December 22, 2010

We were tired from yesterday and had a hard time getting up and starting our day. I tried to call the GOL lost luggage center here in Buenos Aires, but no one answered. They are probably completely overloaded now just before Christmas. In terms of losing luggage we had managed to hit a pessimal (opposite of optimal, thanks to Arnt Gulbrandsen for that word) time and circumstance to do it. Christmas is, if possible, even more crazy travel-wise here than in Europe. Everyone is moving to stay with their families for Christmas and summer vacation has just started. In addition we had a TAM ticket on a LAN flight which was replaced by GOL. Any one of those 3 airlines could have lost our luggage.

We were so tired yesterday we did not think to plan to have extra time at the airport to check on our lost luggage. Mistake, and my fault completely. In addition we were caught in morning traffic on our way to the airport.  We arrived about 90 minutes before our flight and as we entered the airport I understood that we probably should have been there a couple of hours earlier. The airport was packed with people and there was chaos and long waiting lines everywhere.

We had a LAN flight to Bariloche and the check-in line was extremely long, as in well over a hundred meters. We got hold of a LAN representative. With a smile she told us that there was no problem since the flight was delayed. She could not say how much it would be delayed though, but more than enough for everyone to check in. Brilliant.

I tried to send a text message to Jorge. He was going to meet us at the airport in Bariloche together with his family. It didn´t work. i realized that since I was now using a Norwegian SIM card I probably had to type in the number as if I was calling from abroad. Armed with my recently acquired knowledge about the mysterious Argentine phone calling system I added a 9 in front of the numer and removed the 15 in the middle. Presto! The message went through.

Helene and the kids stood in line while I was sent out on an expedition to find out more about our lost luggage. Wherever I turned there were enormous lines. I stood in line at a LAN desk, but abandoned it after no movement in 20 minutes. Christmas chaos coupled with South American handling times was not a very good combination. I repeatedly tried to call GOL, but they never picked up the phone.

After some wandering around I found a GOL check-in line with very few people. After 15 minutes I could talk to a real person. The guy behind the counter looked at my PIR (Property Irregularity Report, airlines keep an impressive set of TLAs (Three Letter Abbreviations), almost rivaling the collection we computer geeks keep in our minds) and fetched another guy. He told me to follow him. For quite a while we worked our way through the masses of people waiting in different lines. It struck me that this was not very different from being led through the jungle by a guide, except there were no creepy insects or birds here, only furless apes. We reached an anonymous office door with no signs. He disappeared inside and told me to wait. We were at the GOL baggage handling office. Obviously they like to stay below the radar. No point in getting disturbed by nosy customers all the time.

After 5 minutes a guy came out. He gave me my PIR back and told me that unfortunately they had no information about our backpacks. Officially LAN had lost the luggage, since they were checked in to a LAN flight on the last leg to Buenos Aires. However, there was no record in the system of where the luggage could be. His best guess was that it was in Sao Paulo. He said that GOL was responsible but could do nothing until LAN had found the luggage and given it to GOL.

I made sure to give him the phone number to Jorge in Villa La Angostura, I had only thought to give the address yesterday. He gave me two additional phone numbers to call and wrote down the names of two people I should ask for if I called. The same thing happened yesterday, the woman registering the lost luggage gave me three names of people I should ask for if I called GOL. I don´t know why they do this. Maybe these are people they know which they are sure can be trusted?

Well, we were afraid there wouldn´t be enough space for our luggage in the rental car we had reserved in Bariloche. No such worries now.

The check-in line moved very, very slowly forward. Once the counters were reached the line dissolved into a complete chaos. There were two counters and as soon as one was free, which happened very infrequently, you had to stay on your toes and dash for the counter. If not, the person behind you would pass you. Helene loved the chaos at the end:

We were passed by sneaky Argentinians several times and ended up being the very last to check in. Once we had our boarding cards the woman said “The flight is leaving now. You must run. Run!” Flabbergasted we asked if there was an express line at security. “No, only one. Run, you must run!”

What a contrast. After more than two boring hours in line to check in we found ourselves running towards security. Helene has some experience from latin waiting line culture in France and took control. We passed the security line which went all the way out into the main hall and then entered the narrow hallway to the actual security control room. With lots of “desculpa me” we managed to get to the front. We explained to the woman in the front of the line, and she let us go before her. She asked which flight we were on and it turned out we were on the same as her. She was not very amused, but our stuff was already half-way through the scanner. For once the electronics bag went straight through.

We made it to the gate, got on board and found our seats. Suddenly there was peace and silence around us again. We were on board and at last heading for Bariloche. Another A320:

As we approached Bariloche we could see that we were back in the Andes:

The Andes mountain range is 7000 km (4350 miles) long, the same as the distance from Oslo to Chattanooga (well, almost, check the kilometer number here)

Once in Bariloche I realized that in all the luggage chaos I had forgotten to copy the voucher for the rental car to an iPad. Worse, when I wanted to copy it I found that I had forgotten to copy it from my email to the computer. Luckily there was WiFi in the air and in a few minutes I had downloaded the voucher from the cloud. The voucher must have been sitting and waiting for me in a data center somewhere, maybe in Northern Canada or in the Carpatian Mountains. I just called for it, like whistling for a dog, and in an instant it had moved from a hard disk in a rack somewhere, anywhere, and into my computer.

The whole internet infrastructure and the massive amount of storage connected to it is a fascinating piece of technology. Online email can be stored anywhere and then downloaded to your computer in an instant. What a contrast to physical things like glasses you try to receive from Norway. Here I am, downloading the voucher:

Jorge and Carmen together with their daughters July and Yara, and July´s friend Vici, were waiting for us and waved to us through the window to the arrival hall. I grabbed hold of a LAN representative and explained our luggage situation. He told me to wait, in case our luggage was on the same plane. Afterwards he took me to the LAN office where he copied our PIR and put it on their billboard. He would keep an eye on incoming luggage and call if anything arrived. Afterwards Jorge helped me talk to the people in the Aerolinas Argentinas office. If the luggage ever arrived it would be with one of them, since they are the only airlines flying from Buenos Aires to Bariloche.

OK. So here we were, with our friends we were going to spend Christmas and New Years with. In our lost luggage was all our extra clothes, all toiletries, Christmas gifts for our friends and chargers for our computers. On the other hand we had our laptops, our iPads and lots of other electronic gadgets.

We drove in to Bariloche and had a quick look at the city. Bariloche is a city with 120 000 inhabitants and is beautifully located next to lake Nahuel Huapi.

We were now at 41 degrees south, further south than all of mainland Australia. We were also roughly as far from lake Titicaca as Oslo is from Marrakesh.

We stopped to have some ice cream:

July:

Then we started shopping for clothes. My favorite activity, not.

I don´t know exactly where it comes from, but it is probably something from my childhood. I have a very faint memory of being in a clothes store with my mother. It must have been in the wintertime, because I am way too hot indoors in my thick jacket. I am uncomfortable and scared as I run back and forth trying to find my mother. The clothes on display are much higher than me and I can only see a small part of the store at a time. I am alone and abandoned in a clothes store, what a nightmare. Maybe this memory is where it comes from, I don´t know, but it is a fact that I hate clothes stores. It makes me physically uncomfortable to enter them. My mother used to follow me to them until I left home for university, when I was 18. Yes, even in high school I needed help to enter one. It is unclear to me how I obtained new clothing during my university years, but I think I mostly didn´t, except when I was with my parents during vacations. After university I got a wife and she has taken over the role of my mother. I honestly can only remember one instance where I have single-handidly and voluntarily entered a clothes store, and that was in 1987 (I purchased two pairs of Levis jeans. Whenever I find something which fits I like to get two to minimize further shopping).

Imagine my joy of being in this place:

After much suffering we could at last make our way to our final destination, Villa La Angostura. It was already 10pm and we were tired. The sun used a long time to set, as it should when you are far from the equator in the summer, and we got to see some great mountain reliefs on the way.

Once arrived we were served a great meal of lots of different stuff. Cheese, ham, cured ham, salami, olives, bread etc. Everything of very high quality. Served on a wooden tray and prepared on a wooden board, both made by Jorge. What a great change from airport food and airline snacks. (Jorge in red, Carmen in the background and Yara to the right)

It reminded me of another fantastic meal I will never forget. One easter at university I cross-country skied in the Norwegian mountains together with friends for a week. On the last leg we skied well over 40 km (25 miles) in a day to reach the father of one of us, Paul, in Lillehammer. We hadn´t had decent food for a week and were very hungry after all the skiing. He served us a feast of all sorts of meats, boiled eggs, beer, smoked salmon, etc.

Just like back then we slept well with good food in our stomachs.

Eirik

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