We're Calling it an Adventure!!!

 Wednesday, February 28

I can't believe our last blog was 4 years ago! Stupid Covid. So here we go!

So we've had quite a bit of flight stress in the last few days.  Our flight to Buenos Aires, Argentina, was a "direct flight" with a stop in Brazil.  We would be required to exit the plane and reboard.  Then a few days ago we heard about a possible one day strike at the airport in Buenos Aires ON THE DAY THAT WE LAND (the 28th).  On the 29th we were supposed to fly out of Buenos Aires for a 2 day trip to Iguassu Falls.  But this wouldn't happen if we didn't get to Buenos Aires in the first place.

So Tuesday morning Frankie called Air Canada and asked if we could just disembark in Brazil instead of Buenos Aires on the 28th.  She received a hard NO!!!  

Two hours later we found out that the flight to Buenos Aires was cancelled.  Not really surprised.  Air Canada kept us on the same first flight and generously changed our connecting flight to Buenos Aires to the 29th.  So a 24 hour layover 😔.

Another phone call to Air Canada.  A different person this time.  She said it made perfect sense for us to get off in Brazil.  She made it happen! But it means that when we landed in Sao Paulo, Brazil, we  had to make our own way to Iguassu Falls.

Why why why do all the flights have to be Red Eyes????

Our plane left Toronto at 10:40 pm. Already way past our bedtime. It should have been easy to sleep, right???? Ha ha ha.

So the flight actually left Toronto late because a ton of people had to get new boarding passes for the flight. It arrived in Sao Paulo, Brazil, at 10:30.  Since Anton was born in Brazil (even though he left at the age of 2), he was not allowed to enter Brazil with a Canadian passport.  He went through a long process to obtain his Brazilian passport.  After all this effort, we are thinking that another trip to Brazil in the future may be in order!

We had to pick up our luggage, exit through the perfume section (ugh!) and find our way to LATAM airlines to book our own flight to Iguassu.  We got there just a few minutes too late for the noon flight, so the soonest flight we could get was 5:30 pm.  

We spent a boring afternoon in the Sao Paulo airport, but we did find an Olive Garden for lunch!

Finally time for our flight to Iguassu!  They even gave us emergency exit seats.

There was a nice view of Sao Paulo as we left:

It was a 2 hour flight.  We got to Iguassu and the pilot announced that there was a thunder and lightning storm, so he would have to circle for awhile.  Then he said it was all clear and we were going to land.  Um, it's taking a LONG time to land....Does the plane normally accelerate on landing?????

So we had a nice view of Sao Paulo as the plane turned around and returned to the airport in Sao Paulo.

SIGH!!!

LATAM did provide vouchers for a hotel and meals and taxi.  But the internet wouldn't work on either of our phones and we don't speak Portuguese, which made getting the vouchers almost impossible.  

And the hotel they provided proved to be a half hour away.  There was a long lineup of LATAM people, so it took us half an hour to check in.

Needless to say, we are zonked!!!

The rescheduled flight to Iguassu is at 9:30 am tomorrow.  It seems like a distant dream.

Good night!