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Published: February 21st 2010
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hola amigos
well well well we have FINALLY made it to South America. And let me tell you, only 6 days in and it has already proven to be bloody brilliant, although we almost didnt get here.
We were pretty busy our last couple of days in NZ, sorting last minute things out for the trip; catching up with people; learning how to use a sewing machine so i could make pockets and sew them on the inside of all our clothing (thanks Tazzy hehe); And chasing down my new camera which still had not arrived in whakatane.
On the day that we were flying from Auckland to South America, I woke up with a funny feeling in my stomach, (and for once this was not alcohol-induced). I just had this gut feeling that somehow we werent going to make it to South America. I even told Hayden.
With two hours before we were due to catch the little local plane from whakatane to auckland - my new digi arrived (and it was AWESOME). We got to the local airport, said goodbye to haydys family, and proceeded to board the plane, where i almost freaked out when
i saw how tiny the plane was. We are talking 2 seats wide, open cockpit, really freaking little. I started thinking this is where the feeling of doom and gloom is coming from, we're going to die in a light plane crash before we even get to south america.
hahaha.
Luckily, i was wrong, and it was actually an awesome flight, especially seeing the pilots flying the plane and coming in for landings, etc.
We got to the Auckland international airport with no problems, except we were cutting it very fine on time. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 4.40pm, it was 2pm and there was a massive check-in line. 'No problema' we thought, 'we have plenty of time'.
As we are checking-in though, the girl asked us if we had an exit flight out of argentina. We told her we didnt because we were going to bus it through south america. She insisted we need to have some kind of exit flight or else they wouldnt let us into the country - And that we could get there and they would send us home. This was contradictory to the info i had read from
the argentian immigration website, and off other peoples travel blogs, however they (LAN airline) were adament.
So we decided to leg it over to the flight centre (conveniently situated in the auckland airport terminal) and see what our options were. Between going back and forth from the check-in counter and to flight centre, and receiving 4 sets of
different/conflicting information, we decided to just buy a flight from bogota to panama city for the end of May.
They finally let us check-in, and we ran to the security gates, only to see a massive line. We ended up getting to our boarding gate just as they were boarding the last group of passengers. Talk about cutting it fine!!
Oh and then i got stuck in the damn toilets. you are supposed to press a button to disengage the lock, i kept pressing it and it wouldnt let me out, i couldnt open the door, i was yelling out for help. And then it just opened. hahaha. Talk about
embarassing. Hayden said he could hear a voice calling for help and realised it was mine hahaha.
It was definitely a stressful departure. But luckily our flights to
santiago and then to BA were uneventful, pleasant even, we watched LOTS of movies hehe.
ANYWAYS, SO Buenos Aires .... what can i say ... its big, its busy, its dirty, there is graffiti covering most surfaces, uneven pavements, dog poo everywhere. But it is muy loco. So many people, most of them rather friendly, some with attitude.
It would be a cool city to live because it is thriving and bustling, but the great funky areas are rather expensive.
We left NZ at 4.40pm on tuesday and arrived in BA at 5pm on tuesday. When we got to our hostel (booked the night before - nothing like last minute), although shattered (already pulled all-nighter numero uno), we decided to stay up and try to adjust our body clocks. We went and explored and then came back to the hostel, we were going to sleep but we ran into ... some more aussies (of course). So we ended up drinking all night with them, heading to a bar at 2am, and getting back to the hostel at 6am!!
w00t w00t.
And then we slept until 4pm!! Guess thats what happens when you dont sleep for
2 days. We went for a walk, went for a FABULOUS steak dinner with friends from the hostel, went out and then partied all night again.
Our third day we did some more walking around exploring the city and then went out to another different area. Weve met some great people at the hostel. One of them is this crazy austrian guy (Hi Nils) who fell in love with a gorgeous
argentinian girl 2 weeks ago and they have been taking us out showing us all the local spots and being our guides. It was great.
If we could sum up BA in one word - its busy. A lot of people really like it, and i can see why. But its way too full-on for us. Perhaps thats because its the start of our trip and we are tired from jetlag (and excess going-out), and perhaps its because we're not used to the SA way of life yet - dinner not served till at least 8pm, and nothing getting lively till after midnight.
Either way, our original idea was to stay in BA for around 2 weeks, and spend 1 week doing spanish lessons. And although
we did enrol in a class, we decided not to do it because we wanted to get out of BA.
Hmm, also im finding the spanish here in argentina reallllly hard to understand. The argentinians have a very strong accent/dialect. The way they pronounce things is different to how i learnt it, apparently even people from spain and columbia and central america can not understand some of their words hehe. BUT having said that we're actually doling ok in the foreign language department.
So, we are out of BA now - we left on saturday ... those stories in another blog to come.
Hope everyone is well ... special happy 30th birthday to beccy boo.
Tallies:
Number of items lost = 1 > leahs brand new digi camera that she had for 5 days! (puta de madre)
Number of injuries = 0 (thankfully)
Amount of dinero lost = 300 pesos (around $100aus) by hayden
Number of items broken = 1 > leahs mobile phone.
Number of life-threatening illnesses contracted = 0 (yay us)
Peace Out
Love
Hayds n Lele
ps
we have no piccies of BA since they were all on leahs awesome digi
that she frigging left behind in a taxi - D'oh.
p.p.s
probably obvious but we have no mobile phone numbers, our SIMS dont work here.
p.p.p.s
EMAIL US 😊 We want to hear what is happening back home geez!
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Lynette
non-member comment
Where u guys?
Hey Bella where u guys headed heard about the earthquake in chile this morning, total opposite side I know :) Hope all is well xx