Buenos Aires: Travel to Day

This year for our family Thanksgiving overseas vacation we decided on Buenos Aires, Argentina. We (or I) made this choice for a few reasons. First, it was a part of the world that we had never been to before - the east coast region of South America. Second, it was time to take a break from trips to Europe, where there is a 9 or 10 hour time difference. Argentina is just 5 hours ahead of the Pacific time zone. Third, I saw a show on some channel about how nice Buenos Aires is. They said it was very European and metropolitan. We also decided before going, that we would make a day trip to Colonia, Uruguay, which is a designated world heritage site.

Since we knew that there wasn't anything really famous to see in Buenos Aires, we planned a shorter trip - just three nights. However, since we were arriving in the early afternoon the first day, and leaving in the very late evening the last day, we really had almost four days to site see.

We, meaning my sister, brother, his wife and I, all flew out on the same flights. We left San Diego early Sunday morning and flew to JFK in New York. Once there, we had about a five hour layover. All but one of us used frequent flier miles to fly for free, so we were limited on our choice of flights and times. At JFK we killed time by eating, sitting, walking around and more sitting. I was happy to find a TV to watch the Charger game on and was even happier that they won. Finally, our flight was ready to leave. From JFK to the airport near Buenos Aires, EZE, was a ten hour flight. I was in an non-emergency exit, isle seat with very limited leg room. Luckily the lady sitting next to me was short and spent the whole flight sleeping and never left her seat.

Even then, this was the longest flight I had ever been on. I think I was able to get three or four hours of sleep. Everybody woke up about 2 hours before landing when they served breakfast. Then the pilot announced that there would be some heavy turbulence and even asked the flight attendants to buckle up. So for about an hour the plane shook pretty hard, making some passengers nervous and sick. I was too tired to be scared so I just tried to relax and get more sleep.

We landed on time, around 11 AM local time. It didn't take much time to get through customs and passport control. But soon I had my first disappointment - my checked bag never showed up. So I went to the lost baggage window and put in a claim for my lost luggage. They said most likely it would arrive on the same flight the following day. Luckily I packed extra clothing in my carry-on backpack.

We had pre-arraigned for a ride to the hotel, so as we exited the secure area we met up with the man holding a sign for use. The hour of us piled into a large van and then sat and observed our first view of Argentina during the 45 minute ride to the hotel. Since it was still early afternoon, there was not much traffic.

Our hotel was a Marriott, located near the center of Buenos Aires. We checked in with no problems, but over the next two days we had issues with our rooms, due to the hotel getting confused about our reservations. We had three rooms for three nights booked by my sister and I using our Marriott rewards points. Somehow the hotel got mixed up and lost the reservation for one of the rooms for two nights. It took a long phone call by my sister to Marriott (while we were in Uruguay) to get this mix-up straightened out.

When we checked in, only two of our room were ready due to our early check-in. Mine was ready, but I think I got a smoking room, as it smelled like cigarette smoke. Since it was just for three nights, I wasn't going to bother asking for a different room. So, after about an hour we were ready to start our adventure in Argentina.