Argentina Trip 2008 - Day 2: A Ferrly Fine Day

Upon waking, we quickly contacted American Airlines to double-check (or quadruple-check) that they weren't sending our bags to Montevideo. As mentioned before, this would be problematic because we were leaving via Ferry at 12noon, whereas the only Miami-MV flight would arrive by plane from Miami at 2pm. Instead, the bags were to be diverted to Buenos Aires. But this was also difficult, because we landed at the port of BA at 3:30pm, and at 7:30pm boarded an overnight bus (Andesmar) to travel from BA (east coast of Argentina) across the country overnight to Mendoza (on the westernmost side of the 6th largest country in the world).

So here's the plan. Bags diverted Miami to Buenos Aires. In BA they will be picked up at the airport by someone and taken to Retiro bus station. In the meantime, we will take a ferry to BA, piddle around for a bit, then at 6:30 (1 hour before the bus leaves) are to be at the Andesmar office at the Retiro bus station, where our bags will be delivered to us. Sounds perfect!

In the meantime, after fighting with American for a whopping $25.00 each, we had a bit of money to buy some toiletries and a second set of clothes.

Breakfast at the hotel, and straight out to buy a shirt, socks, and unmentionables. Here we are in our new digs.

Now ask yourself - self, of all the colors available to them, why did they both pick red? This, is a wonderful question. Apparently because we subconsciously very much like to match.

By the time the shopping was done, there wasn't much left to do other than go straight to the port. On our way, we stopped at the Mercado Del Puerto - which someone had told us to see during the day. We definitely wish we'd have been there the day before for lunch because there were a lot of cool little open restaurants cooking up meats for lunch that day. So if you're ever in the area... here's a shot of the inside:

Onto the Ferry. Since we were traveling to another country, we had to go through customs, bla bla bla. The tickets were about $60 each USD, coach class type seats. They have a snack bar and TV's. Pretty cool way to travel between the two cities. Here we are... matching... with the seats.

So we land in BA with enough time to walk from the port, into the city for a late lunch, and then go find our bags. I had a list of restaurants in BA to try and one of them was close by, called El Estabelo. This is what the review said: "I had lunch here my last day in Buenos Aires.. very well prepared Mollejas (sweetbreads) from the parrilla, a provoleta, and batatas fritas . Service was impeccable." Feeling adventurous, I ordered these "Sweetbreads" not really knowing what they were... when in Rome!

Here is the first sentence of Wikipedia on Sweetbreads: "Sweetbreads are the thymus glands of lamb, beef, or pork."

I knew something was wrong when the arrived at the table. Upon trying them, I determined that they were neither sweet, nor bread. I've repressed the rest of what happened.

Here's Sarah after lunch as we walk to the Retiro bus station.

We arrive at the station early - explain (in broken Spanish) what we're waiting for to the attendant at Andesmar... and wait. Around 6:30pm, we're chatting away, and I see a man carrying a backpack, looking at a piece of paper like he's trying to find someplace. I see it's Sarah's pack and I jump up! I race over to him, thrilled that this has all worked out! He doesn't speak a word of English but I try to tell him that Sarah can stay with this bag, and I'll go with him to his car to get the other bag. He says, "otra maleta?" ...........................

Sigh.

They flew one bag to BA. One to MV. Because that makes sense.

So after finding a place to call American, and a very frustrating phone conversation for Sarah (wherein she explained that they would now need to send our other bag to Mendoza), we determined I was going to need a few more socks.

Here we are, in the hour before our bus ride, trying to find a place to buy a few more clothes.

Finally we arrived back at Retiro with a few minutes to spare. We were both pretty excited about this bus trip because we'd bought first class seats. For $80 US per person (one way) we were seated in fully reclining seats on the bottom level of the bus (there are only 6 of these - the other seats are all on the top level). They served us dinner, drinks, breakfast, and even played movies for us! Here's the chaotic bus stop before we loaded up our one bag, and set off for the wine country.

Much, much needed wine country...