After a sleep-in, I made a light breakfast of oats and dried fruit to tide us till lunch after check-out at 1100. Walking around Puerto Iguazu, we settled on a buffet-per-kilo place. This one had a higher price compared to our now “usual” joined to the bus station but the quality of the offerings were far superior. Again, we kept it light and healthy.
We returned to our accommodation to await our shuttle to the airport. It was a very small savings compared to a taxi and it wasn’t worth it for having to fit in with their schedule. But we were low on money and trying not to make another withdrawal from the ATM.
Getting to the airport 1h30 prior to departure, the queue was long (but nothing like in Aeroparque). Fortunately it was fast-moving. There was a queue to go airside too. Then we realised there wasn’t much point getting airside early as it was very crowded. Much of the airport had been knocked down for renovation and we were cramped into the only bit with a roof and walls.
The Andes Airline flight to the capital’s Aeroparque airport left five minutes late at 1515 but arrived 20 minutes late at 1710 so I guess their flight times are not very well-padded. Even though I had a window seat, there was no view of the falls area upon take-off as clouds were low. At the other end of the flight, I was glad we were able to land as the clouds were very low as well. When we broke through the clouds, we were just above the high buildings at the end of the runway.
We had to wait for the bus to take us to the terminal, then for Kim’s baggage then face a long taxi queue. I decided that rather than wait in the queue, we could just walk to the adjacent road and flag down any passing taxi with the red “Libre” sign lit-up. And sure enough that worked. We got to our hotel (the Centuria again) before 1900.
We didn’t feel like going out in the cold wet weather and settled for dinner a few doors away from the hotel. Their set meal of main, dessert and wine (or soft drink) was only around USD8 and hit the spot nicely.