We had a couple more days in BA before our flight and treated ourselves at a nice hotel near the center of town.



I had confirmed our flights online with Aerolineas Argentinas 5 days previously and finally got back a confirmation email which actually had the wrong day on it!

This is the very professional looking confirmation email. Yes, with the misaligned ASCII frames and everything!:

Estimado Cliente:
Gracias por comunicarse con nosotros.
Su vuelo ha sido reconfirmado satisfactoriamente.
Informamos los datos ACTUALIZADOS del mismo :

CÓDIGO:
PASAJERO: 1.1SARAHMS 2.1DAMIANMR

|-------+----------+----------

+-----------+--------+--------+-----------|
| | | | | | | |
| Vuelo | Fecha | Origen | Destino | Partida| Arribo | Escalas |
|-------+----------+----------+-----------+--------+--------+-----------|
| | | | | | | |
| AR1182| 9MAR | EZEIZA | SIDNEY | 02.30 | 10.30 | SIN |
| | | | | | | ESCALAS |
|-------+----------+----------+-----------+--------+--------+-----------|

For those of you without español skillz, that's the Flight number | Date | Origin | Destination | Departure | Arrival |

Appears that our flight is leaving on the 9th of march at 2.30am!

Our original flight had been leaving at 11.55pm on the 9th but had been changed by the airline months ago to 2.30am on the 10th.

I sent another confirmation request through their website from the English section with a note to please clarify if our flight had been reschedualed 24 hours early and got this reply:

Dear Customer:
Thank you for contacting us!

According to your request, we wish to explain that this booking code
was reconfirmed previously. No changes have taken place in your itinerary.

Best regards,

Call Center - Division Internet
Aerolineas Argentinas S.A.

How very not helpful!

So I had to ring them.
Conversation after I had provided booking reference etc went a bit like this:

Me: So can you tell me what day the flight is leaving?
AA rep: The 9th.
Me: Our original flight was on the 9th at 11.55pm and was changed to the 10th at 2.30am. Are you telling me it has now been moved 24 hours earlier to the 9th?
AA rep: That's right, the 10th.
Me: What?
AA rep: The flight is on the 10th.
Me: But you just told me the 9th.
AA rep: It was the 9th but it changed to the 10th.
Me: So why did I get a confirmation email telling me it was the 9th and you just told me it was the 9th?
AA rep: But it's the 10th.
Me: ARE YOU SURE?
AA rep: Yes.

Needless to say when we got to the airport at 11pm for our 2.30am departure after first being told to go away and come back at midnight for check-in, we found that Aerolineas Argentinas had not bothered to email us to let us know the flight had been delayed until 5.30am!

After all that we were once again expecting the moody service from cabin staff we recieved coming to BA the first time but suprisingly it was a lot better. They even had blankets for the passengers! Still after assessing the overall airline quality, you would have to pay me to fly again with Aerolineas Argentinas!


I did a picture of a plane. Maybe AA could use it to spruce up their website.

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Again we had an hour stopover in Auckland, then home to Sydney.


So I guess that's the end of the Travel Blog. :(
Thanks for reading.
It's been an incredible 6 months.

Bye!

Iguazu Falls

After saying goodbye to Beau who was off to Peru, Sarah and I jumped on a 17 hour bus to the north where the borders of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina meet.
We were going to see the famous Iguazu Falls.
Being a very popular South American destination, only second to Matchu Pitchu, we booked accomodation in advance for only the third time in our entire trip.
Arriving at the town of Puerto Iguazu we took a taxi to the Mega Hostel we had booked. Hostel Inn was enormous with 200 or so beds and a massive swimming pool. This was great as we had been hot in BA and now we were almost back to the tropics! Only downside was that it was full of young men enthusiastically playing volley ball to impress the bikini-clad young ladies sun baking around the sides. Also we had booked this place because it had a guest kitchen which in theory was true but in reality consisted of two overfull bar fridges and a sink and a few battered pots. Not a single kitchen knife or even a wooden spoon. They did have a reasonable dinner buffet and poolside bar so obviously not in their interests for people to make their own food or buy alcohol from town.
When we checked in we were told that we would have a room for the first two nights then would have to switch rooms for the third night. I had noticed that this place had the earliest check out time I had ever seen being 9am and check in wasn't until 2pm so I asked her if the room we would be switching to would be ready for us to just move our luggage into. She ummed and ahhed and then said they had a storage room we could put our stuff in. I said that's not good enough and stood my ground and she finally changed her mind and said we wouldn't have to switch. Score! After all that, the room (matrimonial con baños privado of course) was actually quite nice.

Spent the first day just lounging poolside and discovered that happy hour cocktails were pretty good value. There was a big outdool buffet feast that night which was a weekly event and everyone had a pretty big night poolside. Coincidentally we bumped into Sylvia who had been on the boat with us in the Galapagos islands and was staying at the hostel too! The next day we also again met Tim the aussie from Torres del Paine. This hostel is obviously the one to stay at on the backpacker trail.

Next morning we got up early to get the first bus to the falls at 7.30am. It was here that we discovered something interesting. We had noticed during our week in Buenos Aires that it didn't get dark until quite late. The sun went down about 7.30pm so it was dark by 8pm. This is normal in Summer back home so we didn't think anything of it. Getting up early to catch the bus though we were quite confused to find it was pitch black at 7am! With all those late nights (It was great to see you Beau!) and sleeping in we hadn't discovered that dawn didn't arrive until a little after 7.
The bus trip to the Falls was only short and we were second in line at the ticket office behind a young Argentinian couple who were watching graphic porn on his mobile phone while they waited.
There are a few kilometres of walking tracks aroud the park so we decided on a plan of attack to try and see as much as possible before the hoards of bus tours arrived. This worked out quite successful as we were alone for our first walk along the top of the falls and there were very few people on the walk to the bottom. We took a short boat trip and walked around the "island" surrounded by the falls. After a refreshment stop to have a drink and watch people being harrassed by a hungry badger critter we took a train ride to the start of the falls and followed a walkway out over the water to where it poured over the largest falls into the main river.

Click photo for panorama.

Another night in the mega-hostel and then luxury bus time back to BA. When we booked the bus it was only $5 more each to upgrade to the first class bus for this section of the trip so we though "why not". Fully reclining seats that fold back into beds, good food and champagne, even Wi-Fi! If only every bus trip was like this.

Day trip to Uruguay

From Buenos Aires it's an easy ferry trip to get to Uruguay. There are connections to the capital Monte Video which is about 5 hours on a fa$t boat or the much closer Colonia de Sacremento on a more affordable 4 hour trip.

Leaving BA as the morning sun lit up the skyline was a pretty spectacular sight. The old docks area has been "redeveloped" with the usual huge apartment blocks but there is a large wetland nature reserve which has been retained.

Not so spectacular was the amount of rubbish in the murky brown waters of the harbour!
The crossing of the Rio de la Plata was uneventful and a bit boring as there wasn't much to do on the ferry. An obscenely overpriced duty free shop which we thought had reasonable prices until we found out they were in USD not Pesos Argentinos and some old-school arcade games were all the entertainment on board.

Arriving in Colonia we walked through the town and visited an ancient church and the old lighthouse. It's quite a pretty town with some cobblestone streets and cute old houses.
The lighthouse had a good view out over the water and town. Colonia is one of the oldest towns in South America and Uruguay was actually created as a "buffer" state between the Portuguese and Spanish colonies of Brasil and Argentina.

We wandered around for a while trying to find a restaurant for lunch and settled in at one which had an engaging and entertaining waiter who kept changing silly hats and reminded us of the movie Office Space with the impressive amount of "flair" he was displaying on his uniform. The food wasn't anything special though and we were still charged for the "table service" even though we refused to accept the fish spread and stale bread that was presented. Also when we got the bill we found we were given a 250 peso bottle of wine instead of the 100 peso bottle we had actually ordered so we left with a bit of a sour taste in our mouths. Not impressed with places which deliberately rip off tourists because they don't need repeat business.

After lunch we browsed some shops and visited the old fortifications near the water and Beau had a Cher moment with the old cannon. (That's the smokin'-fast boat to BA in the background)
Then we were pretty much just killing time waiting for the Ferry.

Buenos Aires (BA)
Damian and I arrived one day before we met Beau, and one day before we were to check into the apartment. The reason was to take full advantage of our luxurious apartment for a full day and Beau was arriving late so we wanted to get the apartments organised. For those of you who don't know who Beau is, well he is my beautiful older brother (though I am much more mature than him so you would think that I am older when really he is). Beau did not trust my judgement in picking accomodation so he booked it and the result is two neigbouring studio apartments in the nice part of town. A bit more expensive than what I suggested but it was nice and after traveling for 6 months staying in hostels and dorms it's nice to have your own little place.
So Damian and I arrived one day early and stayed at a cheap (slightly nasty) place that had an antique industrial-strength portable floor fan as there were no windows in our room (and the ceiling fan was not functioning). So when we had the fan on it seriously sounded like a helicopter was taking off, which was a bit embarassing as everyone kept on looking in our room as they walked past. It was a old building with high ceiling which did have a lot of character.
Time for lunch, so we headed down to the docks to a place suggested by our Aussie friends that we met in Belize (Ryan and Kate). The place suggested was all-you-could-eat salad bar and meat. I know what you are thinking, it was a very dangerous place to over-eat but we did not do too bad, it was nice to eat lots of salad. After lunch we walked through some dodgy areas (its nice to get a real feel of the city), and watched some tango-ing people while we had wine and pizza for dinner.
The next day (25/2/09) we caught a cab to the apartments and arrived at 10:28am, we were meant to meet at 10:30am so we thought we were right on time. We found out later we were actually a hour late (there are 2 time zones in Argentina which we knew but no one could tell us where the boarder was but we had obviously crossed it coming east from Bariloche).

We got settled in to the apartments and went shopping at the nearby supermarket to get supplies. Nice to be able to buy groceries for a few days!
Beau arrived later in the afternoon and the next few days were spent having fun around the city, drinking and eating too much and getting drunk and disorderly. -Sarah

Bariloche and goodbye Patagonia.

After a few days in El Bolson we took a bus a couple of hours north to Bariloche which is a small city on the shore of a beautiful lake.
It was nice to spend a few days relaxing and walking around shops having empanadas for lunch and drinking coffee frappes at cafes. Stayed at a nice hostel with a crazy woman on the front desk. You could hear her mad laugh two flights up in our room!
Sarah wasn't in the mood for walking so she stayed at the hostel one day while I walked to the top of Cerro Otto, a hill a few kilometres from town with a fantastic view over the lake. Our 10 day hike must have had an effect on me as I didn't think twice about walking almost 20km to the top of the ridge and back to town. Only took me 4 hours.

You might have noticed that the blog updates have tailed off a bit. Possibly the marathon one for Torres Del Paine wore me out but also a likely reason is we have been a little disapointed with Argentinian Patagonia.
Patagonia is the whole of the bottom pointy bit of South America, Chile and Argentina. Apart from the Western edge around the Andes mountain range it is pretty much all flat featureless barren plains. Very windy and dusty. The trip from Puerto Natales down to Ushuaia was 12 hours of mostly featureless boring scenery. Even the fabled Tierra Del Fuego, apart from the southern edge, was almost desert with only an occasional oil pump or refinery to look at from the bus window.
Getting out of Ushuaia was a repeat of the journey there, followed by another 24 hour dull trip to El Bolson. There we found some vegetation and mountains at least and after a few days in Bariloche we headed straight to Buenos Aires which was another pretty featureless trip of 21 hours.
Also adding to our malaise about Argentina is the people. We have dealt with plenty of unfriendly and unhelpful 'service' staff on our travels but the locals here seem to have stepped it up a notch. And there are a couple of nasty habits that are quite prevalent as well.
Smoking. Almost everybody smokes. It's like Australia in the '80s when there were no health concerns and people were free to smoke wherever they wanted like in dining rooms and hospitals. A couple of the hostels we stayed at had smoking downstairs in the dining area and the whole place was full of smoke. You are trying to cook or eat and people are chain-smoking next to you. Nice....
The other unpleasant habit is an obsession with Mate. This is a tea made with a plant called yerba. (Not Coca leaves like in Bolivia.) The unpleasant aspects of it is the unhygenic paraphanalia and addictive behaviour that accompanies it. They drink it out of little gourd mugs with a metal straw with a sieve on the end. The mug has leaves put in and gets topped up with hot water from a thermos that they carry everywhere.
I will admit that I have a mild caffeine addiction. I like coffee and usually have one most mornings and may get a headache if I go a whole day without. But I don't drink coffee continuously for the entire day every day! That's what these yerba drinkers do! On long bus trips at every stop a legion of thermos weilding Argentinias run around trying to find somewhere to fill up their thermos with hot water. Most service stations actually have a coin-operated hot water bowser outside for this purpose! At the bus stations they just rudely push to the front of the line of people queuing for coffee (me) to get their thermos filled. And where do you think they empty their mugs of used yerba leaves? Wherever they feel like of course!

Updated the blog with a Torres Del Paine entry. See a couple of posts back.

We are currently in El Bolson which is a "hippy" town towards the top of Patagonia. Actually it's not far from Puerto Montt, just across the border and Andes range.
After a couple of nights in Ushuaia we took a 12 hour bus trip to Rio Gallegos, followed the next day by a 23 hour bus to El Bolson. Scenery didn't change much over those 35 hours until we got back to the Andes!

There are a lot of things here that remind me of Mullumbimby and the Byron area in Northern NSW; people driving rusty old bombs of cars, the handycraft markets in the centre of town with aging hippies selling arty crap, dirty little kids running wild in the streets.... etc
Pretty relaxed vibe around the place.
There is a large mountain ridge (2300m) above the town and we woke on the first morning to see the top dusted in snow which was pretty. The hostel we are staying in has a nice view from the bedroom window.

The End of the world.

Well we made it to the self proclaimed Fin Del Mundo/End of the World at Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world in Tierra del Fuego.
After camping we just spent one night in Puerto Natales and jumped straight on a 12 hour bus yesterday through to Ushuaia. The trip was OK with a choppy ferry crossing of the Magellan Strait to break the journey. We are now in Argentina but will have to cross through part of Chile again to get back to Buenos Aires.

Spent today resting as we felt like a break after the 10 days walking in the park. (Lots of photos, will get back to doing a blog entry on it. Very spectacular!)
The city is pretty touristy where we are staying. It is the starting point for most boat trips to Antarctica (which the remains of our travel budget will no longer stretch to cover) and has a National Park close by and some Penguin Colonies across the Beagle channel to be seen.
We have two weeks left until we need to be in Buenos Aires to meet with Sarah's brother Beau so will start heading back north shortly.