One of the biggest mistakes we made when planning this trip was not upgrading our plane tickets to business class. The price was about twice as much, but when you compare that to the price of upgrading an individual flight it´s cacahuates (peanuts)! Plus you get more frequent flyer miles, better food, better seats, better service, priorty boarding, and access to more flight options. Oh well, next time.
So taking that learning experience, I booked a 1st class seat on a bus from Mar Del Plata to Mendoza. It´s the only way to roll when you´re parking your butt in a seat for 18 hours! It´s not exactly airline first class, but it is nice. It´s like sitting in a giant lazy boy chair on wheels. The seats recline to almost horizontal so you can easily doze off. The food leaves a bit to be desired (yet more jamon e queso) but it´s tolerable.
The ride actually went be pretty quickly. I learned why the Argentinian flag has a sun on it… because the entire country is covered with sun flowers. And, once it got dark I saw the most amazing lightning storm that I´ve ever seen! So beautiful! And when I woke up, the bus was just pulling into the station at my destination. So, you get room and board, travel, and food all for the price of one ticket. Not too bad.
Authored by: Digital Knowmadd on February 4, 2009.
Filed under: Argentina,South America,Travel | No Comments »
Argentina has now passed Greece in the B.P.C. (Babe Per Capita) index. I’ve never been one for sappy love stories, or believed in love at first sight, but I’m pretty sure that I fell in love at first sight at least 32 times yesterday — and that was just walking to dinner! Between the beach during the day and the bars at night it’s simply astonishing how many good looking girls there are here! I could show you photos, but it just wouldn’t do it justice. You really have to see them for yourself in person, in all their full three-dimensional glory.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go practice my Spanish pickup lines.
Authored by: Digital Knowmadd on January 30, 2009.
Filed under: Argentina,South America,Travel | No Comments »
Chile is giving us the cold shoulder [/lame joke] so we are outta here. Starting with a drive along the shoulder of the freeway at 8:30am to Santiago from Valparaiso to catch a 12:30pm flight from Santiago to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Once arriving in BA, it´s all aboard a bus for a 45 minute bus ride from the main airport to another airport which coincidentally just happens to be about 45 minutes away! And then we wait…
…and wait…
…and eat while waiting…
…and wait…
…and compute while waiting…
…and wait…
…and wait to wait while waiting..
We waited for 5 hours for a delayed flight from Buenos Aires to Mar Del Plata. The plane was about the size of a torpedo, so I can´t imagine why it took so long to get here. There were about 2 dozen passengers, 1 flight attendant, and 3 cookies for us all to share as our in-flight snack.
Once we landed we took a cab to our new digs.
And I thought the hostel in Pucón was bad. That place was like the Taj Mahal! This hole in MDP was the worst hostel/hotel I’ve ever seen in my life. Straight out of a movie. Wooden panelling lobby with an overweight man behind the desk smoking like a chimeny. A homeless guy with filthy feet sleeping on the couch in the lobby. Giant 5 pound lead ingets attached to the room key to prevent you from stealing it. As if I’d ever want to come back here. Beds that were concave, a TV about to fall on the bed (maybe that explains the concaveness), dirty towels, constantly running water in the bathroom/shower, broken night stands. At least there weren’t any cockroaches! I’ll give them that!
Luckily my cousin Diana and her husband Gabe have a nice vacation apartment that they are letting us borrow for a few days. So we´ll tough it out in this non-roach infested roach motel and then live in luxury at the apartment. Thanks Gabe & Diana! You saved us!
Authored by: Digital Knowmadd on January 29, 2009.
Filed under: Argentina,South America,Travel | No Comments »
