Hello, Buenos Aires

Singing “Hello Buenos Aires”, not that I’ve done any singing yet.  The journey over here was the worst and longest plane trip I have ever taken.  The longest having a lot to do with it being categorised as the worst.  The first leg of the trip was the shuttle to Calgary airport.  Unfortunately there was about 3 hours between the two appropriate shuttles and as the second would have cut it fine we were advised to take the 1:30, particularly as snow was predicted for that day.  The snow came.  The previous day had been 12 degrees and sunny, but that morning there was a foot of new snow in the driveway and it just kept falling.  It was quite  a send off we received.  After 1 and three quarter hours on the shuttle we were just coming into Calgary when we saw a pack of wolves!!! Wow!  Unfortunately there were a few people on the shuttle who were cutting it fine timewise so no chance for even a quick photo. 

We then waited around at Calgary airport for 4 hours.  Followed by an 8 hour flight to Heathrow on Air Canada.  Surely the most cramped economy class seats in existence, not to mention the worst in flight entertainment.  We arrived at Heathrow without any sleep, tired and cranky.  11 hours later we were finally on our Tam Airlines flight to Buenos Aires.  This flight was pretty empty... but we were still cramped thanks to the person who completed our three being the only person in existence who didn't see the value in moving to have 2 seats to himself and leaving Jason and I with 3 between us.  Surprisingly the food was really quite good and the in-flight entertainment beat Air Canada hands down.  

This flight took us as far as Sao Paulo, Brazil in a tedious 12 and a half hours.  Where we were supposed to have a fairly quick 2 and a half hours to wait around before the final leg to Buenos Aires.  Of course we weren't counting on the fog.  All in all we made it to our hostel at 2:30pm Tuesday 24th March, having left Banff at 1:30pm Sunday 22nd March.  The time difference of 3 hours leaves us with a total travel time of 46 hours.  Phew!  I'm exhausted just thinking about it.  

But I really should mention What we've been doing for the 2 hours we've been in this part of the world.  Why, marching in a typical Argentine protest of course.  We tried not to.  But everytime we turned a corner the protest was continuing.  It seemed to go in every direction.  At one point we gave up trying to get away from it and just went with the flow, the sound of the drum forcing your heart to beat, the chanting and crying.  It just felt like what you hope Buenos Aires might feel like.  Alive.  Then there was that one point where we reached another section of the protest where all the participants had their faces covered and were walking with baseball bats, needless to say we were out of that area pretty fast.  Tomorrow I will have to find a street to dance down singing "Hello, Buenos Aires"  and if you don't get the reference go watch Evita.