Day 46

Friday 17^th December 2010

Uurrrrgggghhhhhhh!!  Waking up after four bottles of wine is bad bad bad.

We woke up twenty minutes before we needed to check out to find almost all of our belongings on the floor of the room.

We decided that ignoring this looming horror and lay in the bed making “I need a drink and lots of medication” type noises.

When 10:00 (check out time) arrived we then faced a mad dash to pack everything away and check out, we needn’t have worried, the girl behind reception just took our keys and smiled.

Our flight was at 15:30 so we needed to be at the airport for 13:30, luckily this was all in hand as we had a transfer booked and paid for prior to drinking El Calafate dry of its red wine stocks. We meandered into town over the cute little “Beetlejuice” type bridge and found a café with the essential Wi-Fi sticker on the window. Suz ordered another omelette and asked me to check if the flight was on time. It wasn’t!

Not only was the flight not on time, it had been cancelled, Aerolineas are a shit airline, avoid at all costs! This is the second time they’ve cancelled our flight, both times have cost us a fair chunk of our own cash to rectify their mistakes. Grrrrrr!

The new flight they had put on without telling us was a flight via Ushuaia, otherwise known as the end of the earth – literally. We now faced a 1hr 20 mins flight to Ushuaia, an hour on the tarmac down there and then a 3hr flight to Buenos Aires, worse than that the flight was due to depart at 12:30, it was now 11:10 and we were sat in a café having breakfast…….. PANIC!!

Suz had noticed an Aerolineas shop on the main street so we shoved the remaining omelette in our hungry mouths and ran to the shop. I dashed inside in a mad panic to find a very relaxed assistant, I explained our plight and the lady told me that the flight had been cancelled and we ought to be at the airport. Really?? Thanks for that! I asked her to order us a taxi which she did, at a snail’s pace.

The cab whisked us back to the hostel to collect our bags and then on to the airport. We arrived at the airport at 11:40 I threw the taxi driver 100 pesos and thanked him for driving like a manic, we dashed into departures and everyone seemed very calm. We checked in and ended up sat around waiting to board. All that panic for nothing…

So we flew to Ushuaia, sat on the runway and then flew to BA. We then discovered we were landing at the international airport which was a fair ride, and hence hefty cab fair out of town as opposed to the central domestic terminal we should have landed at on our original flight. Grrrrr!

We arrived in BA at 18:00 and got another taxi back to the Art Factory, the taxi drivers in BA are thieves. We had been robbed off a couple of them already taking us “the scenic route” but this guy took the piss. We had arranged to pay 138 pesos (about £23) but he wanted us to pay 148 pesos (a couple of quid more) he told us as we left the airport and we ended up having a row all the way into town, I was hungover and had flew all over South America and was now facing being bent over by another BA highway robber. I politely requested that he shut his robbing little mouth and ignored him until the hostel where I gave him 150 pesos and waited for my change, obviously sensing that I wasn’t best pleased he gave me 12 pesos change, which was wise as Suz hadn’t gotten involved at this point! Lucky taxi driver.

We checked in and went upstairs for a beer where we found some other backpackers talking about how they couldn’t figure Buenos Aires out at all. We bonded over the weirdness of the nightlife and decided we would try and find the party tonight.

Me and Suz got changed and on the advice of the reception staff headed to Palermo where the party happens on Fridays. We found the Plaza Serrano and stopped in at a bar for tea (I say tea it was midnight). We ate up and looked around us to find everyone else eating and apparently waiting for the night to take off. We found another bar that was packed but again nothing really happening, people where eating and sat around again, we tried to muster up some enthusiasm but just couldn’t find any. By this time it was 01:30 and we were looking at another failed night out. We decided that maybe BA just isn’t our scene and hailed a cab back to the hostel.

Try as we might we just couldn’t figure BA out at all. Maybe we were looking for the wrong thing, our maybe we set our sights too high, either way BA’s night life wasn’t for us. We arrived back at the hostel and went to bed, knowing that Sydney’s night life was only a flight away…..