Day 31 Iguazu Falls Argentine to Rio de Janeiro Brazil

I know I start the blog with a lot of the same statements - and have similar words throughout but today two words come to mind:

Weird, weird, weird, weird, weird(ok that is more then two)

Also the statment "I'll sleep when I am dead" seems to be coming closer to truth. It is 3:30 am, Billy just left my hotel and that was exactly 24 hours since he arrived at my hotel in Iguazu. A long, long tense stressful day.

Once Billy arrived at 3:30 I didn't get much more - if any more sleep. My wake up call was for 7 am. Despite being tired we went to the top of the falls and it was really worth getting up to see this - spectacular.

It was good to have someone new to play with. If nothing else, after 30 days all of our stories were starting to be repeated.

The falls. Some people in our groupd had seen the other great falls and said these were prettier because of the way the water flowed over in so many different places.

Billy.

1,700,000 litres of water a second flow over the falls. Hard to visualize that.

Steve, Patrick and Brigitte.

More pictures of the falls.

The spray actually can be seen on the airplanes radar as visible moisture.

More.

More.

A close up of the water - art shot.

Other direction.

The train to get to the falls from the hotel.

The flight was not perfect as we left around noon and of course there were thunderstorms in the afternoon. You can see some cells on the radar. You can also see that I had climbed to 29,000 to get over some of the weather. That is the highest I have had this plane up to. The controller asked me if I were RVSM and when I said no he made me go back to 27,000 because - like in the states - it is against the rules to fly higher then 28,000 unless you are certified RVSM.

The flight was pretty normal until I was approaching Rio. They asked me what airport I was going to and when I said Santos Dumant he said that I couldn't go there as I had to clear customs at the international airport on Saturday. That wouldn't even had been so bad but he had just started to descend me toward one airport and I was all set up for that airport - then he abruptly made me change. Well at the moment I was just entering the cloud layer and starting to bump around and had to change arrivals and airports. My charts were in a bag in the back as I never thought I would need those airports. Luckily Billy was there to get them. Bumping around in a cloud descending 1,500 feet a minute (fast) and trying to look at a new arrival, figuring out the approach then geting it set up, all while descending IMC and getting really close to the airport - a little stress.

When I did pop out of the clouds it was a beautiful view.

Looking North from the airport.

We did land at the international airport around 2:30. They were not expecting us, nor were we expecting to be here and that is when weird started happening.

A shot from the passenger terminal.

Since they were not expecting us nothing was prepared in advance. Customs didn't really want us there but finally accomodated us. We need to move the airplanes and get a piece of paper that we needed to have in order to fly in this country. All of that took 8 hours - yes 8 hours. We didn't actually get out of the airport till after 10 pm. It was a worlds record lame, weird inefficient, frustrating, aggrevating wait as they filled out the paperwork - that I have ever had.

I had sent my suitcase aheas with Sophie and a couple other people as they didn't need to wait with us and when I arrived at the hotel late for dinner and rushing - no bag! Billy had to go get upset at everyone anddfinally found it. We did go out for Sushi and now it is 4 am and I am shot, so I will cut off for now.