15 February 2008 (Friday): Buenos Aires – still here
Another day of sitting around watching the world go by from our suite.
We made sure we got to the airport early, so ordered the taxi and they arrived on time, so nice as the hotel is, we are back to Buenos Aires airport. We arrived and were sixth in queue. The gates opened and we actually have our luggage checked on, although the plane is now expected to depart about 2:30am instead of midnight.
We wandered around the airport and bought some perfume and alcohol (note this is a big mistake).
The flight left at about 2:30am so it wasn’t too bad. The thing with AA is that they never tell you anything and when you ask it is always si, si. Which we have come to realise means no, but we don’t want to tell you. So even thought we checked with three different people, there is no vegetarian food for me and the other option is meat. Still at this stage I don’t care as we are at least heading in the direction of home.
14 February 2008 (Thursday): Buenos Aires – Still here
We ventured downstairs of a breakfast buffet which is absolutely fantastic. The airline is paying for all our food which turned out to be pretty average as it was a set meal and they didn’t have much of a vegetarian option.
We have nothing left to do in Buenos Aires, so actually are having a doona day today and watching tv and catching up with photos and sorting ourselves out for when we get home. There is free internet at the hotel, so we are reading through uni notes etc. The other people staying here are also students so everybody is frantically trying to get the last of their uni stuff ready as now we wont get home until Sunday.
We rang Qantas and told them of the problems and we are heading down to the Qantas office to book onto the only available flight on Sunday. We did have a frequent flyer ticket but to change that meant we wouldn’t get home until Monday and have to overnight in Sydney so we are paying for a ticket instead.
A word of advise for anybody – do not ever fly Aerolineas Argentinas. They are absolutely unorganised and have no idea.
We had a walk around the streets, but as we cant eat anywhere other than the hotel, we headed back there.
13 February 2008 (Wednesday): Buenos Aires – still here
We are due to leave today, so this morning we packed our bags and got organised. Even though we haven’t shopped much, we seem to have accumulated a lot of stuff, but it all fitted in. We popped out and had a final wander around San Telmo.
We had lunch at a local restaurant we have been very eager to try and wish we had earlier, it was great. The food was very creative and interesting, the service was good and it was really busy.
We handed over the keys for the apartment and caught a taxi to the Airport. We queued to get through the security screening processes which took a couple of hours and started to get a bit worried as not many people were being allowed to check in and people near us were telling us of delays and cancelled flights and people being bumped etc. We started to get a bad feeling.
Anyway we made it through security and into the check in line which was progressing very slowly with more and more armed security guards and police arriving. After another 2 hours we finally made it to a check in counter. The guy tapped away on the keyboard for ages and finally we asked if we were on the flight and he said, oh no, they were fully booked and he had put us on Fridays flight back to Australia – nice of them to tell us, considering we actually went into their office to confirm our flight!!!
So they got a nice piece of Scotts mind and we ended up in a 5 star hotel with taxi vouchers for their and back. No way was I getting on a bus at midnight. We arrived at the hotel and they were going to give us a twin room, so Scott asked for a matrimonial, and I saw they had a pile of cards for suites, so asked if we could have a suite as it has been a long day – they said no, but they decided to give us one, so we have a huge three room suite which is absolutely beautiful and has the best shower in the world.