightly disappointed when they did not.

Tomorrow is our last full Buenos Aires day – tours of the Recoleta cemetery and Teatro Colon in the morning. (I checked and there was nothing much playing there during these few days or I would have gone to a performance) and fairly unstructured after. I’m thinking I’ll hit the major art museums. If anyone has a can’t miss thing I should see or do available on a Sunday afternoon, drop a note below and I’ll see if I can fit it in.

Dateline – Buenos Aires –

It’s been a rather full day and it’s after midnight local time and I have to get up in the morning for a trip out to the Argentine countryside to mix with some gauchos (the cowboys, not the 70s culottes that enjoyed a very brief vogue) so I’m not going to blather on as much tonight as I do some other times. I’m tired and had a little too much wine with dinner.

The first part of the day was a tour of various neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, some by bus but mostly by foot which is much more to my taste. We are staying in the Recoleta neighborhood which is sort of the BA version of Mayfair or the Upper East Side – full of embassies, wealthy beaux arts and art deco mansions, ritzy boutiques and modern high end high rise apartments. I’ve done a little walking around. It’s all very nice but how many Chanel bags or Gucci loafers does one need? So off the bus went a few blocks to Avenue Nueve de Julio which is the main boulevard of town and about twenty lanes across, leading towards the Plaza de Mayo and the important government buildings. Casa Rosada (with necessary Evita moment with the balcony) – check. National cathedral (former home of Pope Francis when he was a lowly archbishop) – check. Various government buildings in various 19th century architectural styles – check. Next on to the neighborhood of San Telmo, the heart of the Spanish colony which eventually developed into the city. There are still remains of colonial architecture including repurposed Spanish pueblas, cobble stone streets (I did not fall today), and lots of funky shops selling all sorts of things you have no real use for. It reminded me a good deal of the older parts of San Francisco.

The last neighborhood stop was at Boca at the harbor. This was the first stop for most of the 19th and early 20th century immigrants. Argentina, like the US, is mainly a country built by immigration and most people have immigrant grandparents or great-grandparents. 40% of the population of Buenos Aires, for instance, is of Italian descent. The shanty town aspect of the area is now celebrated, having been painted in all sorts of vibrant colors and filled with T-shirt and souvenir shops where you can get all the usual tchotchkes, lots of things dedicated to soccer stars Maradonna and Messi, and everything you can think of emblazoned by a local cartoon character Mafalda who seems to be an Argentine version of Nancy or Little Lulu from the old funny pages. I bought some street art and some leather goods. After a number of years of financial instability, the Argentinian peso isn’t worth much – about 1100 pesos to the dollar. The locals love an infusion of foreign currency.

Lunch was at a famous Buenos Aires cafe – Cafe Tortoni which has been in operation since the 1850s. It’s very old world European in feeling and looks very much like Manet’s ‘A Bar at the Follies Bergere’ could have been painted there. The food was not as fine as the ambiance. Or maybe after so many days of overeating very rich meals my system is starting to rebel. I came back to the hotel afterwards, took a nap and then went for a walk through the park to people watch and afterwards had some ice cream. With such a large Italian population, the ice cream is excellent.

Tonight’s dinner was dinner and a show at the Tango Porteno dinner theater. Three course dinner with wine and champagne (I did not feel like large cuts of meat so settled for the soup and the ravioli followed with white chocolate mousse) and then a live and in person tango show with a cast of 22 showing off their prowess as dancer athletes with all sorts of tango steps. The trouble with dinner theater is usually either the dinner or the theater is subpar. Both were perfectly adequate but uninspiring. It’s a huge cavern of an auditorium designed to introduce hundreds of tourists at once to the world of tango and reminded me of nothing so much as cruise ship dining followed by a revue on the main stage. I give the meal a B+. Given the number of plates they have to turn out rapidly, it would be hard for them to get much better. The show is flashy, well staged, full of technical flourishes, but about thirty minutes of material stretched to eighty. If they had put in a through line of some sort or given more visual interest to the dances so that they didn’t all end up kind of looking the same. And, if I were directing, I would have told the first violinist to rethink the hair. Under stage light, it looks as if he has a dead capybara glued to his skull.

Back to the hotel late and now I write this before finding something on TV to help me drift off. When I watch something in a language in which I’m not fluent, I get just enough of the words and drift to start making up highly entertaining alternate lines and plots which help knock me out all the sooner. I’m strange that way. To bed, to bed…

Dateline – Buenos Aires –

I want to be a part of BA Buenos Aires big apple. The score for Evita has been rocketing around my head all day. Mainly the big production number, Buenos Aires from early in the first act when Eva, age 15, leaves the country to come to the city to make her fortune as an actress. I first saw the show in 1981 or 1982 on the first national tour in San Francisco (I saw most of the big shows of the 80s and 90s there). Loni Ackerman was Eva, John Herrera Che and Jon Cypher Peron. Don’t ask me why I remember that, I just do. What I remember most is Hal Prince’s cinematic and at the time highly original staging with a large metal light bridge creating multiple settings from its positioning up and down stage, becoming most effective at the top of the second act, transformed into the balcony of the Casa Rosada. A blinding spotlight hit a mirrored wall stage left, a door opened and out of the light appeared Evita in that iconic white dress. It was theatrical magic.

Evita was Steve’s favorite musical. He had seen that same tour in LA and fallen in love with it such that Don’t Cry For Me Argentina became his theme song. Years later, when we became regulars at Max’s Opera Cafe at Arden Fair in Sacramento, it was his entrance music when we came in (the pianist having a leitmotif for all of the regulars – mine was With So Little to Be Sure Of from Anyone Can Whistle). A few years later in the late 90s, on our first Atlantis trip, I got pulled out of the audience to do an Evita lip synch in drag and nailed it. (It was one of the things that started to convince me that I might have a certain flair for stage work.) And when the movie came out, I think Steve went to see it three or four times. I only went once. I did not care for it. Most people think the problem was Madonna in the title role. She was fine. The problem was Alan Parker’s direction. He hadn’t a clue as to what sort of filmic language makes a musical work. When it came to the aforementioned Buenos Aires, on stage it’s a huge production number with a lot of dancing encapsulating all of Eva’s feelings about growing up and meeting the city on its terms. In the film, its a gloomy piece of film making mainly set in a decrepit tango hall. There’s no life, no vibrancy, no understanding of what 1934 Buenos Aires was (at the time, it was on a par with London, Paris, New York and other world cultural capitals). Tommy had seen Patti LuPone in New York on a high school trip but never really cared for the show. He was indifferent to a lot of musical theater. I was once cast in the ensemble of a production, but I was offered a lead in a different show at the same time. I took the lead and the show hasn’t rolled around again through local circles. Probably too big an undertaking.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. This morning, I was still in Iguazu at the Hotel das Cataratas. We had an early morning luggage pull as today was a travel day so I got up, got packed, had breakfast and then it was time to walk the trails on the Brazilian side of the falls. One of the advantages of staying at a hotel within the park is that we got to take advantage of the park from dawn without the hordes who were kept back until the official opening of the park at 9 am. This meant no one around when we set off on the trail from the hotel to the falls. The trails on the Argentinian side yesterday approach the falls from above and you end up at the top staring down into the abyss. The trails on the Brazilian side approach the falls from below so you are at the base looking up at all of the roaring cascades (and getting wet from all the spray in the air). The view from the Brazilian side, coming from below, also means that you get a much better idea of just how enormous the falls complex is. There are taller falls and falls with more cubic feet of water going over a single drop, but Iguazu is by far the biggest complex of water falls at a single spot in the world and it’s difficult to really explain. You just have to be there and try to take it all in. I did take pictures and video but without the engulfing sound, the spray in the air, the constant wheeling of the birds, it’s all too sanitized. It’s one of those you have to be there to get it experiences so I do recommend it go on your life list of travel destinations. It’s worth the inconvenience of getting to the middle of nowhere, South America.

After the semi-religious experience of the falls (where the only mishap was my slipping on a wet not to code step and falling on my hands and knees, ripping the knee out of one of my favorite pairs of jeans), it was back on the bus and back over to the Argentinian side and to the other airport in Foz do Iguacu. There’s one on the Brazil side (which we flew into) and one on the Argentine side (which we flew out of) making both flights domestic and not international and saving a bunch of headaches for everyone (clever Tauck tours). The flight to Buenos Aires, landing at the smaller airport, right next to the central city on the banks of Rio de la Plata, was uneventful. However, we arrived to darkening skies, and the promise of rain. Once again, we showed our impeccable timing. We disembarked, gathered luggage, got on the bus and the heavens opened with a deluge three minutes later. Rain was so heavy it was difficult to see much of anything so no particular sightseeing as we made our way to the Recoleta district and the Alvear Palace hotel. A message came through to the tour director as we were negotiating BA traffic in a thunderstorm. The hotel was short on our rooms due to unexpected bookings and therefore we would all have to be upgraded to deluxe suites. There were no complaints. It was still pouring when we got off at the hotel but, thirty minutes later when I decided to do some exploring, it was down to a few spatterings and has held off since. The weekend promises to be lovely per the weather report. We shall see.

The Alvear palace is a grand old hotel in one of the best neighborhoods in BA, close by the museums, the river and everything else you might need. My deluxe suite, on the 9th floor has two rooms of faux Louis Quinze, a chandelier in the bedroom and a huge bathroom with more gadgets and accoutrements than I know what to do with, including a television mounted over the bathtub. It had never occurred to me to watch TV while taking a bath. I guess I’m just behind the times again. As it was no longer raining, but still quite damp, I limited my exploration to some window shopping, including the famous El Ateneo Grand Splendid book store, built into an old movie palace from the 20s. I didn’t buy anything as my Spanish isn’t good enough to really read in that language. I speak California emergency room Spanish and have for years. But I don’t think I’m going to get very far with a shop clerk by telling her to take two tablets with food and to breathe deeply through her mouth. I also walked a bit through the park and then returned to put my feet up for a while before dinner.

Dinner was at the hotel restaurant – another sumptuous multi course feast. I had corn/cheese empanadas, roast duck, and a merengue with citrus fruit and lemon ice cream for dessert. I really don’t want to get on the scales when I get back to Birmingham. I have a feeling I’ll have to take five or ten pounds off again. Tomorrow we more formally tour the city and then we’re off to some sort of dinner and tango show. I just hope it’s not audience participation as my tango skills are not what they once were. In the meantime, some well deserved sleep.

Dateline – Iguazu National Park

If Rio was all about salt water, today was all about fresh water. I am ensconced in the pink palace known as the Hotel de Cataratas sitting on the edge of the gorge through which the Iguazu river runs after hurtling itself over the famed Iguazu falls. I had gotten a glimpse of them last night in the moonlight but hadn’t had a chance to truly explore them. I know the basic facts – about one and a half times as tall as Niagara. An average of 400,000 gallons a second (they’re a bit low at the moment due to some draught and only doing about 275,000 gallons a second), anywhere between 150 and 300 individual falls depending on the rainfall and flood stage of the river. Global warming has caused them to see-saw back and forth. A year ago there were torrential rains that raised the river and falls to a level that all of the walkways that create access to the viewpoints washed away. This year it’s running low. But nothing can quite make you understand them until you actually see them up close and personal.

These falls weren’t as famous as Victoria Falls in Africa or Niagara until relatively recently. They’re remote. There wasn’t much of a tourist infrastructure. Then Hollywood came calling. The film ‘The Mission’ with its indelible image of the crucified Jesuit priest being launched over Iguazu falls by an unfriendly indigenous tribe brought international attention. (Some years later they were also used in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). Most of the area is national park – both on the Argentina and the Brazil sides and kept fairly pristine. The area outside where the city of Foz do Iguacu is located is rapidly becoming the South American equivalent of Pigeon Forge with water slide parks, wax museums, visits to animatronic dinosaurs and, for those whose tastes run to other things, a huge shopping mall on the Paraguay side of the triple border. (After a disastrous war in the 19th century, borders were shifted around to allow Paraguay river access so it could ship its products easily to the ocean for export). The bus crossed a bit of no mans land on our trip from the Brazilian to the Argentine side of the falls where all three borders come together. I’m trying to decide if I can tick Paraguay off my countries visited list for that.

We got up early and after a different, although very similar breakfast buffet, were on the bus for the Argentine side of the falls (better pedestrian access). The bridge across the river is a dozen or so miles downstream of the falls so it took a while to make our way down there, get through customs, and then make our way back up to the falls on the opposite bank. Once there, a walk through the jungle (lots of birds and butterflies but all the mammals appear to have been sleeping with the exception of an enterprising tribe of coatimundis who were quite deft at stealing knapsacks if left unattended), a ride for a few miles on a quaint little amusement park train, and then about a half mile walk across a raised metal boardwalk taking you right out over various river channels to the top of the main falls pouring two hundred and some feet down over a lip of basalt. The air was wet with back spray, the platform was crowded with tourists from all over the world, and it was unforgettable to be that close to such a wonder of nature. Then reverse the process back to the main gates of the park for lunch.

The jungle is incredibly thick and difficult to see more than about 50-100 feet off the path before all is blocked by trees, shrubs, creepers and all sorts of vegetation. There may have been a dozen jaguars, a dance troupe of capybaras, and a tapir all within 75 feet and I would not have seen them. Only the monkeys and the coatis seem to have made peace with the human invasion and decided that tourists can be good sources of food, no matter how many ‘don’t feed the animals’ signs are placed around. The picnic areas are all within large cages to try and keep them out so that families can have their sandwiches in piece without an aggressive coati jumping on the table and running away with sister’s peanut butter and jelly and scratching her should she happen to object. Our lunch was at an Argentine barbecue buffet. The meat was good, if a bit under cooked. As we walked in the in house musician, playing a combo of harp and some sort of steel drums was playing ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina’. And I thought Evita was still verboten in the country.

After lunch, repeat bus ride back to the Brazilian side and a choice of either a helicopter ride over the falls or a boat ride up to the base. I’m not scared of a lot. I’ve stood at the edge of cliffs, walked out on glass suspended walkways over canyons, ridden every roller coaster I’ve come across, and peered into the caldera of an active volcano. But I am exceedingly unnerved in a small plane or helicopter. I scrunch my eyes shut and hope it lands soon. Therefore I opted for the boat. To get down to the river from the top of the canyon required a ride in a large open truck thing, a switch to a smaller jeep thing for the steeper part of the descent, an incline elevator, and then you’re at river level. Put on your life jacket and off you go in a thirty passenger zodiac speed boat with a crew of two Brazilians determined to make sure you will feel every bump in the whitewater and show off for their friends driving the other boats. Up the whitewater to the base of the falls (not the main one, that would swamp an open boat immediately should you get under it) and in and out of a few of the minor falls ensuring everyone gets good and soaked. As the weather was a pleasant low 80s without humidity and the river water a cool, but not cold temperature, it was all great fun with lots of shrieks as the waterfall descended on our heads again.

Back up the hill to the bus to get back to the hotel to dry out and change for dinner. Dinner was at a rather unusual restaurant – Casa do Chef in which a young chef from the area (who used to be the executive chef at this hotel) has built a dining room where groups can learn all about Brazilian food and history together. Starting with appetizers made solely according to recipes handed down in indigenous societies, and through four more courses, become more varied as the Portuguese brought new ingredients from Europe, Africans brought their foods and cooking techniques, and then 19th and 20th centuries economies of scale and industrial processing changed everything. The meal was excellent. I particularly liked an indigenous preparation of roast duck with casava.

Tommy would have been all about that dinner, peppering the chef with questions and taking notes so he could try some new things at home. He would have been indifferent to the falls. He was not a sightseeing person. He wanted to experience different cultures and ways of living. Steve would have been all about the speedboat ride, whooping and catcalling at the top of his lungs and shrieking like crazy every time we went under a waterfall. He would have eaten portions of the dinner, refused other courses on principle (nothing with seafood ever), and complained incessantly about the length of the walks. How did I end up with two so very different men? I miss them both. Someday I’ll find the right travel companion.

Dateline – Iguazu National Park – Brazil

Today was a low key day, mainly dedicated to travel. As Brazil is larger than the continental US, it takes a while to get anywhere. The destination was Iguazu National Park which straddles the Brazil/Argentina border, home of Iguazu falls which absolutely dwarf Niagara, being one of the largest series of cataracts in the world. There are somewhere between 150 and 300 of them in the complex, depending on the height of the river and local rainfall conditions. I looked it up. It’s about nine hundred road miles from Rio which would have been an interminable time on the bus (especially as it would be necessary to negotiate Sao Paulo on the way, one of the largest cities in the world with roughly three times the population of New York City). Therefore, flying was the only logical option.

As the flight wasn’t until the afternoon, I was able to sleep in this morning before having a last breakfast at the Copacabana Palace buffet (I’m going to miss those passion fruit croissants). Storm clouds had moved in off the Atlantic overnight bringing intermittent bursts of rain, some stronger winds and some fairly formidable waves that would make a walk on the beach a bit dangerous. (One of the advantages of having a professor of oceanography as a parent is an ability to respect the power of the ocean and to know when to stay well away from it). So I packed, had a last glass of flat champagne from my complimentary bottle, and curled up with a book until it was time to gather for the bus ride to the airport. As the day was dreary, there wasn’t much to look at. At least the change in the weather was perfectly timed with our itinerary.

Rio’s domestic terminal is like airports the world over. Although they did have a Starbucks, giving me a caramel macchiato fix. I have enjoyed the Brazilian coffee but sometimes one does want comfort food. I continued my book (Ricky Ian Gordon‘s new memoir Seeing Through which is excellent but occasionally a sucker punch to my gut as we’re not all that different in age and experiences and it occasionally brings up thoughts and feelings about my past and relationship to art that aren’t the most comfortable to face. We eventually boarded a domestic flight to the Brazilian town of Foz do Iguacu (there seem to be at least four spellings of the name of the river – I do wish they’d make up their mind), landing uneventfully close to sunlight. Descending one of those metal staircases rolled up to the plane in the light so beloved of cinematographers known as ‘magic hour’ made me feel like I was in a scene in some 1960s Jet Set romance. I have expected some extra to rush up with a large bouquet.

Our hotel for the next two nights is Hotel das Cataratas, another luxury retreat, deep within the national park and on the edge of the falls. We arrived just as the sun was going down allowing for a glimpse in the pinky gold light before having to deal with mundane things such as room keys and basic unpacking. I wandered out a bit later to the overlook to see the falls in the light of the full moon (the bad weather having been left behind in Rio) before heading to the hotel restaurant for dinner. We’re spending all day tomorrow exploring the falls from various angles, the jungle, and the wildlife so there will be plenty of chances to take pictures then. I am still hoping for toucans. I am assured they are quite plentiful in the area and the best time to see them is in the morning around breakfast so I shall be looking. We have been told not to wander off the hotel property after dark as it is a national park with a large jaguar population and I don’t think the proprietors want to have to explain mauled guests to the local authorities. It’s OK with me. I don’t see in the dark anywhere as well as I once did and I’d likely take a header over a tree root if I tried walking up and down canyon trails.

Going to pull Netflix up and watch something before bed. I should be writing. Maybe tomorrow…

Dateline – Rio de Janeiro

Today was a food day. Yes there as sightseeing involved but I was much more impressed by the Brazilian delicacies. One of the things about traveling with Tauck is that when they are responsible for the meal, they do it right. Usually, in my work a day life, I have a continental breakfast (oatmeal and coffee on UAB days – pastry and coffee on VA days) and one other big meal. I’ve adopted this schedule to keep my weight where it’s supposed to be after ballooning up an extra 20 pounds or so during the pandemic when I was getting three meals a day and then some. Today was the usual breakfast buffet (and I am developing an overt fondness for those passion fruit croissants), a lunch of sea bass with creamed potatoes and carrots, charcuterie, and a gigantic cream puff with creme anglaise and strawberry coulis at a restaurant called Lila’s in the Brazilian Cultural Center downtown, and a dinner, of beef croquettes, seafood stew, and cheesecake at an oceanside restaurant named Marinho close to where Copacabana turns into Ipanema. I’d be worried about my waistline if I weren’t running around so much. I suppose I should have taken pictures of my food but I didn’t. Sorry. Bad Instagrammer – no biscuit.

I had to be up at the ridiculous hour of 5:30 am this morning as the group had reservations for the early morning electric tram up to the famous Christ the Redeemer statue and it was wheels up on the bus at 6:40. Two cups of coffee and buffet breakfast later, I had made it to my seat for a relatively short ride through early morning Rio to the tram station. Christ the Redeemer sits on top of a peak named Corcovado, which is about twice as high as Sugar Loaf, roughly 2000 feet above sea level at the summit. On the sea side, it’s a steep granite face. On the interior side it backs into one of the ridges of mountains that surround Rio. I read somewhere that the granite monolith mountains of the area are left overs from the formation of Gondwanaland after the dissolution of Pangea, more millennia ago than most of us can conceive of. Exactly how and why this has led to these spectacular formations, I shall leave to the geologists. I once spotted a bumper sticker that read ‘Reunite Gondwanaland’ and I think I shall take that as a mantra. That pesky Atlantic ocean has caused no end of troubles.

The electric tram that goes to the top of Corcovado was conceived and built in the 1880s, long before Christ was installed up there (he dates from 1931) and is a very steep incline mountain railway very reminiscent of the ones that climb the mountains in Switzerland. (No surprise – the current iteration is of Swiss design and manufacture). It takes about 20 minutes to ascend the 2000 feet through the tropical forest (it’s part of a national park) with jaw dropping views glimpsed between the trees. At the top, there’s a staircase of some 215 stairs up to the viewing platform which surrounds the statue on its pedestal. Even with our early morning start, the crowds were thick, seeming mainly to consist of young people trying to get the perfect angle on the selfie for their Instagram or Tik-Tok or whatever Generation Z is currently using for social media. I came, I saw, I was photographed. I got tired of the crush. The views were fine but like yesterday, it was hazy so it wasn’t quite as spectacular as it would have been on a clearer day. I spent the rest of the time at the summit chatting and being amused by a small tribe of coatimundis who arrived and wandered among the crowd hoping to be fed. There were also a few marmosets but they were more shy and clung to the tops of trees. I am still hoping to spot a toucan in the wild but so far, no luck.

We descended again via tram and had a quick tour of the central city/business district by bus (my least favorite way of seeing a city). I can’t really recall anything that made me sit up and take notice. Then it was off to one of the samba schools to learn more about the Carnaval traditions. I think everyone knows about Carnaval in Rio and has seen pictures . I had assumed it was something like Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I was very wrong.

The Carnaval parade is a competition between the various samba schools (think Mardi Gras Krewes crossed with a civic organization like Kiwanis or Civitan) and has very strict rules regarding theme and presentation. It is not a parade through the city and there are no throws. The parade is through a special built stadium seating 75,000, lasts seventy minutes, and has a panel of judges applying very strict criteria and scoring to determine a winner (who gets bragging rights for the next year). There are five nights – two for the first league schools, two for the second league schools, and one just for kids as they get young ones involved early to teach them the skills necessary to keep Carnaval going in its present form – which was formalized in the early 1930s. We saw the basic construction of the skeletons of the 2025 floats which are in the process of being completed (hydraulics lift some platforms hundreds of feet in the air). The costume shop (which won’t really gear up for another month or two). Got to dress up in some Carnaval costumes and learned some basic samba percussion. Then it was off to the aforementioned lunch.

On returning to the hotel midafternoon, I took in a little pool time, a little nap to help with the digestion, read up on the political news (ugh – I should write a thing or two about politics but I think I’ll wait until after I return), and took a walk. The paparazzi crowd outside the hotel has diminished, probably because we are out of the weekend, but the security fences remain up. I’m still not quite sure who is being stalked. There was a rumor on the bus that it was Justin Bieber but I would think he’s past his sell by date for the twenty somethings that had been gathered outside the last few days. Then it was off to dinner and now, I am having some more of my complementary bottle of champagne, writing this missive, and trying to figure out if I have the energy to write anything else tonight. It may have to wait until tomorrow. It’s a travel day from Rio to Iguassu so there should be down time.

Dateline – Rio de Janeiro

I’m sitting in my suite sipping from a glass of the hotel branded champagne (complimentary bottle came with the room) while I nurse my back (improving, but still sore) and recover from the events of the day. I would have stayed out longer but we have a very early start tomorrow to avoid the crowds at Rio’s top tourist attraction. It’s also Sunday and so the Copacabana is quieter than it has been the last two nights. At least there’s no overly amplified caterwauls of a singer massacring 1980s pop translated into Portuguese drifting through the window tonight and there is much less traffic on the road. I should sleep well. For some reason, I did not sleep terribly well last night so I was a bit draggy this morning.

After getting myself up and moving, a process that’s taking twice as long as it should as I still can’t bend the way I would like, and having another hotel buffet breakfast (I recommend the passion fruit croissants), it was on the bus for a short trip through town to the famous Sugar Loaf (which seems to be surrounded by various Brazilian military installations – back in the day it was the site of various forts protecting the entrance to the bay and harbor from pirates and rival European colonial powers). On we got into the gondolas, the first up about 400 feet to the top of Urca and the second up an additional 800 feet to the top of Sugar Loaf. The current gondola system dates from 2008 and is quite posh and very smooth. There has been a gondola on the route since 1912. There is one of the original cars (which was in place until 1972) on display and they look like they would have swayed all over the place and, being open, I imagine people fell out once in a while which would not be at all a pleasant experience. If you’re a James Bond afficionado, the gondolas are the site of one of his battles with Jaws in Moonraker (but that was the old system in place from 72-08). I haven’t seen that film in years but now that I’ve been on the tramway, I’ll have to rewatch it.

The weather has shifted somewhat, being a good deal cooler today than the last two days. It was a very pleasant high 70s to low 80s with a breeze but the local Cariocas, whose wardrobe seems to consist mainly of bathing suits, T-shirts, and flip-flops were acting as if it were the second coming of the ice age. The maritime air brought in some fog and the smoke from forest fires well to the north of us mixed in to make the day rather the hazy. The view from the top wasn’t as spectacular as it might have been on a clearer day but was still a great look at the general geography of Rio. There isn’t much on top of Sugar Loaf other than the obligatory snack bar and gift shop so, after forty five minutes or so, down we came again. I did spot some more Brown Capuchins in the trees and on top of Urca, there were a number of charming little marmosets clowning for the tourists. They are apparently a nuisance critter in the city.

From the Sugar Loaf, we headed over to the Bay and boarded an old fishing boat retrofitted for bay cruises and spent an hour and a half or so motoring around the bay for water views of the central city, ships of the Brazilian Navy, the Victorian gothic old customs house, and other such things. Then on to a late lunch at a typical Brazilian restaurant. A large buffet of sides, some recognizable, some not so much (although I have decided I quite like casava which I can’t remember having eaten before) and waiters running around and carving a dozen different meats from large skewers onto your plate. I wanted to try everything and consequently ate too much. This required a trip back to the hotel for an emergency nap.

After nap time, a bit more time at the pool, a walk along the promenade (I still won’t go in the water – I don’t trust it), and some shopping as darkness rose and the lights all came on. Time to head back to the hotel for a glass of champagne or two (no dinner needed after that lunch…) and there you have it. Heading to bed relatively early as the alarm goes off at 5:45 tomorrow morning. (That’s 3:45 central time so I’m not looking forward – will have to have several cups of coffee before boarding the bus.).

Dateline Rio de Janeiro –

Ten hours of sleep in a decent bed did a lot to restore my equanimity. The back still hurts but it’s definitely on the mend and I feel like I can deal with whatever life throws at me. After a leisurely breakfast poolside with the usual upscale hotel breakfast buffet (they’re pretty much the same the world over – but every country seems to have a slight variation on scrambled eggs), I booked a massage with the hotel spa figuring that might help some with the back. It was relaxing and certainly didn’t hurt anything, but I can’t say that it was a major help either. I still hurt when I left, but perhaps I was hobbling just a little bit less. I felt well enough for a walk up the strand toward Ipanema (but didn’t feel like the several mile trek it would have been to get all the way there and back again. Both beaches are long crescents separated by a rocky headland).

Instead, I decided to head for the Botanical Gardens for a walk there among the various species of tropical trees and shrubs. I hoped to see some toucans in the wild, as I know they nest there, but no such luck. I did however run into a small tribe of brown capuchin monkeys making quite meals on agave and some sort of unidentifiable fruit that was growing among the bougainvillea. They could have cared less about the various humans snapping their pictures and tracking their movements. Buildings full of orchids and bromeliads, fountains and watercourses, buildings dating back to the late 1500s. The gardens themselves were established in 1808 by the then reigning King of Brazil so they’ve had over two hundred years to get them right. The gardens were tranquil The trip to and fro not so much. The Uber driver who took me out there seemed to be auditioning for a spot on the Mission Impossible stunt team. The taxi driver on the way back wasn’t so bad, he was just trying to recreate the car chase from Bullitt.

After returning, it was pool time. The hotel was turning into a bit of an armed camp this afternoon with a perimeter fence, extra security and a bunch of excited beach going public bouncing just outside the fence line under the malevolent stairs of the rent a cops. I could come and go as I pleased, being in possession of a room key but I was a little uncertain what was causing the consternation. No one batted an eye when I got out of my taxi. Maybe if I had The Accidental Plague Diaries translated into Portuguese or we had brought Politically Incorrect Cabaret a bit further south. The hotel staff were not forthcoming with information regarding what was going on.

I had noted at breakfast that a number of people connected with Rockin Rio were scattered about; the guys at the table next to mine seemed to be connected to some band called Imagine Dragons of which I know nothing. I did wonder if perhaps some huge international name had checked in but, as a number of huge floral arrangements were carried past as I laid in my chaise pool side, it became clear that it was some sort of Brazilian society wedding involving local celebrities of whom I have absolutely no knowledge, so I continued to nap and create Vitamin D and read a few more pages in my book.

At 6 pm, it was time for the official beginning of the tour – cocktails with a samba demonstration followed by dinner with a number of speeches from the tour director over what to expect these next two weeks. There are twenty five of us, mainly sixties and seventies and most have traveled with Tauck in the past and, like me, like their tours first class and with all of the tiresome details taken care of by others. No one I know from elsewhere in life but that will change. I was seated at dinner with a brother and sister in their seventies from Manchester (England, not New Hampshire or Kentucky) and a retired couple form the Quad Cities of Iowa. Everyone was very pleasant and the dinner was good, although the portions were rather small. It was made up for by the free flowing cabernet. Up early for organized activities in the morning so tis time to conclude and head for bed.