Back to South America

---

This was our second trip to South America, in 2014 we spent a year travelling and 3 months of that was in the northern part of this continent where we visited Ecuador, Peru, northern Chile and Bolivia. We didn't have time to get down to the south on that trip, also at the time it was getting towards winter in the south so we said we would return in the summer months and give it some time, little did we know back then did we ever think we would be going to Antarctica!

Our flight with Air New Zealand was smooth going, we left just before midday on the Sunday and arrived just before 4pm on the same day, if only the flight was really that short! Basically with crossing the dateline meant we gained an extra day. On the second part of our 11 hour journey to BA we sat next to a Canadian Lady who was living in Australia, turns out she was also going to Antarctica but on a different ship and date.

We arrived feeling not too bad, once we got through immigration and collected our backpacks we got some money. We were forewarned about the cost of ATM's in Argentina, not only was the maximum 2000 pesos (around AU$170) but also they slap on a hefty fee of around 144 pesos for the privilege of only being able to draw out a small amount at a time, I could see this was going to add up! fortunately on this occasion the ATM was a Citibank so avoided the rip off fee.

We had arranged a pickup by our hostel but couldn't see anyone holding up a board with my name on it. I circled many times through the crowds trying to find our pickup to no avail. The queue for the EZE Taxi was quite long so if they hadn't turned up then we would have to join the queue. I jumped onto the airport WiFi and emailed our hostel asking where our pickup was, a minute later I spotted a young woman holding a board with my name on it. I greeted her with enthusiasm and was half expecting her to lead us to the car but she just stood there yakking on her phone, she had more than one name on her board and I thought OK so now we are waiting for others when all I wanted to do was get going. Her English was none existent and my Spanish was a little rusty having not used it in a while but I did understand her asking me to wait 15 minutes so went and joined Vaughan and our Canadian friend in the cafe. I also received a message from the transfer company telling me that our pickup was there and did we find her, I message them back saying we had. She came collected us 10 mins later, we said goodbye to Teeny and we followed our leader to a waiting car.

Our driver was about 5 mins outside the airport when he repeated the name of the place we were going and one I didn't recognize! He repeated another name which turned out to be the name of someone else, it was then we both realised we were in the wrong car! Oh dear, what had that silly woman done. My Spanish returned quick smart and told our driver where we were supposed to go and who we were. He was on the phone to the office explaining that there had been a mix up, then handed me the phone. The guy the other end spoke perfect English and couldn't apologise enough but said the driver will be taking us to our hostel and as a token of their mess up we would be getting a free ride back to the airport, I wondered if that would still apply in 3 months time!!



The drive from the airport is quite long but it gave us a chance to checkout the outskirts of BA which really was like any other city, San Telmo where we were staying is an old part with character buildings and narrow cobbled streets. As we were checking into our hostel, JR a member of the former travbuddy site came up and introduced himself. He said he and Shylla (another TB member) were going out at 8pm for dinner and would we like to come, sounded like a great plan to me but first we needed a shower and a nap.



Both JR from St Louis and Shylla a Filipino living in Dubai was the first we met of 16 TravBuddy members who would be joining us on the trip to Antarctica. All four of us set off into the San Telmo streets to look for something to eat, we came across a nice place where the waiter spoke great English. Of course now we were in the land of steak and wine so what else would we order and it didn't disappoint, we liked Argentina already. We had a great night with the company of two very fun people that we had only met through Travbuddy. Vaughan had found himself a beer buddy so after dinner Shylla and I went back to the hostel while Vaughan and JR went off to a bar to try more beer.

---