We were to be picked up at our hotel by 7:20 AM for a flight departing from Buenos Aires (BA) domestic airport at 9:30 A.M. At 7:35 the car had not shown so we (fortunately) asked the bellhop to call the service. They had forgotten us. Luckily the bellhop had lived in the USA for several years and was fluent in English, since our Spanish is nil. The car arrived at 7:50 and got us to the airport around 8:10. The lines were all from 200-400 people long. We had our boarding passes and only had to check our luggage. To make a long story short we ended up in 5 different lines and got our luggage checked at 9:35 (yes, 5 minutes after our flight was to have departed). Then a hitch-we were informed our luggage was overweight and we had to pay $100. They took our boarding passes and we had to go to another place (and line) to pay the charge at which time we got new boarding passes. We then ran to our gate (other end of the airport, upstairs, through security-Tom's artificial joints always require a pat down). The only person at the gate was a woman who looked at our passes and told us to head to the bus for gate 7. We ran to the bus only to have to wait. When it arrived, 12 others had joined us and we were taken to the plane. They had had to hold the flight for 45 minutes for us. Then the big question-did our luggage make it? Much to our relief, after a 2 hour flight to Iguazu our luggage showed up and the car service rep. was their with a name card waiting to take us to our next destination, a small strip shopping center in the middle of nowhere (Raices, Argentina). It was 12:00 noon and we were told to wait and we'd be picked up at 2:00 or 2:30 for the trip to our lodge in the rainforest. 2:00 came and no one. Finally at 2:30 this beat up rusted hulk of a 4 wheel drive sport ute pulled into the lot and out jumps a "jungle bandito"-fatigues, head scarf, combat vest, beard. As it turned out a Flemish couple were also there waiting as was a young 6'5" German guy. We craweled in the rear seat and the other three crawled into the middle seat. The slider windows next to us were rusted open as were the roll down windows for the others. We then headed off for a 2 hour ride over a red clay mud road into the jungle. As we rode, red clay mud chunks were flying in the windows and hitting us. We just looked at each other and whispered, "My god, what have we gotten ourselves into?" We knew at any point the driver and the "bandido" were going to whip out a machete, cut our throats and take our money and luggage. Tena looked over and whispered, remember the scene in "Romancing the Stone" where Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner were in his vehicle driving through the jungle? That is exactly what it was like, only on steroids. The driver was doing 40-50 mph and the vehichle was fishtailing and sliding side ways for the entire drive. After 2 hours of holding on for dear life we pull into this absolutely beautiful setting in the Yacutinga Rainforest. The Yacutinga Lodge was designed to blend into the environment and was built to be eco friendly. As it turns out, the area had had a hundred year rain the day before we arrived and the Lodge's new fancy vehicles wouldn't handle the road in its current condition. So, they had to rent on short notice the 4X4 vehicle that picked us up. As for the "bandido," his name was Corino. He was one of the most interesting characters we have ever met. The German kid, Daniel, described him as being fluent in 4 different people languages, 3 monkey languages and untold number of bird languages. He could literally call monkeys and birds who would come where we could see them. He knew the rainforest environment, flora and fauna, like no other. That day and the next day were filled with a morning jungle walk, kayaking on the Iguazu and a 3 hour evening/night hike back to the Lodge. When we approached a swamp near dusk, he managed to attract a Cayman to us-right up to us. After we returned to the Lodge for our last night a very unique dinner awaited us. The perfect end to a perfect day.
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