You know, international travel is funny business. I’m writing this from 15,000 feet above the Argentine countryside, on a rickety 2-prop plane. But, as usual, I’m starting at the end instead of the beginning.Yesterday (August 16th, 2007) at 5PM, I began what would be a 6000 mile journey from Miami to my birthplace of Parana, Argentina. As anyone who travels in the US knows, the security measures in place to “protect us from evil terr’ists” means that you’ve got to be at the airport 3 hours in advanced for full cavity searches and whatnot. After standing in line after line after line, I finally got on my plane at 8:30 PM and sat in the chair where I’d spend the next nine and half hours.
The section of the plane where I was sitting was also the holding pen for no less than 4 crying implacable demon children, who (I’m not kidding) cried the ENTIRE FLIGHT DOWN. For the first few hours, I was unbelievably annoyed, first at the children then at the parents for not shutting them up. Soon, though, my annoyance melted away to a simple kind of awe; I mean, you have to wonder exactly how you can scream and cry for nine hours straight without going hoarse or stopping to breathe. Truly, it was amazing. Normally, I’m the first person to come out against giving behavioral modification drugs to children, but I was about ready to squirt Ritalin down these kids’ throats with a turkey baster.
I finally land in Buenos Aires, Argentina and make my way through customs. After I got spit out of the customs line, I had to make my way to the baggage claim area. This is where it gets interesting. In order to get to baggage claim, you have to walk through what can only be described as a shopping center. The walkway to baggage claim wound through no less than 4 fully stocked stores; there was no way around this. I was reminded of Disney World, where every ride dumped out to store with the same theme as the ride you just went on. Except, here, the theme is “Duty Free”. I didn’t buy anything, for the record.
When I finally made it out of the store into the baggage claim area, I found about 50 people waiting for the luggage belt to start moving. Always wanting to be ahead of the curve, I walked over to the nearby Currency Exchange Hut to convert dollars to pesos. Later, I would realize that each Hut I would encounter after this first one had a better exchange rate than the one I ended using (to the tune of fifty cents per peso better!). At the time, I didn’t realize I was getting screwed, but hey, you gotta learn somehow. I ended up exchanging one hundred dollars for three hundred pesos.
I went back to the luggage belt, which was not moving. I made small talk with a British tourist who was waiting along side me for a few minutes, where I was made aware of how great Argentina is as a vacation destination on account of the ridiculous exchange rate for the Pound Sterling against the peso. As I held my meager US dollars in my wallet, i couldn’t help but to envy this man, this holder of superior currency. Lost in thought, the luggage belt started.
I picked up my luggage and proceeded towards the exit. Now, the plan at this point was to find the Bus Terminal, buy a bus ticket to either Santa Fe or San Nicolas (depending on availability) and be on my way. Of course, both bus lines were sold out to those two cities. Let me jump back a second: bus transport was chosen over airplane because I was told in Miami that there were weather problems in Buenos Aires that prevented airplanes from getting off the ground. This is why I planned to subject my self to a six hour bus ride through rural Argentina. When I was told there were no seats available on any buses going to my preferred destinations, I noticed that the weather outside was not bad at all. Indeed, it was wonderful! My plan quickly changed from bus back to plane, and I got on a shuttle to the regional airport.
The airport shuttle took me to AeroPark, the municipal airport where the vast majority of domestic flights arrive and depart. Bear in mind that at this point, I had no idea whether there were any planes that went where I wanted to go. But hey, if you don’t shoot, you’ll never score.
I walked up to the Information desk and told them I wanted to fly to Santa Fe. They said that there were two airlines that had flights out today: Aerolineas Argentina (the national airline) and Sol Aero (a scrappy upstart with propeller planes). The AA flight left at 7:20PM and the SA flight departed at 11:30AM (just a two hour wait!). I walked up the SA counter, bought a ticked for one hundred sixty pesos (about eighty bucks), and was happy as a clam! I waited around for a bit, realizing how tired I was (at that point, I’d been traveling for 14 hours). When my flight was called, I went into the waiting salon, and eventually boarded the rickety propeller plane (which, again, is where I’m writing this from).
In a few minutes, I’ll be landing in Santa Fe, a town across the river from Parana. I hope to find a taxi, shuttle, van, or other form of transport to get me from one town to the other. I don’t even know exactly where I am going, or whether anyone will be there to receive me once I finally arrive. The unpredictability of this whole caper is really exciting for me, though I know it’s really not the best way to go about international travel. What’cha gonna do?
My plane is landing. I’ll let you all know how it all turned out.
