Hola from Buenos Aires

Although this wasn't quite the way we had planned to start our trip in South America. . . .

After getting to Sydney slightly late it turned out our flight to Buenos Aires was delayed while they fixed the in flight entertainment. After half an hour we were on our way.

Initially concerned when seated in the back row with fears we would be subjected to sitting upright all flight (wasn’t the case) we thought our luck was holding when we ended up with no one next to us on one side and a very lovely lady, Jordana, from Sao Paulo on the other side.

Off we started on the 13 and a half hour flight and here’s where the problems started. . . .

Turns out the rear of the plane is a social gathering site

Couple of quick things to ponder:

Are all male flight attendants gay or is it an international thing?

Why would you stand for 5 hours talking to your partner when you had really good seats, directly in front of where you choose to stand and then complain you hadn’t got any sleep on the plane?

And the worst was yet to come. About an hour out of Buenos Aires we learnt we have to stop at a place in Chile called Punta Arenas to wait for fog to lift and to refuel. This ensures we are going to miss our connecting flights to Santiago and Quito.

Things to know about Punta Arenas:

It is located in the Patagonia area of Chile. Temperature at 10:30a.m. was 40 degrees farenheit, which is basically 1 degree celcius.

It has never had a 747 plane land at it’s airport.

They don’t have the right stairs or refuelling equipment for a 747 and staff have no idea how to refuel a 747, we suspect it was by hand pump and 44 gallon drum. . .

When the pilot says it is a stop over for about an hour he actually means two hours!

Eventually we were on our way and the joy just continued. After listening yet again to the earlier couple, who had obviously decided that standing for the whole flight was their favoured option, we had the added benefit of the push up doing Italian stallion and the religious man, who had decided after 18 months of not drinking alcohol, today was going to be the day he started again. Poor Jordana pretty much wore his conversation for the remainder of the flight, with him telling her about Jesus and how important he was. Stuey we have given him your phone number :)

Eventually we arrived in Buenos Aires at 3:30p.m., 5 hours late.

Qantas rebooked us on flights for the next day and put us up in the NH Hotel in Sante Fe, Buenos Aires.

For anyone who thinks Adelaide taxi drivers are insane they have absolutely nothing on these guys!

Our driver spoke no English so we spent the time looking at the sites and wondering if we were going to crash into the car in front. We literally spent most of the trip about 30cm from the car in front at the most and yet we didn’t feel scared. Not sure what that says about us. Surprisingly no one uses their horn and everyone just merges it appears wherever they like and everyone lets them so long as they are aggressive about it.

Amazing things about Buenos Aires roads:

They have maximum and minimum speed limits.

They have the world’s largest lane road the Ave de Julio which is 9 lanes for each direction

A huge obelisk is Buenos Aires icon




After convincing the NH Hotel staff we had in fact been put up there by Qantas, it was off to our room (very nice), and then off for a quick drink.

Turns out Phil is not a fan of the local cervesa, Quilness, (beer), comment was it’s cat’s p***.

The local wine, Malbec, wasn’t too bad and Marie you would love it here as everything comes with a 'little something’ to snack on while you enjoy your drink.

After a quick meal at the Hotel, everything is a soup and then a main, with Phil pretty much falling asleep at the table it was off to bed. Turns out the walls were paper thin although we were that exhausted it didn’t matter.

And now we are back at the airport waiting for our next flight, turns out when it goes bad it goes really bad, with our first flight getting cancelled but we will get to Quito tonight with any luck having been rebooked onto the later flight.

That’s about it for now.

Buenos Dias.

On a new note we have now arrived at Quito after another full day of flights and will fill you in once we have had some sleep.