After my brother left, we discovered two gift certificates for a sauna and therapeutic massage at a nearby hotel spa. Thank you very much--its very thoughtful, and we can't wait to use them!
Early on Friday morning we boarded our Pluna flight over the Andes, and spent a couple of hours in Uruguay waiting for our jump over the Rio Plate to Buenos Aires. 
Coming in over the brown Rio Plate, to land at the downtown Jorge Newberry airport. We found Buenos Aires to be a friendly, quaint city, and settled into our hotel room. With the high humidity, we really enjoyed the air conditioner! Later that night my folks arrived on their flight from Frankfurt, and we enjoyed a couple of fun days exploring Buenos Aires together.
On Saturday we walked through the Plaza de Mayo, where many mothers come to hold vigils for their children who were "disappeared" by the military dictatorship in the 1980s.
The Casa Rosada is the pink Argentinean version of the White House.
We spent a delightful day exploring a nature reserve by the river delta. Dad added several new birds to his list, and we enjoyed a relaxing picnic lunch in a grassy patch.
An iguana made his presence felt.
The sign says: "They were, they are, and they will be" Argentina's, one of many not-so-subtle references in Argentina to the Falkland Islands, known in Argentina as Las Islas Malvinas. The topic is still a sensitive subject here, especially the unsuccessful war with Britain over the islands in 1983. To give you an idea about how strongly Argentineans feel about the Falklands, the police and immigration badges sport a map of the Falkland Islands, not a map of Argentina, and the last thing motorists see when leaving Argentina is a billboard that claims the Falklands for Argentina. Determined to learn more, I decided to keep my eyes open the following week when our upcoming cruise had a port of call in Stanley, Falkland Islands.
On Sunday morning, we got up early to walk over to see the congress building, modeled after the one in the U.S. Banners and stages were being set up and hundreds of people were being bussed in for a demonstration that morning. I learned that it was a demonstration by party loyalists in favor of the incumbent president, Christina Fernandez Kirchner. The ensuing mayhem later that morning nearly made us miss our boat.
The monument in town, similar to the Washington monument, only smaller.
We caught a bus for mere pennies to visit the Recoleta cemetery, and saw the grave of Eva Peron.
In other families' sepulchres, coffins were stacked on shelves, and miniature staircases led to more underground. Some sepulchres had a queer smell coming from their open doors.
All too soon, it was time to head to the port, and we folded our luggage and our four bodies into a little taxi for the short ride to our boat, the Norwegian Sun, to start our 15 day cruise around South America. What excitement!
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