The mother of all waterfalls

The previous post on this series is here..

The main highlight of the Argentina- Brazil year end trip was a visit to Iguazu falls. This was the bucket list long awaited visit.

After spending two days in Buenos Aires, we flew to Porto Iguazu airport (which is inside the national park) and had a taxi pick us up and drop us at an Airbnb. Porto Iguazu is a small place with a bunch of hotels, restaurants and shops mainly catering to the falls tourists. It was raining as expected and we were in the middle of the jungle in a small town. We had a good nights rest and were to be picked up at 7AM. 

Our plan was ambitious. See both the Brazilian side and Argentinian side of the falls in one day. Iguazu means "big water" in the local language. 

We waited to get a same day visa to Brazil at Faz Iguazu (Brazil means Portugese becomes the language!) at the gates and after a 30 minute wait we were waved through. We were dropped off at the ticket center for the falls with precise instructions from Martin (our driver for the day). He communicated with us using Google translate on his whatsapp the entire time while trying to improve his English. There were three stops. First stop was a jungle walk (optional) which I did with a sub group from the bus. Second stop was a boat ride to the falls and back which the entire family went on. Third stop was a vista point with a walkway to the edge of the falls (again I went alone). 

The boat ride took us to the Brazilian side of the falls. We were all completely wet anyways after that boat ride. The walkway to the edge of the falls was unbelievable. There is no way to describe this in words or capture my emotions as I wandered through this place. So here are the pictures in slideshows..

 

and some pictures with us ...

After the walk to the vista point we got back on the bus to the ticket center, waited for Martin to pick us up. This place reminds you of the Antarctic penguins documentary where everyone is trying to find their chosen one in a crowd.. unfortunately Martin and us did not have any specific Yaadon ki baaraat type songs to call each other.. in a mad crowd of drivers trying to find their respective tourists, we decided to wait as opposed to get lost. Finally our driver found us and off we went back to the border. 

It was interesting as the Brazilian side had no record of us entering that morning as their computers had an issue updating. So we waited as they made manual passport entries and finally let us go back into Argentina. That cost us another precious 30 mintues. Martin raced us to the Argentinian side of the falls where we were to take yet another bus ride, followed by open jeep looking vehicle ride, a walk down 500 steps, and a boat ride. Given the wet clothes, San and the little one decided to walk and see the falls. It was a 2 plus mile hike and they preferred that to getting wet again. 

Jr. felt bad for daddy and agreed to join me. She later told me it was a great decision as she thoroughly enjoyed the boat ride and falls. This trip to the falls was 10X better than the mornings trip. The highlight of the falls is a place called the "devils throat" where water just gushes out. The Argentina side of the falls is a must see just for this. It is risky as we don't get anything but a life vest and the waters are turbulent. However, all is well that ends well.. definitely recommend going on that boat.

we got gopro videos from both rides. I also took videos using my iPhone and the SLR and have combined them into multiple clips.. 

The videos ..

Bus ride and walk to boat ride on Brazil side

Brazil side boat ride

Vista point walk on Brazil side

Argentina side boat ride including a visit to "devil's throat"

Videos we paid for and got.. again the Brazilian side was a lot less exciting and a lot more expensive..

Was not even able to find the video from the Brazil side. One reason why I should try to blog as soon as trip is done!  

Jr. and me had to walk back a good mile and a half in rain to get back to the entrance and then we made it back to the Airbnb. We got some to go food at one of the local restaurants, rested for the night and were off the next morning. 

We said bye to Martin.. good people come in many shapes and forms.. Martin, is "good people"!

We got to see the falls from the plane and it was magnificent.  

also got to see some beautiful sights from the plane as we flew along the river..

There was still an evening to spend back in Buenos Aires near another airport and we were to fly to Rio from there the following morning..

More on that tomorrow.. 

Santorini bus tour in parts - Pyrgos monastery, a kitten and Kamari beach

The previous post on this series is here..

After our lunch, ocean fun and ice cream at Perissa, we were back in the bus climbing to the top of the hill on this side of Santorini to go to the Monastery.. a few hundred years old, this place had reclusive monks who did not want to contact outside world for some time. They even buried their dead inside is what our guide told us.

 They did open up and have a store near the outside chapel eventually. The whole place was interesting and quiet. Then it got pretty windy and we were told not to have high hopes for later in the evening, given rain clouds were rolling in. 

We saw everyone go kiss the same objects and pictures.. couldn't have been good during COVID times! The small chapel was really beautiful. 

While we were being told that, a kitten walked out of nowhere and decided to sit on my lap. I love animals. They seem to love me too.. however god has played a cruel trick. I am almost allergic to all cats. Initially the family panicked. They did not want me sick before the last stop. A few people tried to lure it away, but no! The kitten just sat on my lap for a good 10 minutes. Finally the little one grabbed it and placed it on the floor and we had to leave. Apparently six kittens were just born a few weeks back in the Monastery. This was one of those six. Did have watery eyes for a few minutes later in the night, but didn't get sick as everyone expected. 

We got amazing views of the Perissa beach from the Monastery.

The little one was still mesmerized by the cat...

Then we drove down to Kamari beach area. Guess this tour has a tie up with some wine makers in Santorini. So we stopped at a rest area near the black beach, and were offered three wines or Cherry juice. Skipped it and ate the crackers. For some strange reason we were hungry. We walked to the beach across the street and took pictures. This beach was full of pebbles but there were no people on this side as far as the eye could see! There were pistachio trees here other than olive trees in this area.. that was a change!

Caught the little one in one of her moments..

We did get to see a real donkey on the way to this place..Apparently there was a time when every house had a donkey to haul things up and down the hillsides of this island !!

A video clip of this leg of the bus tour! 

After this short break, we were off to to go up and around all the way to Oia.. the last stop and grand finale for the tour!

The Athabasca Glacier

The previous post in this series is here..

We had been in Alberta for less than a day and we had already spent the morning at some amazing places. Once we drove to the Columbia Icefield and the lodge for the employees who do the tours.. we were asked to wait for 15 minutes while our 20 year old bus driver and guide gave us the tickets to the glacier. 

That picture is going in a frame.. I have not seen her happier in any other landscape recently. Being cooped up in the house or going on local hikes is not enough for this girl. So in a way I am happy we went on this trip!

We had to wait another 15 minutes to get on an another bus that took us further up. There we transferred to one of these monster trucks (think this is the largest tyres I have seen in my life) and another guide took us to the Glaciers edge. 

Once there, we were allowed to walk as a group to the farthest safe point for folks wearing normal shoes. There was another group that went farther up, but with snow shoes. Given our schedules and the extra effort involved, we were happy with the tour we did. 

We got to drink glacial melt water and walk a third of a mile or so into it and back. 

Jasper National park, where the Athabasca glacier is located, had its own lakes and falls and sights on the Alberta top 10 list. However that will need a separate trip to Jasper and possibly accomodations close to Jasper than Banff. Someday we will visit Jasper is what we told ourselves on the return!

Just those pictures and walking on the Glacier was a highlight..

The tickets also included a bus ride to and from the Skywalk.. will post that later.

Once back after the skywalk, we had 30 minutes to grab something from the gift shop. There is a Starbucks but with a line  a mile long. The eating place in the second floor had self serve hot cocoa, which ended up being the right choice. We got to sip a hot drink sitting on the patio with a view of the glacier(s). 

A video of the glacier adventure!

We had three stops on the way back to Banff.. two of those three were 30 minute stops and one was a five minute stop to take photos of a falls (which in winter is called the Weeping wall.. where the falls are frozen on the wide mountain side.. in summer they were not that impressive). 

More on the two stops later..

Bear creek trail

It has been a gruelling weekend and I am exhausted. Sometimes, I write to get things off my chest. Writing about recent events while they are fresh in memory, seems to be a way of letting it get out of my head and on to the screen and gives me a feeling of having transferred the event out of working memory! It is cathartic in its own way.

The easy post first.. our hike this morning to Bear Creek and Madrone Knoll.  Our friends have done this (as has San) multiple times apparently on days I skipped in the past. So today was my day to visit this trail. It was a steady gradient and I did stop a few times to catch my breath. Took us 3 hours and we did almost 8 miles with a few stops for me to catch up. It also started raining when we went to the top. Most of the places, the rain was up in the canopy, but there were a few spots where we got to walk in rain. 

It was beautiful, even though there were no lakes or active creeks in this trail. The weather was pleasant after it started raining, but I was already sweating profusely prior to that and it made for a tropical feeling!

The trees in the trail are amazing. Some of the tallest redwoods we have seen in local parks.

We did not take selfies.. San was mostly ahead of me. Had got 3 hours sleep last night and not much the night before. Was going to back out of the hike this morning, but decided to sleep walk through the first part of the hike and that is pretty much what I did!

A quick clip to capture the essense of this trail today!

Now that I have started typing, can write the rest of the posts..

A happy day

The entire summer break came and is almost over. 

Jr. came back from college but was mostly confined to her room, with her summer coursework. She also switched to a Noon to 3AM schedule, why I don't know. which meant I did not get to spend much time with her. 

The only good thing was that I decided to work with her on one of her courses and that gave us a chance to talk more. The little one has been having stomach issues for a month now and we are asked to wait for few more weeks before we get to see a specialist. There is ONE pediatric GI specialist in Kaiser Santa Clara and one in Oakland, if you believe the nurse and appointment center! There seem to be more oncologists than GI specialists which I find interesting! We did spend time together watching Loki. We are both Marvel fans and that helps!

San has just started walking again and that is something. So what I am trying to say in an elaborate way is that this summer was a wash! We wanted to have one day, ONE freaking day where the four of us could go to see some nature, have a good meal outside and just have fun like old times (but with masks on, which I call fun with a mask discount). 

We got our chance last evening. The summer courses are over as of last week. There was a good weeks rest. Now there were less excuses. So the kids agreed to sit in the car and drive an hour to SFO for the evening. They got to pick the eating. We got to pick the nature place. Given San has been to lands end many times and I have never seen it, we decided to go and walk down to the ocean. 

The hole in the rock out in the ocean does look like a heart from this angle!

It was cold and windy and the place smelled like a sewer and dead fish. God works in mysterious ways. He really does. San swears that in her previous visits, she only smelled the ocean breeze! What we smelled was something to forget but hard to. Every now and then the breeze would come in and cleanse your nose. 

The kids kept rolling their eyes going "this is why we don't come out!". We did manage to get a few pictures given this was our one day out.  It was beautiful to look at and thankfully photographs don't come with associated smells!

There is also a tunnel you can walk through. However, we took three steps into this thing and realized that it was a smell concentrator. Masks are not enough to walk through this thing. You need a respirator. So we took a selfie and kept moving. This blog is doing a public service. If you just look at the pictures and decide to walk into the tunnel, not good. Read the sentences between the pictures and you can thank me later.

Watching the kids sit there and talk made me think of my brother. We used to be thick as thieves but we rarely speak now. Hope they do better than us when they get to this age!

After spending an hour here, we decided to go to our dinner at Gracias Madre. It is my fourth or fifth time visiting this place and we were in and out in 40 minutes. We came, we ate, we left. 

Ghirardelli's is only 15 minutes away and we wrapped up dinner with some dessert.

On the way the kids who usually don't ask for anything asked me to drive there through crooked street, for old times sake and I obliged..they know I don't like to drive there! 

I always look forward to that big glass for the hot fudge Sundae and was disappointed to see it served in a plastic cup. The feel of the warm glass and the cold ice cream was lost with the plastic. It is also not easy to scrape off the hot fudge with a plastic spoon from a plastic cup. It is like serving perumal kovil sarkarai pongal in a Crème brûlée ramekin!

The ice cream did taste as good as it always does.The two different textures on my forehead was the subject of an interesting discussion...the shiny part defines the boundary of where hair "used to be" is a theory!

we walked around a bit and drove back!

A video clip..

It was the happiest we have been in a few months! We have to wait till the years end to do the next "family" outing and all plans are already being rejected by the kids.

Sometimes I think all this school and college stuff is taking out the fun for these kids! My sincere hope is that after finishing all this, they get to be more "outdoorsy" and the "travel bug" bites them hard!

I for one will remember this as the one bright evening for the last few months!