Flowers in her hair - flowers everywhere

Hello all,
Forever ago I began to take flower pictures and still remember one of a daisy growing out of a stone wall in Germany.  Sometimes it the little things that bring us joy.  Here are some flora pictures from Argentina.

The 100+ year old fichus:

A Dr. Seuss tree

 

The Eucalyptus lined drive at House of Jasmines

 

the giant burls on the Eucalyptus trees

 

 

 

 

Its a beautiful world we live in.  Enjoy every moment!
Love,
Barbara

signs, signs, everywhere are signs...

I promised you a few follow up blog posts and they will be generalized notes.  They will be in multiple posts since adding pictures to the blog along with text becomes tedious.  Before our next trip we will definitely seek out a blog venue that is easier to post and respond on.


I became fascinated with the signs that can be found in a foreign country.  You expect to see road warning signs like the one in a previous post for a sharp turn. How about this one:

There are the warning signs:  this one indicating that parents shouldn't be stupid!

These saying be careful but obviously only men may fall?

Since we don't read Spanish we assumed 'Prohibited'!

Then there is the sign for my nephew Bob-  It's not Miller Lite but maybe it would do?

Here in Colorado some visitors love the elk and moose signs along the roads.  Argentina has their own very special animals: 

 Coatis
Here is a phot of a real one that was in the park.  They were kind of like a racoon and there were warning signs that they would and do bite!

 

Tapirs

and big cats!

There was also a sign for the monkeys but I thought you may appreciate this one instead.  It was on our room slider but we didn't see it until almost too late.  Our neighboring hotel guest left their door open and we had trash and food wrappers left on our deck along with some monkey excrement!  EWWWW!

One more post and that will be a wrap!

Travel days!

I appreciate you all tuning in while we explored a bit of Argentina ( truly there is so much more!).  Today, tomorrow and Wednesday are traveling days mixed with a little bit of shopping to use up our pesos.  We arrive back in Winter Park on Wednesday afternoon and hopefully will have a few very long siestas to rest up from this wonderful trip.  I will try and do a few follow up blog posts with things you haven’t seen yet and that will most likely be after the weekend. 
Since Argentina is 3 hours earlier than Colorado it will be time adjustments, jet lag, and laundry that will  keep us busy as well as two birthdays to celebrate.  
As always, make it a day worth living and 
thanks again.  
💜Barb 

PS- the blog posts the morning after I hit publish so don’t think I’ve lost all sense of time🤩

Sunday Funday

The day began with a brief phone call to Maria to wish her a very happy birthday!  🎂🎉😘 and welcome to the world Gleason (Gus) John Heitman!  

After our champagne breakfast we went to the tour office to register for the boat trip ( oh boy, you all know how I love boats) up the river into the area of the falls.  Sorry,  they cannot take our reservation, they are all full for the day.  (Yippee- no boat fo me today!).  Oh, but go to the central location and maybe you can fill and empty spot. (😬)   Then it was off to the Nautical Jungle office  but we got lost and had to find our way back and hopefully the cruise left already??  No, you can wait and see if we have room stand-by.  Jim was so excited that we might get on.... yes.... no....yes...yes!  Get in line.  I say- do NOT allow me to be alone on that boat!

 

We climb up an a large viewing truck for our 20 minute jungle approach to the river.  The guide speaks voluminously in Spanish and shows us pictures of the indigenous animals and birds.  Of course he speaks very little English.  That’s OK, we usually don’t listen anyway.   

We follow the crowd when the vehicle stops.  We descend 120 steps to the river.  Halfway 

there was a Red Cross nurse.... (I’m beginning 

to think.... yikes!).  There was also a man 

handing out waterproof bags (double yikes!!)

At the bottom they hand out very attractive life vests that have a special whistle attached (yike, oh geez, what have I done?  Maybe I could sit on the step?). 

 

Jim says, pick any seat you want.  I ask myself..... where is it safest?  Middle, middle, middle!

Off we go up the rio.  Up is not bad.  Lots of power, lots of bumps and also lots of wind and air.  I’m good!  I’m good I keep telling myself.  

We are riding between Brazil (left) and Argentina.  A few pictures of the palisades.  

Then we reach the magnificent falls  after passing some small (such a relative term while 

speaking of Iguaçu) cataracts, all of which we saw yesterday from the tops.  

As of then we hadn’t put our things in a waterproof container.  We were snapping hundreds of photos.  Then the guide says... all cameras and belongings away.  Take off    your shoes if you want.  Many men removed their shirts, women were wearing bathing suits.  

Who knew?   The pilot drove us into the base of

 San Martin.  It is the area on the left side of this picture.  We were wet! Soaked!  Hit with a wall of water.  As the pilot drove away everyone started shouting something like 'uno , uno mas'.  and he turned the boat around and 

proceeded to soak us again.  It was a wall of water and you couldn’t even keep your head up!  I guess I should have known that something was coming when the guide put on a rain suit from head to toe.  

Whew, all over!  No!  Not yet!  We went back to a smaller water fall and he drove the boat directly under the falls!  

 

Then the guide says hold on since we are entering the rapids!  They were nothing compared to the waterfalls but I’m still concerned they had whistle attached to my life vest...

Me soaked to the skin. 

We were soaked to the skin.  I had on this very casual dress with yoga pants and they all hang on our balcony as I write this. Hopefully they will dry in this sub- tropical climate.  

We are enjoying another afternoon by the pool.  Jim with a cigar and scotch, me with a tequila sunrise.  It was an adventure I wouldn’t have missed.  

 According to Jim’s Fitbit 

Today: steps:  8810

 4.5 miles

Floors: 28

Tomorrow we travel back to Buenos Aires.  Florida Street here we come to use up our pesos!

As always- enjoy this and every day!

💜Barbara

Falling in love again....

13876 steps
18 floors
6.54 miles
Through the park and we had a 5 KM train ride
We also had cardio and fat burn while climbing from the lower viewing areas to the top.

For those of you who want to know more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iguazú_National_Park

I cannot find the words to describe the majesty of this park.  I will just show you some pictures and maybe put in a YouTube of the videos we took.  Of course, nothing we can show you does it justice.  

 A panorama shot.  I have taken tons of these pictures but the internet previously wouldn’t download them.   I hope you can see that this is about one half of the falls.  CRAZY spectacular!

 Jim is happy as a clam in his Blue Mountain T-shirt.  We were  soaked from spray and sweat.  It’s a jungle out there!

https://youtu.be/FmbNsbjavHM

So you can actually ear the sounds of the waterfalls 

Not only are there the big cataracts but around every corner there are smaller, falls to feast your eyes upon.

We were getting

soaked and since it is the weekend, it was so crowded and you had to wait your turn to get a chance for a selfie by the fence.  

Jim had a friend tag along with him for awhile.  These two photos are of the same butterfly.  They were flying abound by the thousands.  I saw a little boy with one on each of his pointer fingers.  

After such a wonderful day of 

hiking and touring we spent some down time by the infinity 

pool, watching a helicopter take people to see the falls.  

The water was cool and refreshing for our tired body. 

And before I forget- on the far side of most of these pictures is  Brazil-we cannot go since they require US citizens to have a visa and we don’t have one—- although I do have a Visa card. ...  ta da dum 🥁 

As always, May every moment a blessed and happy one!

💜Barb 

Iguazú arrival

Just a few quick notes-
I wrote this to Dawn yesterday-  we arrived at the Salta airport in plenty of time to return the rental car in a leisurely fashion ( yes, he checked the car over to make sure there was still a spare tire and no additional dents or scrapes which would be a miracle because of their roads).  We got more pesos at the ATM and only had to wait in line behind 5 people.  We got our boarding passes, paid our luggage fee then attempted to go through security.  No man- it’s not your time!  What does that mean?  'You cannot go through security until the time posted on your boarding pass.  See here, 15:15'. No I really didn’t see but realized when we actually were able to go through that the gate area was very small and they only allow one flight at a time into the gate area.

The weather may not coop with the prime viewing of the falls but we will make the most of it.  Our room looks out to one of the fall areas and we can hear the roar from our patio.  We decided to sleep with the door open (screen in place) and could hear the waterfalls through the night.  This morning Jim started yelling 'get out of here!, git, git!'  There was a monkey trying to join us in our room.  I’m looking for to posting a follow up blog post of 'signs'.  If we would only read the sign on the window, we’d know to keep the door shut!  The front desk assured us all sign in the Park are in Spanish,  Portuguese and English.

Now it’s time to get in my hiking boots for a day in the National Park.  Maybe, just maybe we can arrange to step foot in Paraguay and Brazil.  You will see plenty of pictures on the next Post!

Have a fabulous day.
💜Barbara

Cafayete back to Salta

before leaving Cafayete we needed to get some additional pesos to get gas (cash only). We had noticed previously in Salta the lines for the ATM's .  Cafayete was no different this morning.  Each bank in town had 10-15 people in line.  We did notice that the exchange rate went to 45=$1.  Its an interesting economic environment.  

The gas stations do not take credit cards.  That makes it difficult to fill the tank before retuning the rental car tomorrow but we just kept handing over 100 peso notes until it was filled.  

Leaving Cafayete and our beautiful casita I took a few flower photos:

Our drive back through the marvelous canyons and landscape once again left us overwhelmed with the beauty.  Here are just a few more pictures.  

One more picture especially for Ethel.  There have been tons of saguaro cactus.  We stopped to take a close up of this one for you.  

 Then one more picture today of a roadside memorial.  There are thousands of these dotting the roadways.  The bad thing about not having a tour guide is there is no one to tell you the story about them.  The good thing about not having a tour guide is we can make up our own story.  This is Pedro's Box.  He was a nice, loyal, fun fellow and was killed way to early by careless behavior.  He was loved by his family and is greatly missed.  

We’re back at the House of Jasmines until tomorrow when we fly to the falls.  Tomorrow will most likely be a day off of blogging.  In the meantime, enjoy the day.

💜Barbara

May Day...May Day... May Day!

When I was a child, my elementary school had a May Day Festival,  dancing (each class learned a different dance) Maypole, etc.  Go figure that around the world May Day means a holiday from labor.  The bustling village from yesterday afternoon had turned into a quiet ghost town!  The Wine Museum was closed- much to Jim's disappointment, once again!  We were able to get money from the ATM, gas for the car, and visit one open vineyard that couldn’t have been nicer.  
Visiting the ATM-  the choices are few but we select 2000AR$ which ended up not enough to fill the gas tank!  Jim says it’s only about $40 American.  

We toured around Cafayete ( the Y makes a Zzza sound) and I took Jim around the most exclusive areas as you can see by these two photos.  It truly is a diverse landscape and population.  

A block away we saw what kids the world over do with a mop or broom

We had to take pictures by this bedega for 'home ' sake!  Yes, it  was closed
  

This is interesting to me.  This is a trash 'box, bin, can'?    Everything is off the ground, I suppose to keep trash away from the stray dogs.  

 What a differencea small town makess!  This was the local church and it was very modest.

In the village was this building which we pondered over until invited in by another tourist.  I thought it may have been a school or nursery.  What do you think?  Llamas, other animals and inside a kiln- yes, a creative potter.

There is much Italian influence here as noted by the many pastas on menus.  The place we are staying made a reservation for us for 
lunch at the Piattelli vineyard.  It was a dirty and bouncy road to get
 there and it’s quite a beautiful bodega.  Here are some views-

   

 

I guess I haven’t mentioned our new friends, a young family we met in Salta at the hotel.  They are from CA but currently living in Patagonia for a year.  They have two young boys about 12 & 7 and they seemed to latch on to 'American Accented' us.  The dad went to Univ. of CO.  They traveled here  today and we ran into them at the vineyard.  Crazy!  We didn’t think we’d see them again.  Now we have exchanged names and numbers so we may see them in WP in the future.  

Here we sit, on our patio enjoying the light playing on the mountain landscape.  We know how lucky and blessed we are and are thankful.
We head back to Salta tomorrow.  Until then...or later! 
💜Barbara