Dateline March 14, 2018, The Last Days and Iguazu Falls
Montevideo. We put in at Montevideo, Uruguay, and the two of us got off to walk the city. We stopped at a little wine shop for a tasting and a few snacks, and sat a while watching the world go by. It is a lovely city, with a great deal of history, and it was a fine afternoon.
The "Flu Cruise." Back aboard, Janice was not feeling herself, and by morning she was running a high fever, so off she went to the ship's medical department. We had begun to call it the Flu Cruise, for the number of people who were sick. It was no small thing: Janice was put under quarantine in our room and not allowed off in Buenos Aires, and the doctor worried aloud whether she would be cleared to leave the ship at all at the end. Missing Buenos Aires was a real disappointment. Come departure morning her fever had broken, and though she was still far from well, the medical staff signed off, and we wanted nothing more than to get off that ship.
We had planned all along to go on to Iguazu Falls after the cruise, and we were not about to give it up. Steve and Marilyn turned for home, and the two of us headed for the regional airport.
Iguazu Falls. Iguazú, on the border of Argentina and Brazil, is one of the seven natural wonders of the world, and rightly so: some two hundred and forty-five separate falls spilling among a scatter of islands, and the two countries show you two completely different sides of it. We landed and were taken straight to the Brazilian side, which calls for a day visa, dear enough but worth every penny. We wandered the paths that run right up beside the water, each turn another view to take your breath, and high in the trees we caught sight of Capuchin monkeys.
The next morning we crossed to the Argentine side for more, including a boat ride up the river and right in under the falls.
That side has a surplus of a little animal called the Coati, a cousin of our raccoon, and they are everywhere; we came on whole families of them working the spots where people eat, looking for a handout but foraging the woods for the rest, and paying the crowds no mind at all.
The paths and then the boat, up the river and under the thundering water, made for one tremendous day.
Home. In the morning we would fly to Buenos Aires and then on home. In the middle of that last night, Janice was so sick that all she could get out was, "I am going to die in Argentina." John told her it put him in mind of a song, "Don't Cry for Me Argentina." The good news is she didn't, though we suspect the poor soul seated next to her on the plane wished he were anywhere else. We made it home, worn out and grateful, back in the U.S.A.
