December 2, 2010

Another morning of getting up at 5:15. It was starting to become a habit by now. We were going to go to Argentina, anyway, which is 2 timezones further east. So, in a sense it was 7:15 when we got up.

Today´s plan was to fly to Buenos Aires and then on to Salta. Completely illogical in terms of distance, we would fly over Salta more or less on our way from Lima and then overshoot by about 100% before backtracking. That´s what you get with a country as centralized around its capital as Argentina.

(Map generated by the Great Circle Mapper – copyright © Karl L. Swartz)

We had added Salta as a destination quite late in our trip and I had used my complete travel agent ninja arsenal to get us there. I considered options of using land transport between airports not too far from each other, overnight possibilities in places as far between as Santiago, La Paz and Asuncion and different obscure low cost airlines like Andes Lineas Aeras. The only reasonable option was to fly via Bunos Aires and use a whole day.

We started our day in Lima, a Pacific coast city, would do a stopover in Buenos Aires, an Atlantic coast city, then would end up in Salta, a city in the Andes mountains. A tour de force containing 3 of the most defining geographic elements of South America.

Our LAN flight to Buenos Aires was in a very comfortable 767-300, actually I believe it is the most comfortable economy class flight I have ever taken, and I have taken plenty. There were individual large widescreen screens and an excellent entertainment system with lots of games and streaming movies.  The seats were very comfortable with ample legroom. United and American Airlines have a lot to learn!

Our flight should have taken 4 1/2 hours and the kids were disappointed when we made it in 4 hours. They wanted to use the entertainment system longer. 🙂

Our onward flight to Salta was originally meant to leave from the domestic airport at the other side of Buenos Aires, so I had put in plenty of margin. However, about 2 weeks ago, I received an email that the departure airport had changed, to the same one we were arriving at! Just another one of the many changes to flights we have experienced. Our flights were non-changeable, so we would have 5 hours at the international airport in Buenos Aires. Much better than the alternative of working our way through the entire city, anyway.

We arrived at terminal A, got our luggage and worked our way over to terminal C. It was very close, as the crow flies, but to get there we had to go out on the street and work our way through what seemed like a maze of sidewalks. Good thing we had plenty of time. Upon arrival we were refused to check in our luggage, since we were too early. It would open 2 hours before the flight time.

Terminal C was nothing to write home about. Very few seating possibilities and no restaurants. Sigh. We worked our way back to terminal A. The only real food option here was a McDonald´s. Well, we didn´t have much choice and the kids were happy.

We went back to terminal C and checked in at 5 pm.

We got up to stand in line 35 minutes before the flight and were told boarding would be done 15 minutes before the flight time. The time of the flight passed, it was now 7:10pm. No information. The screen still said “On time”. Suddenly we were told that boarding would be done at 8, then at 8:30, then at 9. No information about the cause. At 8:30 there were riot tendencies among the crowd. A middle aged man was engaged in a heated exchange of opinions with one of the staff. People were flocking together at the counter and there was much tension and energy in the air. I was starting to recognize the Argentina we visited almost 15 years ago.

Then, suddenly, as a bolt of lightning from a clear sky, boarding was started at 8:40. Everyone had prepared for 9 and passengers were sitting around on chairs or on the floor. There was slight chaos as everyone hurried to get in line. Still no information about the cause of the delay. Our flight was a flight to Tucuman with a stopover in Salta, Even more chaos ensued when people with tickets to Tucuman were stopped when they wanted to board. This flight was only going to Salta! We felt lucky that we got on board and could make it to Salta today. The flight time was 2 hours, in the direction of Lima. 🙂 Our plane was a good old MD-80 and we flew with Austral Airlines:

On our approach we circled Salta a couple of times and got some great views of the city at night:

We arrived in Salta close to midnight, 3 hours late. The kids were very tired.

We had told our friends in Salta, Jose and Mirta, about our arrival time on email, but had no way of letting them know about our delay. There were no phones in the waiting hall in Buenos Aires, our phones don´t work in Argentina and wifi was not working. We had not spoken about them meeting us or not and we hoped they hadn´t been at the airport at 9pm. At least they were not there when we arrived.

As we got out of the arrivals area we were bombarded with transport offers. With fresh memories of being conned in New York we worked our way to the official taxi counter. Looong waiting line. After a few minutes Hélène wemt out to check if one of the offers was genuine. A decent small bus was there, and the guy insisted it was a direct service. What the heck, we need to get out of here. We took the chance and were not disappointed this time. After a short stop at the main bus station we were taken directly and comfortably to our hotel.

We were all exhausted. It was too late to call our friends and we collapsed in our beds around 1am.

What a traveling day!

Eirik

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