Our view at the airport, for a lot of hours…
We’d arranged a community taxi (where locals give small groups lifts in exchange for financial ‘gifts’) and rose late to get taken to the airport. We had seven hours to wait so planned to drop off our bags then go for a look round the small town across the border, but the airport was a reasonable distance away and we just couldn’t be bothered and instead decided to set up camp in the restaurant and keep ordering food and drinks until they threw us out.
This worked well until the 7 hours was up and we were low on funds. Security was very lax, with no controls on drinks or liquids, but on seeing the laptop in my hand luggage they dragged me off to one side and demanded to see my American passport. Once I’d explained to them I was Ingles they apologised profusely and sent me back to the line.
We passed through to the gate and sat there for a couple more hours until one of the crew admitted that the plane wasn’t going anywhere soon and a part + engineers were being flown in on the next inbound flight from Buenos Aires.
By this time we were sitting outside the largest of the many precious stone shops. These sold coloured stones fashioned into rough representations of everything from tiny hippos to vignettes of two enormous toucans dancing about. We examined a side each in an effort to find the worst taste statuette but soon got trumped by the huge American lady looking in the window wearing a purple feather ensemble.
We then laid into the fashion sense of the huge tour party that had filled the last flight out of Iguacu. Mostly they were more Americans, chewing gum noisily, or Germans who looked like they’d been dressed by their mothers.
The engineers arrived surprisingly soon and another 2 hours later a red light appeared on top of the plane. My suggestion that this was the fire alarm didn’t go down well so we watched a few minutes more and the flaps started moving which seemed a good sign, then the engines kicked in and all seemed well. As soon as our hopes were rising the departures board clicked to Cancelled. Suddenly a cacophony of voices appeared from downstairs as the poor check-in workers scarpered from the barrage of angry German tourists.
Whilst everyone else was shouting and ranting we arranged an overnight hotel and transport courtesy of the airline and went outside to wait for the buses to arrive. As soon as they pulled up the Germans and French ran out the door and pushed their way onto the first bus to the nearest hotel. We waited patiently. Eventually we got the last bus to the farthest hotel. Again the remaining French tourists barged forward to get their rooms first. We waited patiently until we got our rooms with a smile from the appreciative hotel workers at the first calm people they’d met all evening.
I know that the airline will try the cheapest hotels first, and once they’ve secured them will book the cheapest rooms first. By waiting until the end we probably got an hour less sleep but didn’t want to as we spent the night in a beautiful top floor suite of a five star resort with a balcony overlooking the jungle, six nozzle shower and the first bath we’d seen in South America, which also happened to be a Jacuzzi. We’d also been given free range to enjoy food and soft drinks in the hotel so enjoyed the dinner and breakfast buffets. Seeing as this was all for free the girls coughed up for a bottle of red wine and after very long baths sat about in soft dressing gowns and slippers and watched A Few Good Men for the second time in a month.
The buses came to pick us up again at 5.30 and by the time we arrived at the airport the departures board was reading a special flight leaving for us at 0700.
To stock up on drinks we nipped along to the 25 hour store (so named as its open 25 hours a day from midnight Brazilian time to midnight Argentinean time). It was closed.
Our 0700 flight set off at 0735, but we still arrived in Buenos Aires at 8.55, well ahead of when we would have had we travelled by the 24 hour overnight bus, with a free 5* jolly thrown in for good measure. The hardest part of the day was remembering we were back in a Spanish speaking country and swapping obrigado to grasia.
