No sooner had I adjusted to the London time zone (and a complementary cold) than I had to roll back 4 hours within 24 hours! The transatlantic diagonal epic included a 7 hour transit wait at Madrid Barajas airport courtesy of good old STA Travel making a mistake on the itinerary. My MP3 player kept me awake during the 'stuporpheric' wait at the monolith Terminal 4 (I hate airport....so monotonous and full of stressed people).
Though Iberia were good to me (I got plenty of legroom on both flights!), I was the unlucky one with the unwashed, stinky blanket. I tried to communicate this to the clearly no nonsense, veteran hostess but she made lame excuses about it being a full flight and eventually reason prevailed and I got a fresh crisp one. On long haul flights I´m not much of a talker but the Argentinian dentist who sat next to me kept my pigeon Spanish exercised but he wasn´t the classic bore-u-to-death neighbour which was such a relief. With the exception of Kenya Airways, I think that most national carriers have crap food and Iberia is one example. Comedians have done plenty of airline food gags so I will leave it at that!
At first light we were flying over the vast expanse of Brazil. It was a bit cloudy so there was not much to see at high altitude. As we descended, River Uruguay was prominent. It divides the "Entre Rios" province of Argentina from Uruguay (Entre Rios means "between rivers" being surrounded by the Rivers Parana and Uruguay. To the north are the majestic Iguazu Falls - which by the way makes Niagara Falls look like a small scale model - I will go to Iguazu to see for myself). As we headed towards the Buenos Aires (BA) Ezieza Airport we flew over the River Plata, a vast brown expanse of consolidated rivers flowing towards the Atlantic.
ENTRE RIOS PROVINCE
URUGUAY MAP
ARGENTINA MAP
Note: I´ve been to Mendoza and Cordoba already (my blogs are always 2 weeks late!!)
BA looks nice in full sun from up above. The city, like most South American cities, are symmetrically gridded with wide streets and boulevards and with long diagonals providing fast access between barrios (city districts), villas (towns) and micros (the central business district). Arriving at the airport I had probably one of the smoothest immigration experiences ever. The jolly immigration officer got excited when he realised that I am from Kenya and asked if I had some Kenyan currency (no, readers, it was not a bribe!) to show.
I spent most of the day in bed at the hostel and woke up just before the sunset.
K.
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