Getting There

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It has been a long while between trips and, hence, blogs. Covid put everything on hold but now Monica and I are off again. The goal of this trip is a cruise around the southern tip of South America. We will start in Buenos Aires Argentina and finish in Santiago Chile. But it is going to take us two days of travel just to get there. On the 30th of December, we jumped aboard the 9:00 AM ferry from Gabriola to Nanaimo. Patty and Don are our travel companions and the four of us starting walking towards the Hullo ferry that would take us across to Vancouver. Our bags are pretty heavily packed what with both summer and winter clothes so we were fortunate that the shuttle bus stopped to pick us up. The 11:00 ferry arrived in Vancouver at 12:30 and we dragged our bags to the Steamship brewery where we stopped for lunch and a beer. It was a little different saying good bye to Tori and Finn - last year when we left at this time for the Baja peninsula, Finn did not comprehend that we were leaving. Now at age 5, he was aware of the situation but did not seem overly concerned. Tori may miss us somewhat but Finn will be fine. From the brewery we hopped onto the Skytrain and travelled the 12 stops to the airport where we waited half an hour for a shuttle to take us to our hotel. It was already dark and pouring rain when we arrived. We literally waded a quarter mile to an A and W for a soggy dinner before returning and crashing for the night. The next day, December 31st, we shuttled back to the airport. We had a couple of hiccups before the flight to Toronto. First of all, Monica and I had packed most of our belongings into one large suitcase. It weighed around 56 pounds and so was over the limit. The extra cost of a $100 for an overweight bag seemed a little steep so we opened everything up and stuffed the extra into our back packs. At this time, Patty also realized that she had left her scarf at the hotel. They very kindly packed it up for her and sent it to the airport on the next shuttle. The Air Canada flight from Vancouver left at 1:00 and arrived in Toronto at 9:00 PM - a 5 hour flight with a three hour time change. To get from arrivals to international departures was close to a half hour of fast walking. We arrived at the security check just as our flight was for Buenos Aires was boarding. However, once aboard, a winter storm rose up and we had to sit through an hour of de-icing. We took off just after midnight. Happy New Years!! A ten hour overnight flight in Economy class is not the easiest to sleep through. I had the middle seat with Monica on the aisle and a middle aged gent from Saskatchewan on the window. It turned out that he is a missionary heading back to Argentina to continue his work. He explained that he works for 5 years and then gets to return home to Canada for a year. He was now heading back for another 5 year shift. We avoided any talk of religion - we didn't even exchange names - but he told me a lot about the rural regions of Argentina and the people in these areas. We finally arrived in San Paulo Brazil at around 10 the next morning. We had to disembark the plane with our bags and go through customs and security again before reboarding the same plane and sitting in the same seats. We left San Paulo at 1:30 and arrived in Buenos Aires at 4:00 PM. Exhausted and sore after this long ordeal, we reclaimed our bags and waited for a taxi that was big enough to handle the four of us plus our luggage. The half hour ride from the airport to the Ramada hotel in downtown Buenos Aires cost us $38 US. Inflation is at around 200% in Argentina and the worth of one US dollar ranges from around 800 to 1000 pesos. The hotel itself is somewhat old and no doubt has seen better days but to shower and lie flat in a bed felt like paradise. We slept all that night and most of the next day - not only had we travelled for more than 24 hours but we had also lost 5 hours with the time change. Now we had a day and two nights to explore Buenos Aires before leaving on the cruise.

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