From my last post to this one, quite a lot has occurred! It doesn’t seem like a lot somehow, maybe all the flying… and I’ve again sworn to myself that I will never fly this much in one shot again… but those promises never hold and another adventure will await at some point!
Miami was the first destination, I would meet Jen there before heading on to Buenos Aires and beyond. It had been a long time! The flight from Denver ran behind, and even with some potentially long layovers the timing seemed pretty perfect. We were able to catch up a bit, have a few drinks, and jump right onto the nine-hour flight to Buenos Aires. It wasn’t pleasant, but long flights never are when you’re not an airplane sleeper (I’m not, though I try!). This one was worse than most, American has some work to do to apologize for a complete lack of service for things as basic as water and completely ignoring the “call” button for hours on end… but it did finally end and we looped through customs and the onto the next flight to Ushuaia (Pronounced “Oooh-Sch-why-a”). I’ve been getting to dust off my Spanish!
In the airport in Buenos Aires… we began looking for our check-in gate (they tell you where to check in by “gate” number, but they don’t mean your plane’s gate) on Aerolineas Argentinas, and while we were currently in the 80’s… our check-in gate was in the 200’s. I approached an airline employee. “Una pregunta…”, I started (“a question…”) “pero… en ingles.” (I realized I would not have the question formed in my head in time to quickly figure out what to ask next. )
“Sure!” he answered, and ended up directing us from the international terminal to the local one (Terminal C), where we checked in, talked about mate with the check-in attendant (an Argentinean tea and tea-drinking style that I swear I thought was a drug he was trying to encourage us to have while here until Jen set me straight), and headed to a small cafe. Jen had never had coffee con crema before (Costa Rica introduced me to this), and so we spent some time relaxing before our last few hours of flying. The coffee helped, but I was tired. I was surpassing twenty hours of being wide-awake at that point and starting to feel it. By the time we boarded our plane to Ushuaia, I was ready for a nap that didn’t come. The first thee-quarters of the flight were to El Calafate, a small hop over the mountains from Ushuaia where there is some amazing scenery and a glacier, and then our final leg on a completely full plane had Jen and I on edge and ready to be done with flights for a while… we got our bags, headed out to grab a taxi (always an adventure when you don’t have local currency), and then headed to our hotel, Arakur.
The Arakur is impressive, perched on a mountain overlooking the city. it takes about twenty minutes to ride from the airport to the hotel, and some of that is a wide, unpaved, winding road that cuts up the mountain back and forth to elevate quickly. We saw a great number of people out enjoying the sun, asked the driver for his recommended seafood stop in town (“Con permiso… una pregunta. Tienes una restaurante que encantas por… pesces… camarones…?”). He told us he did, suggested a place by location, and we headed into the hotel. Jen made the very good point that going to bed right away was probably a terrible idea, so after a shower and a quick soda for sugar/caffeine, we headed out to dinner.
This is where I have to admit I forgot some of the things I know about South America, even if the Spanish is coming back like riding a bike… we got into town to find almost everything closed… at six o’clock. Restaurants, shops, everything seemed empty… and for the most part it turned out it was! We, as you may have guessed, stumbled into downtown at nap time. The time for a siesta is pretty normal in some of the countries here, I had completely forgotten! An old boss mentioned this to me at some point, as well as that we should expect the same in Peru and anticipate dinner to start at about 10:00 PM and go well into the night. It’s the same here… the sun sets at 10:00 PM, and that’s about when dinner starts for the locals.
Restaurant doors informed us they reopened at seven or seven thirty for the most-part, and we ended up finding (Jen ended up spotting a sign for) a restaurant on top of a museum that was open currently. We jumped at the chance for food before I fell asleep, and ordered a good, but odd assortment of fish, fried everything (chicken, shrimp, potatoes, crab cakes), cured meats, and cheeses. It was a great way to fill up a little bit overall, add more coffee to make it back, and then it was back to the hotel and time for bed. Jen mentioned going to the gym, and I headed to bed. It was a very long (two day long) day!
