Buenos Aires and the Columbia Recap

Hola!

We have arrived at our hostel in Buenos Aires. It is 9am here. We have been traveling for over 24 hours and are waiting for a room so we can crash for a while. Had some intermitent sleep on the plane rides...from mere exhaustion. Despite this, morale is good.

Let us discuss the Columbian airport. Neither of us recommend getting a connecting flight there if you can avoid it. After arriving in Bogota we were escorted through a metal detector which looked like 1970s vintage. There was armed police there. So, we naively thought we were in the clear once past that checkpoint only to be frisked down again at the top of the stairs. Apparently, the Columbians do not think Miami has a good enough security screening. Once in, we had a layover of about 3 hours. No vending machines, or stores. The main attraction in the international terminal was the smoking lounge, but since the smoking lounges walls reached only part of the way to the ceiling, the entire rest of the terminal is not smoke free. The ventilation system appeared to be non-operational. Another oddity was the lack of English speaking personnel at the airport. Everywhere else we have gone so far has had a good number of bilingual workers.

O.K. Enough about Columbia. Service here in Buenos Aires has been great. We bought some tickets to fly to El Calafate tomorrow at 6pm, found an ATM machine, made a phone call, bought some waters (I accidentally gave the cafe a rather large tip since they have large coinage here...oops), and negotiated a taxi. The taxi drive was fun. Lines on the road are (at most) suggestions, and nobody uses their blinker. We just swerve in and out of lanes and bully our way through uncontrolled intersections. Wow.

Well, there is probably a lot more to say, but we need to find some breakfast. Email us if you have any specific questions.