Hopping Over to Buenos Aires

Hopping Over to Buenos Aires

17^th August 2012

Hernan is back on vacation after spending six months of Disney Dream.

With both of us being so close together, I'm in Uruguay and Hernan in Argentina, a few of us have decided to meet up and have a get together. To be honest, it was Hernan’s idea.

Hernan, Fede and I have been planning on meeting Eve (Mariner of the Seas Spa girl) and her friend, who are traveling around South America, at Las Cataratas del Iguazú (Iguazú Falls). 

Finally, rather at the last minute, I managed to get a plane ticket to Buenos Aires; where I’d be staying with Hernan and his family for a couple of nights before all three of us head to Iguazú Falls, Argentina.

10.30 – In the last 24 hours I’ve felt like a small child awaiting eagerly for Christmas and unable to sleep. Finally the day has arrived and I'm at Punta del Este airport with my parents. The plane departs at 11.20 and it’s only an hour from Buenos Aires. I’m literally hopping over to another country!

My bag has just been checked-in and I’m informed that my plane is delayed but there’s no further information as to when I’ll be boarding/taking off. Just what you want to hear! More to the point, I need to get a hold of Hernan to let him know about the delay.

10.45 – An announcement has been made – my flight has been delayed for two hours and will now be departing at 12.45. Luckily we don’t live too far from the airport and Dad’s still around with the car. We’re heading home for a little while.

On the drive home, we spotted one of the best things about Punta del Este… whales basking just off the coast. Punta Ballena is supposedly the place to go for whale watching but in all honesty, La Mansa is by far the best place. It’s amazing to see the whales so close to the beach, flipping their tails, fins, the spray of water exploding from the waterline and the occasion head breaking the surface, allowing us gawking, a quick glimpse.

12:15 – Back at the airport and luckily the plane hasn’t been delayed any further. Hopefully Hernan will get my message before he leaves to meet me at the airport. Somehow, I’m not sure if he will as I know there’s quite a bit of distance between Merlo and Jerry Newburry airport.

Waiting at the gate and there is hardly anyone around. Amazingly enough, there are only three gates at Punta del Este airport. I’m more used to five terminals at Heathrow Airport or hundreds of gates at Gatwick. This is by far the smallest airport I’ve ever seen in my life!

The plane for Buenos Aires was the same as the one that took Hernan and I from Athens to Rhodes to join the Mariner of the Seas. It seems ironic, but bought back so many memories of the good times working on board the Mariner of the Seas. I miss Royal Caribbean ship life and my old team. Those really were the Golden Days of ship life!

Buquebus Plane to Buenos Aires

There was a guy in the waiting area, I shouldn’t laugh, but I couldn’t help myself! He was taking numerous photos of the plane and his much younger girlfriend (plane in background). Anyone holding a camera catches my interest. Automatically I want to know which make and model the camera is. Jeremy Clarkson of the camera world!

He caught me looking, looked down at his camera and gave me a smug smile and held his camera up, moved it from side to side, almost flaunting it and carried on. It was hilarious! He was so proud of his Nikon D90 – Bless his little cotton socks! One of the amusing things about Uruguay are how the old, scruffy men manage to pick up such young, snazzy looking girlfriends. There’s obviously still hope for us serial singletons!

12.55 – We’re off! Speeding along the run way, the engine was choking to life and we bounced up into the air before bobbing down a little, only to return upwards and scaling higher into the sky. I was waiting for a propeller to fly off! Anyone would think I seldomly travel by plane.

There are 16 people on the flight from Punta del Este to Buenos Aires. The plane is half empty.

As I was getting on the plane, an airhostess asked which seat I had. 11B. As we walked over there was a man in his 60’s sat in my seat. The airhostess kindly asked him to shift over to his seat, 11A. Not even in my wildest dreams did I expect him to kick up a fuss.
“With all this empty space on the plane and she has to sit next to me? I have to sit in my designated seat with her next to me? With all this space? It’s ridiculous!” Well, my face must have been as red as a London bus! The other passengers were all rubber necking, staring at the theatrics unfolding in front of them. Finally, the man huffed and puffed some more and moved over. As soon as everyone was seated, five minutes or so later, the airhostess came over and told me to go with her. Grabbing my bag, she took me over to the back of the plane where I had an aisle to myself. Thank Godness!

The in flight safety video was a classic! I wish I could have filmed it! It really was a comedy. The passenger in the film resembled PeeWee Hermen wearing a black tuxedo. All the passengers were having a good giggle, some were more than a little surprised, I was one of them. In PeeWee Hermen’s hand luggage was an electric meat knife/cutter – he had to switch it off as you can’t have electronic items switched on during the flight.

“What to do in case of an emergency” featured Tom and Jerry with sledge hammers.

Somehow I can’t imagine British Airways adopting the “politically and morally incorrect” method. It was a far better method as you can’t help but watch in amazement.

13.15 – We’ve hit a patch of turbulence and rocking around all over the place. Just as the plane hit a miniature air pocket, I smacked my glass of coke against my front teeth.

So far this is proving to be eventful flight!

13.50 – Hernan was at the gate waiting and had been for two hours! His uncle, a taxi driver, was nice enough to give us a lift from the airport to Merlo. Apparently there's been torrential rain for two weeks and today was no different. It was pouring it down. The traffic in Buenos Aires was horrific! We crawled along, the car going no higher than second gear.

Getting closer to Hernan’s house in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, there had been some freak weather. More recently a tournado swept through the town of Merlo, destroying everything in its path. The roofs of houses and surrounding factories had been completely ripped off. Trees had been split in half or some ripped out of the roots.

Being so close to Argentina, why haven’t we heard about the disastrous weather in Uruguay? Because the media in Argentina is “run by a mafia” and media, cameras and the likes weren’t allowed into the area. No word of it appeared on the news or in the papers as the government didn’t want to announce the area was in a state of emergency. In one particular factory, the roof caved in, killing 16 workers and the government didn’t want to announce it? Apparently, if they don’t declare state of emergency, the government doesn’t have to pay out any form of compensation and so on. This is, however, only what I’ve been told by the locals.

Can Argentina really be that corrupt? Well, every other Argentinian government has been, so what makes this one any different?

 

Jam Packed